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Episode: Alex Van Halen On Eddie, Fire & 'Feeling It'

Author: NPR
Duration: 00:46:24

Episode Shownotes

Alex Van Halen has written a new memoir about forming the rock band Van Halen with his brother Eddie, who died of cancer in 2020. The book, titled Brothers, takes readers from their childhood to the wild ride of sex, drugs, and rock and roll. He spoke with Tonya Mosley

about grief, lighting his drums on fire, and what he really thinks of This is Spinal Tap. Also, TV critic David Bianculli reviews the fall TV broadcast season.Subscribe to Fresh Air's weekly newsletter and get highlights from the show, gems from the archive, and staff recommendations.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Full Transcript

00:00:00 Speaker_19
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00:00:16 Speaker_02
This is Fresh Air. I'm Tanya Mosley, and my guest today is Alex Van Halen of the iconic rock band Van Halen.

00:00:39 Speaker_02
Jump was Van Halen's biggest hit, and it became an anthem when it came out in 1983, even though a record executive once said it sounded like the kind of music you'd hear between baseball innings.

00:00:51 Speaker_02
Alex Van Halen shares this story in his new memoir, Brothers, which he wrote after the loss of his younger brother, Eddie, who died of cancer in 2020.

00:01:01 Speaker_02
Known for their extravagant, high-energy performances, Van Halen is credited with being one of the most influential rock bands of all time.

00:01:09 Speaker_02
The book covers the first three decades of Eddie and Alex's music career, which started from their arrival as kids to the United States from the Netherlands, the influence of their father, who was a Dutch jazz musician, and the formation of the rock band in 1974, after meeting vocalist David Lee Roth and bassist Michael Anthony.

00:01:30 Speaker_02
But most importantly, Brothers is a love letter to the music they created, and Eddie, who has been called for decades one of the greatest guitarists of all time.

00:01:40 Speaker_02
Van Halen disbanded after Eddie died in 2020, but throughout their run, Van Halen produced 12 studio albums, two live records, and 56 singles. They were included in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2007. Alex Van Halen, welcome to Fresh Air.

00:01:59 Speaker_09
Thank you for having me.

00:02:01 Speaker_02
Alex, this was a beautiful read and I feel like there is no better way to ground this conversation than to start at the beginning of this book because the way you write is so poetic and the way that both you and Ed

00:02:19 Speaker_02
talk about your relationship, which you use his words in this book, really gives us a grounding. And I want to read just this first piece that you have on the very first page. It says, without my brother, I would not be. We fight, argue.

00:02:37 Speaker_02
We even argue about agreeing on things. But there is a bond and unconditional love that very few people ever experience in their lifetime. We're not a rock band. We're a rock and roll band. Alex is the rock. I'm the roll. And that was your brother.

00:02:53 Speaker_02
He wrote that about the two of you. Did he write it or did he say that at one time?

00:03:00 Speaker_09
I'm not quite sure. But when I hear it, even though I've heard it a hundred times, when I hear it again, it brings a lump to my throat. We literally were yin and yang, the two halves of a whole, however it's been characterized.

00:03:17 Speaker_09
And it made the, when Ed says that even we fight when we argue, yeah, that's true. My way. No, your way. No, both ways.

00:03:27 Speaker_09
It bled into everything we did, whether it was writing songs, even though Ed did the majority of the music, we all had a hand into bending and twisting it the way that we felt appropriate for what we were doing.

00:03:44 Speaker_09
meaning that you can't have a nine-minute song on your first record. Well, you can, but it doesn't serve you well. So the constant juggling and adapting I wouldn't call compromising, but blending is really the word that I'm looking for.

00:04:04 Speaker_09
It's kind of like making a soup. All those things kind of come together, and then you walk away at the end of the day with something that you say, okay, this is pretty good. Let's see what happens tomorrow. Because we left a lot unfinished.

00:04:18 Speaker_02
You left a lot unfinished. You spent your whole lives together. You're basically like twins, 20 months apart. Yeah. How much of the music did you listen to while writing this book?

00:04:32 Speaker_09
I'll be honest with you, man. I went through a lot of emotional issues. But I basically had PTSD when he passed. I didn't know why I was yelling and screaming at people and I was borderline violent.

00:04:49 Speaker_09
I didn't hit anybody, I don't hurt anybody, I'm too old for that. But the feelings of frustration and this inexcusable way of behaving to my closest friends and my family was all wrong. So I sought help and found out what it was.

00:05:07 Speaker_02
Yeah, it was the pain of the loss.

00:05:10 Speaker_09
Yes, it's indescribable. I had the pleasure and the good fortune of being close friends with the Porcaro family and Steve lost a couple of members. He lost two brothers.

00:05:27 Speaker_02
I'm sorry, can you reference who the Porcaro family is just so we'll have those who don't know?

