Do you think Ed borrowed the airy guitar tone from Andy Summers of the Police?

[Lou]

Do you think Ed borrowed the airy sound from Andy Summers of the Police who began experimenting with this sound on Reggatta de Blanc (1979) and used it extensively on Zenyatta Mondatta (1980)? The airy sound on "Hear About It Later" and "Push Comes To Shove" sure sounds like it to me.

[DeadOrAlive]

When did The Police career started?

[Lou]

1977-1984.

[DeadOrAlive]

Ok... It's possible! Thanks for the info Lou!

[FORD]

Considering the Police and Van HALEN existed for pretty much the exact same span of time and appealed to somewhat different audiences (though I loved them both myself) I don't really see any conscious effort on the part of Andy or Eddie to copy each other.

The "new direction" that VH was going on Fair Warning probably came from the fact that it was really the first album Van HALEN had to write from scratch, with the majority of the first 3 records all coming from the band's existing club days set list. With the exception of Mean Street evolving from the old songs "Voodoo Queen" and "She's The Woman", Fair Warning was a clean slate for the band.

I never heard Eddie mention being a Police fan, but who knows, it's possibly he might have heard Summers' tone on those songs and either knowingly or unknowingly influenced the sound. Or maybe Ted Templeman or Donn Landee had something to do with it?

Hell, I'm still trying to determine whether or not Mikey actually played bass on that album. Maybe it was Sting?

[DeadOrAlive]

That is reasonible too, Ford!

[Lou]

There's no doubt in my mind that Ed was playing bass. Think about it, does that really sound like Mikey? "Dirty Movies" and "Push Comes To Shove" especially. There's too much phrasing for it to be him

[degüello]

Interesting question.

I think it could be likely, considering how huge the Police were at the time, although there were lots of other guitarists experimenting with clean chorused tones during that era as well.

[degüello]

I was a big fan of The Police, still dig their stuff.

One thing that really stands out to me when I hear some of their material now, is how fucking crazy everybody was about adding a chorusing effect to everything.

Fuck, you listen to Ghost In The Machine, and in addition to the guitars, there's goddamn chorus on the bass, the backing vocals, some of the lead vocals, and even the fucking drums at times. They were chorus-mad, those crazy Brit fuckers.

[turboblues]

This must be my favorite chorus..

[DeadOrAlive]

Intro to Hear About It Later... Friggin awesome! It might me Ed on Bass, but what about the Intro to Dirty Movies? The Solo in PCTS?

[Satan]

Originally posted by Lou
There's no doubt in my mind that Ed was playing bass. Think about it, does that really sound like Mikey? "Dirty Movies" and "Push Comes To Shove" especially. There's too much phrasing for it to be him

There was actually a rumor for a while that Billy Sheehan did it, which would at least explain how David Lee Roth knew he would be a good fit when he was putting his next band together.

But I don't think it sounds like Billy. If I still had that Hagar album from 1987, I'd compare the bass playing on that one, which we know is Eddie. Luckily that one was swiped by a succubus I was seeing many years ago.

[ClubDave]

the police are fuckin amazing, plain and simple......this has nothing to do with this topic, but i figure its a good time to say so

[DeadOrAlive]

Yup.

[secrets]

I think Ed's sound is more of a Flanger effect while Summer's sound is more of a Chorus and Delay thing.

Both guitarists would have had access to the state of the art effects of the time and that would be more of a likely reason that there is some similarity to their sound.