Diver Down was the next Van Halen album. Its album cycle was kicked off by the single, "(Oh) Pretty Woman," and then you guys raced back into the studio to do an album.
Van Halen recorded "(Oh) Pretty Woman" for a single to keep Warner Bros. content, so Van Halen wouldn't need to record a new album. "Pretty Woman" backfired because it was a hit and Warner Bros. wanted a new record immediately. Again, Sunset Sound was not available, but this time we were able to work at Amigo in Studio E, a fine studio.
Did Diver Down cause a lot of frustration?
Oh yeah. Ed and Al didn't like all the cover songs, except for "Big Bad Bill," and nobody liked being rushed again. But they got some strong airplay from Diver Down with "Pretty Woman," "Where Have All the Good Times Gone," and "Dancing in the Street."
I love Ed's solo on "Dancing in the Street."
We were working afternoons at Amigo. One morning, around 3 a.m., I was at home asleep and someone was pounding on my bedroom window. I figured it had to be Ed. I let him in, and he said, "We gotta record right now. I just worked out the solo to 'Dancing in the Street!'" I said, "Well, okay." [laughs] We drove to Amigo, and, at about four in the morning, we recorded his solo on "Dancing in the Street." He was relieved to get that done.
"Happy Trails" is a great way to close the album.
I like the demo version of "Happy Trails" we did back in 1977 too. They were at Sunset doing background vocals with all the guys around their mics. We let the tape run and they did background vocals on every song we'd demoed. We got to the end of the session, and I think Ted asked, "What else is left?" Dave [Roth] said, "We do an a cappella version of 'Happy Trails!'" Ted replied, "Yeah, do it!" They did it in one take, of course.
It was during Diver Down that Ed decided that he wanted to build his own studio, 5150, in his backyard.
Actually, he was talking about that during the Fair Warning sessions. One of the first times I drove him up to his house on Coldwater Canyon, he had me look at the guest house and asked, "Can we use this?" I told him we needed to build something more substantial. We walked beyond the guest house, and he showed me there was plenty of room to build his studio. He'd been thinking about it for quite a while.
Had you previously worked in, or spent time at, a home studio?
In the mid-sixties I visited a session at the home studio of [pianist Rafael] "Googie" René, and while recording Fair Warning, we tried to record Van Halen at Dennis Dragon's [Tape Op #69] home studio in Malibu. I knew that most people who built home studios regretted it. I decided I would build Ed's studio for a minimum cost.
After you guys decided to build 5150, you needed to get your hands on a lot of gear. How did you find out about the console at Western Recorders?
Dennis Dragon bought a console from Universal Audio [UA] that came out of Western Studio 3. He told me a nearly identical console from Western Studio 2 was available, so Ed and I went to UA to have a look. I was familiar with that console because I'd recorded some of Ron Elliott's [ex-The Beau Brummels] The Candlestickmaker on that console in 1970. I said, "What else do you have?" The staff showed us several stereo EMT plate reverbs, and from about 50 feet away Ed liked one EMT which was painted green. I looked it over; it seemed to be the best one. So, for $10,000 we had a recording console and an EMT.
Am I remembering correctly that you rewired the console?
The console was originally built for 4-track. We were going to record on 16-track, and possibly 24-track. That required a good deal of modification. I think there were 24 faders, which was plenty. I don't remember everything we did to it, but we made it work. We built a new 24-channel headphone mix system and added eight echo return positions.
What about tape machines, monitors, and effects?
We bought a used 3M M56 16-track recorder, the same kind of 16-track machine we used at Amigo. It was obsolete, but it worked. We bought a new Ampex ATR-102 2-track recorder. The only other equipment we bought new were wires and cables, some U 87s, and SM57s. Everything else was used. We found great old microphones, Teletronix LA-2A limiters, and UREI 1176 limiters. We got our control room monitors from Kenny Rogers' Lion Share Recording Studios. Howard Weiss, who was working at Lion Share, called and said, "We've got some monitors that you might like." I went over and looked at them, and they were wonderful. They were basically the same monitors used at Amigo and Sunset Sound, built by George Augspurger with JBL components, so we bought those for 5150.
