by Noel Monk
“Who else can we get?” David asked, looking around the arena. Unsurprisingly, there were no volunteers. “We need someone who is going to be around for the whole tour.” Another pause as David surveyed the small crowd, which consisted entirely of Van Halen crew and management staff. Suddenly, he looked at me.
“Hey, Monk. How about you?”
I held up my hands in a desperate attempt to deflect the query. Even though I was going to be with the band on every date of the 1978 world tour—which eventually reached an exhausting 174 shows in a span of less than ten months—I was not about to get trapped into having to be on-site for the start of every show. Not only that, but I, like Marshall, had an almost pathological hatred of microphones.
“Thanks for the offer,” I said, “but I’m going to have to decline.”
To my relief, David shrugged and moved on. “Okay, well, who else we got?” Bullet dodged.
For some reason that I have never figured out, aside from the fact that he happened to be nearby, Rudy Leiren’s name was thrown into the ring. Rudy was a perfectly fine guitar tech and a loyal friend to Eddie’s, but as far I know, he had no experience as an announcer. He simply happened to be in the right place at the right time.
“Let’s go, Rudy,” David said, stepping away from the mic. Rudy walked up, looking a bit uncomfortable, cleared his throat, and shouted, “The mighty Van Halen!” His voice echoed through an empty arena, strong and clear, without a hint of a stammer. Everyone smiled; there was even some light applause.
“You’re hired!” David laughed.
And so he was. From that moment on, right up until the band imploded, more than six years later, Rudy the guitar tech was also Rudy the announcer—the howling, disembodied voice that kicked off hundreds of Van Halen shows. Marshall, whose obvious discomfort betrayed the fact that he was completely out of his element, left the next day for the safety of a Southern California office building (and did not return for quite some time), and Rudy took over the mic. It was, in my opinion, a favorable trade in every possible way. The band got a credible announcer, Rudy got to introduce his buddies, and none of us had to put up with Marshall. I’d call that a win.
FROM DAY ONE— or at least week one—Van Halen was a partying band, and everyone on the road with the band got pulled into this orbit. Not that anyone complained, mind you. This was the late seventies, a time when there was virtually no stigma attached to any illicit substance, assuming it was used in moderation (a relative term; the bar for partying was set abnormally high in the music business, particularly when you were on the road). For the first year or two it really wasn’t much of a problem. The guys all liked to drink and smoke weed, and I got the definite impression that they weren’t exactly new to this lifestyle when I first met them. But it wasn’t excessive. Not in the beginning. David had some money, so he was the occasional conduit for coke, but it wasn’t like they were doing piles of blow in the dressing room before going onstage. We all knew how to work hard and put on a great show and then unwind afterward.
And then do it all over again the next day.
Drug use sneaks up on you—I’ve seen it destroy countless bands, and it would eventually prove to be instrumental in Van Halen’s unraveling, but for the first couple of years we mostly just had a fantastic time. If these guys weren’t born to play the role of rock stars, they certainly adapted to it quickly—all those years of playing wild backyard gigs had been a superb apprenticeship.
By the time we got to Madison, the boys had already embraced the time-honored tradition of trashing their hotel rooms. Now, it was a bit early in the game for Van Halen to start behaving this way, but again . . . it wasn’t like they had come out of nowhere. It only seemed that way to the uninitiated (as legend has it, corroborated by the guys in the band, they were not averse to trashing the homes of friends when they played on the backyard circuit). Manners flew out the window—along with tables, chairs, lamps, and anything else that was of little obvious use and had the misfortune not to be nailed down. I had been with other bands that had trashed their surroundings, but they had nothing on Van Halen.
Madison was a two-night stay, and as the damage accrued, I realized that we weren’t going to simply be able to sneak out of town without being held accountable. And, frankly, I didn’t want to do that. I knew that at some point I would have to speak with the hotel manager, try to put as positive a spin on the matter as I possibly could, and agree to pay for any and all damages. What I hoped to avoid was any sort of police involvement or bad publicity; fortunately, this was decades ahead of social media, when every inappropriate celebrity act is recorded by someone and instantly uploaded to the internet.
Van Halen was not yet big enough to attract much in the way of mainstream media attention, so the band could beat the shit out of a hotel room and no one would really care—as long as we agreed to pay for damages.
