VAN HALEN SOLO ALBUM WITH DIFFERENT VOCALISTS

[Fernando Ramirez]

Andrew wrote on Wed. June 30th: "Incidentally - I'm told that Santana will cover the Van Halen classic Dance The Night Away on his next album of tracks featuring different singers (no word on the vocalist). It was suggested to me that Eddie would apparently still like to pursue this idea one day. I'm sure you'll remember that little nugget coming to light via one of my reports nearly a decade ago now. Stay tuned as always..."

If Andrew said this 10 years ago... then that's all good. But in actuality, back in the mid 80s... Eddie stated as much in a series of interviews with Guitar World.... conducted by interviewer Steven Rosen. After the departure of Roth, Van Halen intimated that he had previously considered doing a solo album which would feature different singers. He talked about getting folks like Patty Smith (of Scandal), Phil Collins, and others. This plan went by the wayside when he subsequently joined up with Sammy Hagar, and went on to his successes with 5150, OU812, and so forth.

In fact, when Santana did this exact thing with his SUPERNATURAL album... the whole time I remember thinking that he ripped the idea off from Van Halen. He must have been reading the same interviews in Guitar World back in the mid 80s... at least we know he is in the know about Eddie, as evidenced by his desire to cover DANCE THE NIGHT AWAY.

Santana's subsequent releases have not been as strong, IMHO. The tracks I've heard on the radio always consist of Santana "noodling" the same solos at what seems like every fourth bar. Hardly what I call a true collaboration. I don't even know if Santana even WRITES the tracks he records. It's all well and good that he has had success with his albums, but his music seems to have become too commercial, and plastic. I don't think this would happen if Van Halen does it... but it would be interesting as hell.

[ronbo11]

The only real collaborative album I remember EVH appearing on was "Star Fleet Project" with Brian May, Phil Chen and Alan Gratzer (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqvV7L0RNmw) which was a cool little EP. I wish Eddie would have done more projects like this (although he's done soundtrack work). I loved Alex's over the top drumming and Michael Anthony was a better bassist than he's usually given credit, but I often wondered what Eddie could have done with a more flexible rhythm section. I'm a huge Jeff Beck fan, so instrumental guitar albums are right up my alley and I wish Eddie had tried one or two of those in the past few years!

[sniper16]

eddie would obviously need vocalists who can write, because its obvious when hes in charge the music is crap, based on the crap he gave sam and dave to put lyrics to on the gh records