I know Howard Weiss helped a lot in the construction process. When did he get involved?
I brought Howard up very early in the process to look at the raw ground. This was after we had determined it would have to be built as a racquetball court. What happened is that the contractor, Ron Fry, using my original design, started redesigning it like a little house. I told him we couldn't have windows, and we needed a much stronger outer shell. I wanted Van Halen to be able to play at any time and no neighbor would ever hear a sound. Ron eventually said, "Well, we could build a studio almost as big as you want if we call it a racquetball court. That type of structure won't need any windows." My design had no windows, and it was larger than what we ended up with. A racquetball court had to be twenty feet by forty feet.
I see. The city of Los Angeles wouldn't issue a building permit for a windowless structure larger than a racquetball court. So, the building inspector thought the construction project was for a racquetball court?
Yes. We built a racquetball court with unusually thick walls. In fact, racquetball was played at 5150 up until the final inspection!
Was Alex Van Halen involved?
Al was involved in every phase. He provided great moral support and many ideas. Even before we started construction, we scratched out plans in the dirt. Another person who played a key role was Ken Deane, who I’d worked with at Amigo. He worked on 5150 with me and Ed from the beginning.
Starting in the summer of 1982, Van Halen was on tour. Did Ed check in on your progress?
We talked almost daily through the whole thing. I'd tell him all the problems we were having: "The city wants this, we've got to do that. And the contractor wants to do something else." Every time he'd come back on break from a tour, we'd have a little bit more done. It was incremental, but it was being built.
In the fall of 1982, Quincy Jones had the idea to have Ed do a solo on Michael Jackson's "Beat It." How did that come together?
I got two calls, one from Lenny and one from Ted. They said that Quincy Jones wanted Ed to play on a Michael Jackson record, and they thought it was a good idea. I knew that the band was not going to like Ed playing on anybody else's project. They didn't like it when he played on Nicolette Larson's record, and they wouldn't like him playing on anything but Van Halen records. Michael's previous album, Off the Wall, was a huge success, and I thought Ed's playing on a new MJ record could be great for both Michael and for Van Halen. When Quincy first called Ed, Ed hung up on him not believing it was really Quincy. After they finally talked, Ed told me Quincy was sending a cassette of the song, "Beat It." When the tape arrived, we listened. The first thing I noticed was that the song was predominately in a minor key, except for the section they had designated for Ed's solo, which was in a major key. Ed soloed best in a minor key. I told him we could have them change it, but Ed said he couldn't tell someone like Quincy Jones how to rearrange the record. I told him he could and should.
Did he work out a solo ahead of time?
Yes, Ed worked out a solo over this original section. But then I asked him to at least think about another solo, over the chorus, just in case. He did.
Then it was off to Westlake.
Yes, the next day we drove to Westlake Audio on Beverly Blvd in L.A. I asked Ed to promise he would talk to Quincy about the change. I had to ask several times before he said that he would. At Westlake, I said hello to engineer Bruce Swedien [Tape Op #91] in the front studio, and then I met Quincy and engineer Matt Forger in the back studio. I went to sit down on the couch and Quincy said, "Where are you going? You're doing this!" I sat down at the Harrison console and Ed said, "Donn wants to talk to you about the arrangement." I wasn't ready for that either, but I told Quincy our plan. After a few seconds looking through his sheet music, Quincy said, "Oh, that will work. We'll do it!" We couldn't cut a tape together that way then because they were synching up several 24-track recorders with SMPTE timecode. You can't cut a tape with SMPTE. We recorded Ed's solo over an existing chorus with the vocals turned off, and Bruce put it all together later.
Ed made two or three passes?
Maybe five or six. We met Michael when we were playing them back. His first reaction was, "I like the high fast stuff."
Then you later comped the solo?