00:05:32 Speaker_09
Well, they were probably the most famous studio musicians and later made a band called Toto. I just thought, Steve, you shouldn't have called it Toto.

00:05:45 Speaker_02
What should he have called it?

00:05:47 Speaker_09
I don't know. But the thing is, it's not really named after a little dog. The original name was for Entoto, which means in total. They were a band that did things in total. That was the Italian. version of it.

00:06:03 Speaker_09
But anyway, so I went to visit him because I really didn't know who to talk to, who I could relate to. It's difficult to find people your own age and your own musical history and background that you can communicate with. So I was talking with Steve.

00:06:19 Speaker_09
I'm laughing because the punchline was at the very end, I leave and I'm maybe 15 minutes out from his house and he calls me and he says, hey Al, I just realized I never dealt with any of it.

00:06:34 Speaker_09
Which I found profound, indirectly, because of Ed and my problem. He finally would admit that it's not done yet. And that's really what it is. You're never going to be rid of it. There's going to be memories. There's going to be people.

00:06:49 Speaker_09
There's going to be instances, whether it's smells or food or places where you've been together before. Obviously, every time I hear some of our music, that puts me right back there.

00:06:59 Speaker_02
Yeah, and that helped you in the writing of this book, but that was such a painful place to be because that is the basis, that's the core of you and your brother's relationship.

00:07:10 Speaker_02
It was fun to read about your origin story because it allows us to see how the two of you saw yourselves because at your core, You guys always seem to see yourselves really as immigrant children from the Netherlands who fulfilled this American dream.

00:07:27 Speaker_02
Is it really true that you didn't even know English when you arrived in the States?

00:07:31 Speaker_09
That's true. I'm trying to, you know, coming to America, was such an overload, a sensual overload of colors and smells, and the weather was different, and the people were different, and the cars were huge compared to what we had in Holland.

00:07:50 Speaker_09
It was a lot to take in. But I kind of rolled the waves, so to speak. Ed was very sensitive in that way. if not always. So it was a good mix between the two of us. I kind of plowed ahead and then Ed would analyze or be overwhelmed by things.

00:08:13 Speaker_09
But you know, it was a different time. It was 1962, I think it was.

00:08:18 Speaker_02
And you were eight and he was six? Yes. With your mom being Indonesian and your father being Dutch, right, they were an interracial couple and you were mixed-race children.

00:08:29 Speaker_09
Yes.

00:08:30 Speaker_02
Why did your parents choose to come to the United States? What were they fleeing from?

00:08:36 Speaker_09
There was a lot of political turmoil in Indonesia. And to put it simply, they wanted to be free of the colonial power structure. And they saw my dad as part of that because he was Caucasian.

00:08:52 Speaker_09
Our parents were already married, so the best thing that they could do, they thought, rather than live in the middle of some place with a conflict where you really are, the Caucasian people really were a minority at that time in Indonesia, even though they were the ruling class, they moved to Holland.

00:09:10 Speaker_09
It was my dad's home country, and there the shoe was on the other foot. Now my mom is the minority, and she's easily identifiable. I'm laughing because, you know, it's absurd what people do on this planet, but that's another story.

00:09:27 Speaker_09
So they moved to Holland, and she was really, really got the brunt of racism. You know, all the time it was, even as children, we saw it happen. But, you know, you can look back on it, depending on how you navigate it.

00:09:42 Speaker_09
It could be a positive, it could be a negative. I never, it never really affected me as much as it did Ed. It can either make you tougher or it can make you hate people or angry. I never had any of that. As a musician, you welcome everybody.

00:10:01 Speaker_09
Why would you cut your audience? Let everybody come in. Let's go play.

00:10:08 Speaker_02
What was the choice for them moving to the United States? Was it because of what they were experiencing in Holland around their relationship?

00:10:17 Speaker_09
At that time, My mother had a sister who lived in a city called Pasadena and she kept sending letters and all these different communications of how wonderful it was and the weather is great, it's just like Indonesia.

00:10:37 Speaker_09
Oranges are a penny a piece, which is, you know, in Holland you don't really get oranges. You get them once in a while and they ship them from Spain and they come elaborately wrapped. It's a big ordeal.

00:10:49 Speaker_09
But that aside, so oranges for a penny a piece was very attractive for my mom and us too as well.

00:10:58 Speaker_02
How did your parents meet?

00:11:01 Speaker_09
The way my mom explained it was he showed up on his motorcycle and he didn't have any underwear on. That's a love story.

00:11:16 Speaker_09
You know, those kind of stories, a little humor, I think, because, you know, living in those times was very, things were not secure.

00:11:25 Speaker_09
The Second World War had just ended, and now everything's headed for another conflict and another disagreement, and, you know, God only knows what's gonna happen. So, but my mom came from a very wealthy family in Indonesia.

00:11:38 Speaker_09
They owned a bit of a railroad, a piece or something and they were higher up the food chain. But to my mom, working in an office and wearing a suit and a tie, nothing was higher than that in her ambition.

