Producer Andy Johns on EVH

[ELVIS]

Deadwad speags Jap sign language...

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[chefcraig]

Was he drunk? I mean Ed not Andy Johns.

The time line fits. This would have been in that murky period after F.U.C.K that carried over through the recording of Balance, the era when Aerosmith manager Tim Collins was called in to look after the band. During this meeting, an apparently wasted, tearful and disturbed Edward Van Halen ran out of the room, appearing some forty five minutes later having sheared off all of his hair. Collins sized things up fairly quickly, and got the hell out of dodge on the first plane headed East.

[VHscraps]

There was an interview with Andy Johns from 2003 where I thought he mentioned being brought in to rescue that live album - I certainly read that somewhere at the time, too. But having found the interview online, it turns out not to be the one where he talks about that - but, it does feature a couple of interesting asides.

He mentions the aborted attempt to make an album with DLR (around the year 2000?), and the mythical 'loads of material on tape', and the fact that Eddie had - this is 2003 - 'fired' the whole band, including Alex.

It's a long interview about various aspects of his career. You need to scroll to almost the bottom of the page for the VH talk (right at the Carnal Knowledge album cover):

http://www.melodicrock.com/interviews/andyjohns.html

Nothing too interesting there, and the discussion moves onto other things, but then scroll right to the end, where the interviewer asks again if he has any VH gossip:

Yeah, I think I've asked you everything I possibly could I appreciate that. Apart from more VH gossip ...

Well Ed started thinking he didn't have to listen to anybody. And he fired everyone in the band. The only one left was him. Everyone else was gone. He even fired Alex.

Really?

Yeah. And they've been trying to get rid of Michael on and off for a long time. And I said, you're out of your fucking mind! But Eddie thinks he's this sort of genius who really … We'll see. Poor old Ed's been going through a lot of shit lately. Can't say anymore …

Unsurprising that last bit - 'can't say anymore'. Probably didn't want to nix any chance of working with them again, especially since he said earlier in the interview that he made a shitload of money working with them.

[VHscraps]

This has nothing to do with Andy Johns, but after the last post I ended up looking for interviews and wound up on youtube. I found this clip of Ted Templeman accepting - along with the Doobies - the Grammy for the Record of the Year, 1979. Ol' Ted looks a bit rough - maybe he'd spent the night on the lash with the VH boys ... Also seated amongst the Doobies is Nicolette Larson, who I believe was then Ted's girlfriend.

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[Terry]

Gotta love how after Ed double tracks those parts and Johns plays him back the result, Eddie says "Hey, Andy, I must be a genius"...like he thought he was the first person to have done that or something.