Quincy asked me to come in and put the solo together. I came back the next week and made the composite.
It was a solo that made Ed and Van Halen bigger than ever.
I thought that it worked out great. It benefited both Michael and Van Halen.
In early 1983, Ed participated in Brian May's Star Fleet Project. Did you attend the session?
No, I got rear ended by a motorcycle on Laurel Canyon on my way to the Record Plant. I had to stay at the scene, and I never made it to the session. But Brian did come up to 5150. He and Ed spent all afternoon summarizing what was wrong with the guitars that made them nearly impossible to play. They seemed to hate guitars. Amazing!
Do you remember the first time you rolled tape in 5150?
It was January 2, 1983. Our first night recording at 5150 was Ed on synthesizer and Al on drums; [engineer] Ken Deane and [drum tech] Gregg Emerson were also there. Ed was ebullient. I just hoped I hadn't spent too much of Ed's money building the studio.
How did the decision get made that Van Halen recorded its sixth album at 5150?
It wasn't my idea. I told Ed it was possible, but that we should try one song first, or maybe start with overdubs and see how it goes. Ed insisted we could do a better album at 5150. He persuaded me with the commitment, "We're not going to puke this one out." We hadn't puked out the other albums, but we were going to get this one right.
So, eventually, you and the band persuaded Ted to work on 1984 at 5150. He had reservations about working in a home studio, but he did sign off on the idea. When did you start trying to cut tracks?
It was Ed who persuaded Ted to do the record at 5150; I just assured him that we could do it. We had the "Jump" track before Van Halen's US Festival appearance on May 29, 1983.
When you started recording, did you have any concerns about the material? At that point, Van Halen was riding a streak of five platinum records.
I wasn't worried about the music. We had "Jump," and Ed had much more. I felt good about 1984.
How did Michael Anthony and David Lee Roth respond to working in Ed's backyard studio?
They handled it well. Dave continued to write these great lyrics. He would arrive in his 1951 Mercury with bodyguard, Eddie Anderson, driving. He'd grab a cassette that I had made for a song; I remember he did it with "Panama." He'd go for a drive around the city and come back. He'd say, "I've got something!" And for Mike it was the same thing. What I wasn't ready for was that, for some reason, it felt like the success of the album drove everybody apart.
Ted has often said to me, “I know 1984 is especially great because Donn was at 5150 around the clock, encouraging Ed to write and write, getting him to do new things for the record. But it was driving me crazy because I thought we'd never finish the record.”
Ted got that right. Truth be told, the pressure really intensified after we decided to call it 1984. We all agreed that we'd release the album on January 1, 1984. But eventually it became clear that we weren't going to make that deadline.
One song that bedeviled the band was "I'll Wait." Eventually, Michael McDonald co-wrote it. Do you remember that episode?
We had recorded the "I'll Wait" track, and Dave said he couldn't come up with any lyrics for it. Ted asked Michael McDonald to have a listen. Mike came into Ted's office, sang along with our tape, and Ted recorded his singing. Ted played it for me in the 5150 control room, and when it came to the chorus and I heard Mike sing, "I'll Wait," I knew that was it! I hit the talkback and said, "Ed! Get in here, you've got to hear this!"
The album opens with a short keyboard instrumental called "1984." Ed once said in an interview that it had been edited down from a much longer recording. Do you remember that process?
I came in the studio one day and I heard Ed playing his synthesizer all distorted through a little Pignose amplifier. I went into the control room to listen, because I had a mic on the Pignose as well as a direct feed. The direct sounded great. I made a 2-track recording of about a half an hour. When Ed came into the control room, he asked, "What are you doing?" I played it for him, and he said, "Wow, how'd you get that sound?" I said, "It's the direct. You've been listening to the amp."
Eventually you came back to it.
Ted said to Ed and me, "I wish we had a song called '1984.'" I said, "Well, maybe we do." I played him some of the synthesizer recording. He said, "That's great! But we just need a short intro." I said, "We will put something together." Ed and I edited it down from 30 minutes to the 1:08 seconds that became the title track, "1984."