00:11:57 Speaker_09
And for her whole life, that's all she ever asked was, Alex, Edward, please wear a suit.

00:12:04 Speaker_02
She had you guys playing classical music.

00:12:07 Speaker_09
Classical music was in the house 24-7. That and military marches. Because my dad, to be able to work in Holland, he had to join the Air Force. So they would do the dignitary marches and all that. But yeah, basically it was

00:12:28 Speaker_09
As a musician, you have to look for opportunity. And every musician knows that. You make do with what you got. But being in the military was, I think, very indirectly was very much involved with how we were brought up.

00:12:46 Speaker_09
Being strict with the kids, there was no question about it. You know, you do it or else you're going to get your ass beat. And they will never beat us a lot, but just enough.

00:12:56 Speaker_02
Just enough to get you in line.

00:12:58 Speaker_09
Bingo. You know, it was very normal. Corporal punishment was very typical at that time.

00:13:04 Speaker_02
Alex, music was in your blood because your dad was a jazz musician. So you were watching him while you guys were also performing yourselves. What was your earliest recollection of doing gigs?

00:13:16 Speaker_09
The first thing we wanted to do is put a band together. And I think the first band we did put together was a band called the Broken Combs, which was, I played sax and Ed played piano. I had two other guys in there and we managed to play for the school

00:13:32 Speaker_09
school functions. And it was a good lesson for us as well.

00:13:37 Speaker_02
You always knew you'd be in a band, and you always knew that it would actually be with your brother. How did you know that rock was your calling?

00:13:49 Speaker_09
You feel it. You know, music is not an intellectual endeavor. It's not what people think it is. You feel it. You either dig it or you don't, right? It's that simple.

00:14:00 Speaker_09
I think it was, to jump around a little bit, I think it was Count Basie who said there's only two kinds of music, good music and the other kind. But that's how simple it is. If you like it, do it. As long as it's not illegal.

00:14:20 Speaker_02
You knew what kind of music that you wanted to play as soon as you experienced rock. You experienced, you guys, like so many teenagers during that time period. It was the British invasion. It was the Beatles.

00:14:33 Speaker_02
Also a lesser known group called the Dave Clark Five.

00:14:36 Speaker_09
Bingo. I'm glad you mentioned that. Those guys, they were really what we thought was the epitome of that kind of music at the time.

00:14:43 Speaker_02
What was it about them that blew your mind?

00:14:45 Speaker_09
They had a grungy sound that the saxophone provided. And because I think maybe somewhere in our psyche, because our dad played saxophone, it was deeper in our DNA. But it's a good thing we didn't bet on anything and that we weren't

00:15:03 Speaker_09
financial advisors because he would have bet on the wrong horse. But yeah, so when the Beatles came, I mean, they were brilliant. There's no aspect of what they did was not brilliant. Hard Day's Night was the first MTV long video, if you will.

00:15:23 Speaker_09
These guys were just brilliant. Not to mention their music. the talent and the music that came out was unmatched.

00:15:32 Speaker_09
I mean, there were a lot of bands around, a lot of, from Herman's Hurwitz to the Seeds, to you name it, I can't even name them all, but the Beatles clearly were a notch above all that. And that appealed to us.

00:15:47 Speaker_02
No, like they gave you, I mean, they gave you really the rock and roll Holy Ghost. I mean, because you, you experienced them and you immediately shifted your focus from the music that you were playing to then finding your own sound.

00:16:02 Speaker_02
I'm really interested though, in how you and Eddie came to your instruments, because at first the guitar was your instrument, right? How did it become Eddie's?

00:16:11 Speaker_09
I was taught very strict and very by the book. You learn to read, you learn the chords, you listen to the classical music and all that. But I had no connection with the instrument.

00:16:26 Speaker_09
I just wasn't, I hate to use the old expression, I just wasn't feeling it. And there's this story about Ed doing papers and I became better than him. It's not quite how it happened, but the fact was when Ed played, he made that instrument sing.

00:16:43 Speaker_09
It was unbelievable. I'm going, Ed, you're playing guitar. I want drums. Besides, Dave Clark V was my idol, and he was the drummer. But again, on a serious note, when Ed played the guitar, he made it sing.

00:16:59 Speaker_02
I want us to play a little bit of of Eddie on his guitar, 1986, Peak Van Halen. This is live in New Haven. The crowd is electric. And we see your brother in all of his glory, at the top of his powers as a guitarist.

00:17:17 Speaker_02
He gets up there, and I think it's like a 12-minute guitar solo called Eruption. Let's play a little bit of it. That was the late Eddie Van Halen playing a solo.

00:18:13 Speaker_09
The one and only.

00:18:15 Speaker_02
That entire performance, Alex, is mesmerizing. I mean, Eddie looks like he's having the time of his life.