The record ran late and that caused some friction among Ted, you, and Ed. What happened?
"I'll Wait" wasn't done, and there were a couple little things that needed attention. I remember Lenny Waronker, who was then the label president, called and asked, "What's going on? When will you have it done?" I told him and he said, "Okay, then we can set the release for the first week in January." That was our final commitment, and we did it. Lenny really helped. We were able to have "Jump" come out on January 1st, and the album a week later.
"Jump" came out on New Year's Day. I remember you told me that it was an exciting moment for you when you heard the new song played on the Rose Bowl broadcast.
On January 1, I watched NBC's Rose Bowl pregame show, which opened with "Jump." I realized then that the label promo department was really supporting this record!
Fast forwarding to the end of 1984, Dave decided to do a solo EP, Crazy From the Heat, with Ted. What was your reaction to it?
I love that EP. Dave called me at the end of that project and said, "We're making a video of 'California Girls,' and the song's not long enough for the video we're doing. Can you come in and edit the master tape?" I went to the video studio and edited "California Girls," adding another minute to the end.
In the late spring of 1985, the band split. The future of Van Halen was unclear, so you suggested to go work on an Eddie Van Halen solo album.
Yeah, I didn't know what else to do. There was no singer; Dave was definitely gone. Since Ed had all this material, I suggested we record as if we were doing demos for a solo album. He agreed. It wasn't too long before he was talking about wanting to have a band again. We started talking about singers, and then his Lamborghini mechanic, Claudio Zampolli, suggested Sammy Hagar. Ed knew I had engineered the two Montrose albums with Sammy, and I assured him that Sammy could sing!
Before discussing Sammy joining Van Halen, I wanted to ask you about the soundtrack work that you did with Ed for Valerie Bertinelli's TV movie The Seduction of Gina, and Cameron Crowe's The Wild Life in 1984.
For The Seduction of Gina, we watched a video with some clips of the film, and we matched up Ed's music to the scenes. For The Wild Life, Cameron Crowe came up to 5150 with a video of the whole movie. There were certain scenes where Ed played along with the film. "Donut City," from The Wild Life soundtrack, was nominated for a Grammy for Best Rock Instrumental Performance. Ed played all the instruments on both projects, except for "Ripley" from The Wild Life, which was with Al on drums and Michael Anthony on bass.
How did you record Ed when he played bass? I assume he played his Steinberger bass on those projects?
The bass was almost always through his main Marshall and/or direct. He had several basses, and I don't remember which songs he played with the Steinberger.
Before Roth departed, did you do any tracking in 5150 with Roth on vocals for a seventh Van Halen record?
I don't think we got that far along. I was giving Dave cassettes of Ed's songs.
In his autobiography [Red: My Uncensored Life in Rock] Sammy shares some humorous anecdotes about his first visit to 5150. It made quite an impression on him!
Yes. [laughs] He talks about how filthy 5150 was, and how we just didn't care what it looked like! Before he came up the first time, we had spent a day cleaning it up, feverishly, to get ready for Sammy. What he didn't realize is that the studio had never been so clean!
When you and the Van Halen guys started recording 5150, Foreigner guitarist Mick Jones was brought in as an outside ear. Was that Warner Bros. idea?
I don't know. I thought he was Sammy's idea.
How did you like working with Mick?
It worked great. We called him The Duke!
One of the biggest departures on the record is "Dreams." How did that one come together?
With "Dreams" the band recorded it together, but I didn't think it really worked. I played Ed his demo and he agreed the demo was better. We then recorded a new track with piano, synthesizer, and a Linn drum machine. We played it for the rest of the band the next day. They liked it, so we added everything else. Right before we mixed it, Mick added a part to the beginning of the second verse. He strummed the high piano strings with a guitar pick.
You recorded Ed's keyboards first?
Yes, Ed played the Steinway, and the synthesizer was MIDI'd off the piano.