00:18:20 Speaker_09
That's because he is. He played guitar from the moment he woke up to the moment he went to sleep. And it was just his way of either communicating or finding peace with himself on the earth. I don't know. And I'm certainly not going to stop him.

00:18:36 Speaker_09
while he's getting better and better every day. So, you know, that requires a lot of waiting and a lot of beer.

00:18:44 Speaker_02
Because of waiting and beer, because you all were literally in a house together and you're watching him perfect what we would see on stage.

00:18:52 Speaker_09
Yes. Yeah. And we only had one record player. So, you know.

00:18:56 Speaker_02
How would you describe his relationship to his guitar and what it allowed him to express?

00:19:02 Speaker_09
There was a time, again, because of the early, that you become somewhat separated from the crowd by being a musician.

00:19:11 Speaker_09
You take it a step further, and then when the rock and roll vibe permeated the country, and you have a guitar, right there, here come the girls.

00:19:22 Speaker_09
It's just that Ed had a sensitivity that was very difficult to describe, and I don't think all of us were aware of it at the time. Because we're all trying to be tough guys, you know? You're out in the street, you better get tough on the kid level.

00:19:39 Speaker_09
But I think I was pretty much in tune with what he was trying to do. The problem with Ed was he could play anything. So the most difficult thing for him was to find his own voice. And he spent a lot of time doing it.

00:19:53 Speaker_09
Then when he finally found it, that was it. Big smile.

00:19:58 Speaker_02
Our guest today is Alex Van Halen. We'll continue our conversation after a short break. I'm Tanya Mosley, and this is Fresh Air.

00:20:32 Speaker_11
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00:22:26 Speaker_02
I'm Tanya Mosley, and my guest today is Alex Van Halen from the rock band Van Halen.

00:22:32 Speaker_02
He's written a new memoir that covers the first three decades of the Van Halen brothers' journey in music, their childhood in the Netherlands and later in working-class Pasadena, California, meeting and working with frontman David Lee Roth and the creation of the Van Halen Sound.

00:22:48 Speaker_02
The book is also a love letter from Alex to his younger brother Eddie, who died in 2020. Alex, you wrote about David Lee Roth, the lead singer.

00:22:58 Speaker_02
You said this, the bottom line is that Dave desperately wanted to be an artist, but something was always missing. He could never really feel the music.

00:23:07 Speaker_02
He didn't get the part where you need to resonate with something deeper, something like the eternal force of the universe. That was like a very powerful thing to say about your lead man.

00:23:21 Speaker_02
Because his showmanship also seemed to provide something that you and your brother needed and that was this front man because people weren't going to shows just to see instrumentalists play during that time period.

00:23:33 Speaker_09
The very fact that you're calling it a show tells me which part of the human organism is actually getting the information. It's your eyes taking 90% of the information that you process in your brain, which is ironic because we work in a sound medium.

00:23:57 Speaker_09
I was afraid to put it that way because people think I'm too analytical, but this is how I was taught. My dad used to tell me, people don't go to hear a band.

00:24:04 Speaker_09
When you talk to your buddies who went to, what band can I name, went to Elton John, they don't say, did you hear Elton John? Did you see the show? That was something that you need to incorporate. How Ed and I approached it was that,

00:24:25 Speaker_09
You don't want the needle to go too far from one to the other. Try to keep a balance between the sound and the show and everything else that's involved in putting it together.

00:24:36 Speaker_09
At the end of the day, you can do whatever you want, but we would like it to be successful in terms of having everything match the music, because Ed and I grew up on music. That was our world.

00:24:50 Speaker_02
Well, that is the thing is that this was, I just want to put people in this time period. So first off, you and your brother met David Lee Roth very young. I mean, you all basically started the group together.

00:25:04 Speaker_02
It was David who came up with the name Van Halen. Yes, it was.

00:25:08 Speaker_09
Yeah. You know, I was probably overthinking it, but I thought he was fun. curry a favor with us. So the first thing I did was I fought it. And now you can't name the band's name. But eventually it took.

00:25:26 Speaker_09
And of course Gene Simmons said, you can't use that name. It sounds like a shirt company. You can't use it.

00:25:32 Speaker_02
Well, Gene Simmons from Kiss, he's famously credited with discovering you guys. I mean, and to put this time period in perspective, this was right as MTV was starting.

00:25:43 Speaker_02
This was right as the visual part of it was coming into play for us where expectation was there. So I can imagine that was part of the conflict too, right?

00:25:52 Speaker_09
You know, if you watch the bands and see how they progress, even Led Zeppelin was using explosions. OK? So when the guys are the highest form of the food chain, when they do it, it's OK. It's now become part of the language of rock and roll.

00:26:09 Speaker_09
And why fight it? OK, bring on the flashpots. But yeah, Gene was a good guy, man. We had a good time with him. We owe him a debt of gratitude.

00:26:23 Speaker_02
What do you remember most about meeting and working with him?

00:26:27 Speaker_09
That we had a drastically different way of looking at music, meaning that it was not a, I think, and then don't get mad at me, Gene. But I think for Gene, it was more of a way to get to where he wanted to be. Music was not the end result.

00:26:50 Speaker_09
And you have varying, opinions about that. I mean, there are lots of musicians who wish they would have put on makeup and played and had more people come. But the thing is, he was very giving.

00:27:04 Speaker_09
He was very liberal with all his... I mean, we had a great time together. And his sense of humor was unbelievably bent. Gene, we love you.

00:27:18 Speaker_02
Well, I get the sense that before David Lee Roth joined you guys, that you and Eddie would have been fine doing sets in t-shirts and jeans because you were about the music and he was about the show.

00:27:31 Speaker_02
And what were some of the things that David would push you guys to do to be showmans?

00:27:36 Speaker_09
It wasn't so much pushing us. It was more we needed something. We needed someone to get us off our ass because we knew we had to do it. But we're waiting for the last minute possible to have to do it.

00:27:49 Speaker_09
Because to dress up for a gig, that's not your back to playing with suits on or whatever. That was how I saw it. Rock and roll is supposed to be about freedom, about you just show up and play, right?

00:28:04 Speaker_09
We all knew we had to change the way we looked, so we did. But when you're in the thick of it, when you're on Sunset Boulevard and you're walking down Hollywood Boulevard, you're walking down anywhere in Hollywood at that time, there is a whole, whole

00:28:20 Speaker_09
rainbow of colors and dress styles. I mean, there was a band called Zolar X, and they dressed as space guys. I mean, it was mind-bending. Their image was so overpowering, why would even one listen to the music? Who cares? That was my read on it.

00:28:40 Speaker_09
Now, because we were all very, very opinionated, which also was actually, I'm being serious for a second, because we were all very opinionated, We fought it out until somebody came up with the right solution. And that's basically the process.

00:28:59 Speaker_02
How did you get the idea to set your drums on fire as part of your act?

00:29:04 Speaker_09
There were a number of people at that time who tried different versions of it. I've always been fascinated by fire, because for me, fire represents the temporariness. Is that a word? Only the moment counts.

00:29:20 Speaker_09
I mean, the flame is there, and poof, it's gone. So is life, right? So to me, that represented that. And there was an element of danger because we did it on such an amateur level.

00:29:31 Speaker_09
that any given night when we did it, if my drum tech, Greg, an old buddy of mine, if he put too much stuff on it, it would leak. There were several times when... What do you mean by stuff, like gas? Oh, yeah, lighter fluid. Lighter fluid? Yeah.

00:29:50 Speaker_09
My favorite memory of all of that was we'd kind of gotten it down to a science, and as we're doing it during the performance, the lighter fluid starts to come down my arm, and then I look over and I notice my arm's on fire.

00:30:05 Speaker_09
So I'm thinking, that can't be good, right? So I look at Greg, who's, in theory, he's there with a fire extinguisher, so he can, so I look at him, and he's looking at me, and he gives me the thumbs up. Looks great, man.

00:30:22 Speaker_09
I'll never forget that, as long as I live. Greg, I love you, but man, put that damn fire out.

00:30:29 Speaker_02
Wait, Diddy, do you have burns? What's going on?

00:30:35 Speaker_09
Yeah, we had, but it was very low-ditch. You know, we just used lighter fluid and you put a match to it and poof, there it goes. It's very uncontrollable. You're taking a risk every night. But you know, we were young, so it's okay. We're all right.

00:30:50 Speaker_02
Did you end up having to get new drum sets every time? I mean, how did that work?

00:30:54 Speaker_09
No, actually, it wasn't until the end of the tour. I got slapped with like, I don't know how much, all the microphones and the chords were fried. And nobody told me that when we were doing it. The drum set itself was made out of stainless steel.

00:31:09 Speaker_09
Ludwig was very accommodating. They made a stainless steel drum kit for me. It wasn't the only one, but they gave it to me. But it really goes to show you how, at that age, the stuff doesn't really register in your brain.

00:31:25 Speaker_09
It turns out that the average male brain does not completely mature. until the age of 27. I'm still waiting.

00:31:36 Speaker_02
Let's take a short break. If you're just joining us, my guest is Alex Van Halen. We're talking about his new memoir, about his life and his brother, Eddie, and the formation of Van Halen. We'll continue our conversation after a short break.

00:31:50 Speaker_02
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00:32:27 Speaker_08
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00:32:38 Speaker_15
Read about the impact of women in music with NPR's new book, How Women Made Music, a revolutionary history from NPR Music. This stunning anthology offers original writing and illustrations, interviews and photos.

00:32:51 Speaker_15
And the audiobook includes 52 years worth of interview excerpts with more than 60 legendary artists. Visit npr.org slash howwomenmademusic to order now.