At 5150, did Ed do his solos in the control room or out in the studio?
If he played his solo live with the rest of the band, he played in the studio. For overdubs, he nearly always played in the control room.
The album closer, "Inside," is one of the oddest Van Halen songs ever, in my opinion.
It was a nightmare. I couldn't understand why they were doing it. I was asking myself, “Do we really need this thing?” But then Van Halen manager Ed Leffler would come in and say, "Oh, we must have it on the album. I'm telling all the radio stations you're doing a rap song!" [laughs] It took longer to do than anything else on the album.
The video for "Dreams" featured the Navy's Blue Angels, and it was all over MTV in 1986. Then, as a thank you for your work on the video, the Blue Angels offered you a flight on one of their jets.
The naval officer who was coordinating the video made the offer through the video's producer, Jim Cross. Jim told me that if I was interested, I could go down to the Marine Corps Air Station Miramar on a certain day and I would get a flight in a two-seater Blue Angels A-4 jet, and I would be put through the paces. I was just bubbling! I went out and told Sammy. He said, "Oh no, man, you shouldn't do it. We're right in the middle of this project. We're gonna need you." I had to call Jim and tell him I couldn't do it.
Earlier we discussed your experiences recording Joe Cocker and Van Morrison in mobile trucks. In 1986 you recorded the audio for Van Halen's Live Without a Net concert video as well. What do you recall about that project?
I remember that the band members, 5150 engineer Ken Deane, and I took an unusual route from the hotel to the New Haven Coliseum. We took the hotel elevator to the basement, got in a limo, and drove along this little underground road into the bowels of the venue. Under the coliseum was a video truck and an audio truck. Ken and I worked in the latter and recorded Van Halen over the course of two nights. Later, in November 1988, during the OU812 tour, Ken and I recorded shows in St. Louis, Phoenix, and San Diego.
Previously you had recorded Van Halen in Oakland in June 1981 for the soundtrack for some live videos.
Van Halen manager Noel Monk and I flew up to Portland, Oregon, to watch Van Halen perform two shows. Immediately following the Portland shows I went to Oakland and recorded the band using the Wally Heider remote truck.
Van Halen's next album after 5150 was OU812. A personal favorite of mine is "Source of Infection," which is a classic Van Halen power shuffle.
Intensity! I'm pretty sure it was one take, like most of those things. When they cut the tracks, they were usually very efficient.
You can tell it is a live take with all three guys playing together because in a couple of spots Ed and Al get ever so slightly out of synch while Ed is soloing.
I liked that sort of thing. It's organic.
There are a wider range of keyboard sounds and textures on OU812 than on 5150. I read somewhere that Toto keyboardist Steve Porcaro was a sounding board for Ed when it came to keyboard technology. Do you remember that?
Not that specifically, but Van Halen and Toto were close. Luke [Steve Lukather, Tape Op #146] often visited 5150. Ed and I went to many of their rehearsals. They asked me to engineer Toto IV. I couldn't do, but of course Al Schmitt did an incredible job on that album.
Sammy tells a story about how you hung with him at 5150 when he was really struggling to cut his vocal for the album opener, "Mine All Mine."
He really worked hard on that song. I turned out the lights and I tried to be inconspicuous. I just let him go. Then he nailed it. I said, "Sammy, that's fantastic!" I ran out and uncharacteristically gave him a hug. I said, "That's a great vocal."
After you left the Van Halen camp around 1989, did you take on any other recording projects?
No, I resisted everything. Lenny called and asked me to work with John Fogerty, but I just couldn't do it.
Most recently, you've been working with Van Halen on some reissues, like the 45RPM MoFi releases of early Van Halen and Rhino's remasters of the Hagar-era albums. What has your role been?
I listen to what they send me and, so far, I've approved them. Their mastering and vinyl pressings are better than ever. The latest releases are the MoFi [Ultradisc] One-Step process. It's hard to imagine a better method of producing vinyl records.