00:33:02 Speaker_02
This is Fresh Air, and today we're talking to Alex Van Halen, founding member of the rock band Van Halen.

00:33:08 Speaker_02
His new memoir gives us an intimate view of his relationship with his younger brother Eddie, who died in 2020 and the first three decades of the band's run. The book is called Brothers. Hot for Teacher was a song from your album 1984.

00:33:23 Speaker_02
It's one of Rolling Stone magazines. It was on their list saying that this was the album that brought Van Halen's talent into focus. Let's play a little of Hot for Teacher.

00:34:15 Speaker_11
Oh, wow, man. That's it. Wait a second, man. What do you think the teacher's going to look like this year? Whoa! Oh, yeah! Teacher, teacher, stop that screaming. Teacher, don't you see? Don't want to be no uptown clown.

00:34:42 Speaker_02
That was Van Halen's Hot for Teacher from the album 1984. Also humor is a big part of your act, I wanted to say that. I know we've been talking about it not being an act, it's who you are, but yes.

00:34:53 Speaker_02
But this album overall was pioneering because there's a lot of synth, which was a new sound back then.

00:35:00 Speaker_09
Yes, and we were always looking for what's around the corner. And we heard a lot of synthesizer music. It was all this progressive rock stuff, whether it was Maha Vishnu or Billy Cobham.

00:35:13 Speaker_09
And there were a number of people who used that sound quality, if you will. Because I hate to use the word synthesizer, because it conjures up a certain image of certain things.

00:35:25 Speaker_09
When you juxtapose that over a very simple pattern of something else, it does become something else. I know I'm talking in riddles, but that's what music is. It's a big riddle. Try to figure it out.

00:35:35 Speaker_02
This song, which came first, the melody or the drum beat?

00:35:40 Speaker_09
Ed and I played so much all the time, it's hard to remember who. I think it was probably Ed who came up with the guitar lick.

00:35:49 Speaker_02
One of the things that you like to make the point of is that you all aren't heavy metal, even though you're put in that category.

00:35:59 Speaker_09
Yes, because heavy metal, I love heavy metal, but because we had a lot of different influences. So we had to look for, because people like labels, and it was very difficult to find a label that would define us. Not that we needed definition.

00:36:15 Speaker_09
But you know, the irony of all of it was when rock and roll, which was originally rebellion, became structured and organized. What the hell is that? Right, right. Did you ever see... Yeah. You know what I'm talking about.

00:36:27 Speaker_02
Right. I mean, did you... You watched Spinal Tap, right? Oh yeah, yeah.

00:36:32 Speaker_09
That wasn't funny at all. And I saw it and we said, man, that's what we experienced. That is really how things happen. It's mind bending. You know, the public doesn't really have any idea what goes on behind the scenes.

00:36:48 Speaker_09
And I'm certainly not going to burst the bubble. But that movie, there were a lot of elements that were more true than they were parody. And of course, then they believed their own stuff and they went out and toured.

00:36:59 Speaker_02
Right, right, right. That was the ironic part. You and Eddie famously for a long time never recorded any music without each other until a request from Quincy Jones for a little known song called Beat It. Let's listen.

00:38:02 Speaker_02
That was a solo Eddie did on the iconic song Beat It by Michael Jackson. And Alex, I think it was on the charts the same time as 1984, if I'm not... Yeah.

00:38:13 Speaker_09
Yeah, it was.

00:38:14 Speaker_02
Yeah, why do you think Eddie went and did that without consulting you guys?

00:38:18 Speaker_09
If I remember right, he did consult and we said no.

00:38:22 Speaker_02
What are you going to do?

00:38:23 Speaker_09
I'm not going to make something. We really did not overthink anything, but I did want to kick his ass. Why? Because our model was basically Led Zeppelin.

00:38:36 Speaker_09
The way that they structured their business, the way they structured how they played, who they played with. Led Zeppelin was Led Zeppelin. You couldn't get You couldn't get Jimmy Page anywhere else. You can only get him on Led Zeppelin. Come to the show.

00:38:48 Speaker_09
That's it. You don't get him with Michael Jackson. You don't get him with so-and-so. But Ed violated that, and it started a whole cascade of just bad, bad vibes.

00:38:57 Speaker_02
It was the beginning of the end for you guys as a unit.

00:39:01 Speaker_09
In all fairness, it really was not the single thing because things were already starting to unravel. When we named the album 1984, it had nothing to do with the year. It had to do with George Orwell and the dystopia of what was going on.

00:39:15 Speaker_09
This band was so fractured. We barely ever played together anymore. And, unfortunately, MTV became the predominant way of conveying all this, and Dave, being the visual guy, naturally opted for more visual stuff.

00:39:31 Speaker_09
I don't blame him for any of it, but, you know, it's just too bad, because we were on the cusp of something really, really big.

00:39:38 Speaker_02
Ed going and doing this song with Michael Jackson, if you guys had always said you wanted to be Led Zeppelin, what do you think it was that made him say, I want to do this anyway?

00:39:49 Speaker_09
I don't know. There's some aspects of his behavior are even to me a mystery.

00:39:55 Speaker_02
I just have to say to you, Alex, it also opened up another world to you guys. I mean, I'm a little black girl in Detroit hearing that little solo from Van Halen, and it introduced me to you.

00:40:08 Speaker_09
That was the argument that a couple other people make, but I tell you, I don't buy it. My suggestion would have been put Michael on our record. Then you got something. And people will say, are you out of your mind?

00:40:24 Speaker_09
Well, you can have guest people on your records. But am I angry? Of course not. That's just posturing. That's what you do to your brother and your bandmates. Nobody fights better than friends.

00:40:37 Speaker_02
Alex Van Halen, this was such a pleasure. Thank you so much.

00:40:42 Speaker_09
It was my pleasure.

00:40:44 Speaker_02
Alex Van Halen is a founding member of the rock band Van Halen. His new memoir is called Brothers. After a short break, TV critic David Bianculli reviews the fall TV broadcast season. This is Fresh Air.

00:40:59 Speaker_03
From poll numbers to talking points to all the drama, we get it. Election season can be a lot. That's why here at NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast, we're in the business of providing a little release from the squeeze of the political season.

00:41:13 Speaker_03
Try out any of our shows on the latest in TV, movies, and music to keep you grounded and bring you back to Earth. New episodes every week on Pop Culture Happy Hour, only from NPR.

00:41:25 Speaker_18
Ever look up at the stars and wonder, what's out there? On Shortwave, we ask big questions about our universe. From baby galaxies to the search for alien life, we explore the celestial science behind these questions.

00:41:39 Speaker_18
Listen now to the Shortwave podcast from NPR.

00:41:47 Speaker_04
The Bullseye podcast is, according to one journalist, the, quote, kind of show people listen to in a more perfect world. So make your world more perfect.

00:41:55 Speaker_04
Every week, Bullseye puts the pop in culture, interviewing brilliant authors, musicians, actors, and novelists to keep you on your pop culture target. Listen to the Bullseye podcast only from NPR and Maximum Fun.

00:42:09 Speaker_02
This is Fresh Air. You know, it used to be an annual TV tradition, the fall season, when the broadcast networks would unveil their new and returning series to great fanfare and large audiences.

00:42:21 Speaker_02
Well, our TV critic David Bianculli says all that has changed with the advent of cable and now streaming networks and with good reason.

00:42:30 Speaker_12
You may not have even noticed, but the broadcast fall season finally is underway, a little later than it used to roll out and with a lot less impact.

00:42:39 Speaker_12
The basic reason for this is that the corporations owning the broadcast TV networks also own streaming services. CBS has Paramount Plus, ABC has Disney Plus, NBC has Peacock, and they're putting their best programming eggs into those baskets.

00:42:56 Speaker_12
Just like in the late 1940s, the owners of NBC and CBS Radio put their money and talent and energy into this new thing called television. So what's left to watch on broadcast TV this year? Not much.

00:43:12 Speaker_12
In primetime, I still watch 60 Minutes on CBS, and I like Abbott Elementary on ABC. But this season, the networks are serving up a lot of sequels and retreads.

00:43:23 Speaker_12
CBS has Kathy Bates in a new show that uses the title of the old Matlock series, but not much else. CBS also has yet another spinoff from its NCIS franchise, while ABC has a sexier loveboat-type series called Dr. Odyssey.

00:43:41 Speaker_12
And CBS also has a spinoff from the sitcom Young Sheldon, which itself was a spinoff of The Big Bang Theory. It's an odd type of TV evolution.

00:43:52 Speaker_12
Big Bang was filmed multi-camera in front of a studio audience, Young Sheldon wasn't, and the newest spin-off, Georgie and Mandy's First Marriage, is.

00:44:02 Speaker_12
And it even opened with Georgie and his family watching an old multi-camera sitcom on TV, an old episode of Frasier, with Georgie, played by Montana Jordan, noting the laugh track from the Frasier studio audience.

00:44:16 Speaker_14
In order to prevent spillage, one does not simply twist out the cork.

00:44:24 Speaker_01
Frasier's a laughing show. I like laughing shows.

00:44:28 Speaker_16
What are you talking about?

00:44:29 Speaker_01
Well, some shows you can hear people laughing and some you can't. Wonder Years, no one's laughing. Is it funny? We'll never know.

00:44:36 Speaker_12
So many of these new series are like cafeteria casseroles. They're aggressively and intentionally bland and designed to be instantly accepted rather than being spicy, exotic, or unsettling.

00:44:49 Speaker_12
Late night broadcast TV, on the other hand, is going just as intentionally in the opposite direction. Political humor has been a late-night staple for decades, but there's more of an edge now, and more time given for context.

00:45:04 Speaker_12
On Saturday Night Live, during Weekend Update, Colin Jost poked fun at Donald Trump's behavior at a recent rally, but actually showed more of that rally than on any news channel I watched, making the eventual punchline even more biting.

00:45:19 Speaker_07
But then, this week, Trump did strike a positive tone when he stopped questions at a town hall to just dance for 40 minutes. Please enjoy these somehow 100% real clips. Special. Like, really special.

00:46:07 Speaker_07
And you can find all those incredible songs on Now That's What I Call Dementia.

00:46:13 Speaker_12
And Seth Meyers, in his opening monologue on a recent edition of his late-night show, mocked Trump's behavior at yet another rally.

00:46:21 Speaker_12
But Meyers did so with a punchline that was so unexpected and so dark, you could hear it reflected in the reaction from his studio audience.

00:46:30 Speaker_05
That's right. Former President Trump held a rally over the weekend in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, and suggested the golf legend Arnold Palmer was well-endowed. Well, still not as bad as that rally where he suggested that Mike Pence might be hung.

00:46:49 Speaker_05
It does work.

00:46:51 Speaker_12
Late night, not primetime, is where broadcast TV is thriving these days. Even if most people watch those shows afterward in small clips on streaming services or social media. But I did find at least one absolute delight on primetime broadcast TV.

00:47:08 Speaker_12
It was on the season premiere of Fox's The Simpsons, which decided to open its 36th season by presenting its series finale. It wasn't the finale for real, but it was really, really funny. It's The Simpsons Series Finale!

00:47:30 Speaker_02
And now, your host for tonight, Conan O'Brien!

00:47:39 Speaker_06
Thank you, yes, thank you. It's such an honor to be with you all for the series finale of The Simpsons. I knew I was the right man for the job, because I've hosted the last episode of three of my own shows, and counting.

00:47:53 Speaker_12
The episode used the excuse of a fake finale to aim at lots of tasty targets. Not only the long history of The Simpsons, but other TV finales, and even a very current concern among Hollywood writers. The setup was lengthy, but worth every second of it.

00:48:10 Speaker_06
The time has come to finally end The Simpsons. But how? The bar had been raised so high by the classic finales of Mad Men, Breaking Bad, and The Sopranos, and lowered by the legacy-ruining farewells of Seinfeld, Lost, and The Sopranos.

00:48:26 Speaker_06
The producers racked their brains to create a finale that would satisfy the show's many fans and many, many haters. Then they came up with the perfect plan. Voice the job on Somebody Else. Meet that somebody else.

00:48:39 Speaker_06
I give you the latest in machine learning artificial intelligence. Hack GPT. This cutting-edge breakthrough in plagiarism has been programmed to write, animate, and voice the perfect finale for The Simpsons.

00:48:52 Speaker_06
One that wraps up the characters' storylines in emotionally satisfying ways, but won't damage the most important legacy of the show.

00:49:00 Speaker_06
The 2026 Grand Opening of Homer Simpson's Claim Jumping, Yukon Rumbling, Rockin' Roller Coaster at Disneyland Shanghai.

00:49:10 Speaker_06
To create the ultimate finale, the AI has been fed every Simpsons episode, and the last episode of every television series ever made. HackGPT is now performing billions of computations to create the perfect story.

00:49:26 Speaker_06
Who knows how long this process will- Finale complete.

00:49:30 Speaker_12
Oh, that was really quick.

00:49:32 Speaker_06
Well, let's see what we got.

00:49:34 Speaker_12
The Simpsons really entertained me when it premiered in 1989, and it still really entertains me in 2024. On broadcast TV, that's an absolute rarity.

00:49:47 Speaker_02
David Bianculli is a professor of television studies at Rowan University.

00:49:59 Speaker_02
Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Anne-Marie Baldonado, Sam Brigger, Lauren Krenzel, Teresa Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Yacundi, and Anna Baumann. Our digital media producers are Molly C.V.

00:50:15 Speaker_02
Nesper and Sabrina Seawert. Roberta Shorrock directs the show. With Terry Gross, I'm Tanya Mosley.

00:50:24 Speaker_19
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00:50:35 Speaker_19
Find out more at CapitalOne.com slash VentureX Business.

00:50:40 Speaker_14
This message comes from NPR sponsor, Rosetta Stone, an expert in language learning for 30 years. Right now, NPR listeners can get Rosetta Stone's lifetime membership to 25 different languages for 50% off. Learn more at rosettastone.com slash NPR.

00:50:59 Speaker_17
Well, we finally made it. Election week. That is what this whole never-ending election cycle has been building up to. And what happens now will determine the future of our country.

00:51:09 Speaker_17
You can keep up with election news when it matters most with the NPR Politics Podcast. All this week, we're taking the latest stories from the campaign trail, swing states, and polling places to help you make sense of them and what they mean for you.

00:51:22 Speaker_17
Listen now to the NPR Politics Podcast.