This particular room was nearly destroyed. Not only was furniture broken and or heaved out the window but the room itself had been smeared with ketchup. And when I say “smeared,” I am not being hyperbolic. It was here, you see, that I was introduced to the Ketchup Queens, a pair of delightful and exuberant groupies with a bit of a fetish for condiments. When I walked into the room I saw two beautiful girls, completely naked, lying next to each other on one of the hotel beds. The band members were standing over them, armed with plastic squeeze bottles filled with ketchup. At first I was horrified at the sight of the boys firing ketchup into their guests’ every available orifice (and some that, frankly, were not available), but my gaze was quickly drawn to the girls’ faces; they were hardly being coerced. Instead, they were laughing uncontrollably and soaking up the ketchup like lilacs enjoying a spring shower. Well, to each her own, I thought. It was all part of the process of becoming a tried-and-tested rock star; understanding that you could do almost anything, and ignoring the switch that stops you from doing it.
David seemed to understand that from the beginning, and embraced it wholeheartedly, in part because he so desperately wanted to be a star. Alex and Edward picked up on it pretty quickly. Michael, being the nicest guy in the band, remained a gentle and fun-loving soul even as chaos swirled around him. He was an unlikely rock star, and therefore suited to playing the least flamboyant instrument in the band. Michael was the antistar of Van Halen, and fans identified with him. He was impossible to dislike.
“Michael, it’s a good thing there are only four strings on a bass,” I’d tease. “That way you won’t get confused.”
It was just a joke and I’d say it before almost every show because I knew that it would elicit a laugh and a knowing nod from Michael, as if he was saying, “Yeah, I’m the luckiest guy on the planet.”
Even when we trashed hotel rooms and dressing rooms, Michael was usually the least involved. For him, it was the height of debauchery to use the food supplied by catering as paint for a mural—which he did rather often, and sometimes to impressive effect. We (meaning Red Roadie and I) actually introduced him to our favorite drink, the boilermaker, which made ample use of the Jack Daniel’s Michael already favored, and which ultimately became his weakness.
I didn’t stay in the room with the Ketchup Queens very long—just long enough to have gotten the gist of things. But when I returned a short time later, the room was an absolute disaster. The furniture was either missing or shattered, and there was a copious amount of ketchup all over the place, and on every conceivable surface, includng the floor and even the ceiling. As I surveyed the damage, and narrowly avoided some of the evidence dripping onto me from a particularly disgusting ceiling fan, I honestly couldn’t tell whether it looked like there had been an orgy or a gangland massacre. It was the kind of scene that would have made Caligula proud.
The next morning, I met with the manager.
“I’m very sorry,” I began. “There’s really no good explanation for the condition of our rooms.”
“How bad is it, Mr. Monk?” he asked.
An image of the p
revious night’s debauchery flashed across my mind’s eye. I winced. Then I choked back an urge to laugh.
“Not great,” I said. And then I gave him the gory details. By the time I had finished, the manager’s face had turned red. “Really, it’s unusual for them to behave this way,” I added, lying through my teeth to the poor guy. “They’re a nice bunch of young men. Maybe there’s something in the water that caused a personality change.”
The manager laughed.
“Mr. Monk, you’re not the first band that has ever stayed in our hotel. And you’re not the first to wreck one of our rooms.”
I let out a sigh of relief. “Okay, what do we do?”
“Very simple,” he said. “Just write a check.”
I went upstairs and called the boys in to my room. I explained that the hotel manager would not be pressing any charges, and that he had graciously agreed to simply allow us to pay for damages. He would be up shortly to survey the carnage and give us a bill.
“Do we have the money for this?” David asked.
“Don’t worry,” I replied. “Warner Brothers will be picking up the tab.”
They all smiled and exchanged high-fives.
“That’s great, Noel,” Edward said. “Good job.”
“Thank you. Of course, eventually it will come back to you.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s called recoupment, boys. I’ll explain later.”
It would be some time before they grasped this concept: that everything came out of their pockets. For now, though, they seemed satisfied with my explanation, and with knowing that there would be no further consequences. After the manager had surveyed the damage, presumably made an appointment with his shrink, and put together an itemized bill, I paid with plastic.
“We appreciate your understanding and professionalism,” I said. “And your discretion.”
He nodded. “And we appreciate your business. Feel free to come back.” He paused, smiled. “You’ll get the floor that’s being renovated.”
SOMETIMES THE TRASHING OF HOTEL ROOMS was simply the by-product of boredom and entitlement. This was not a normal lifestyle we were leading. Throw in groupies and copious amounts of mind-altering chemicals, and you have a recipe for destruction. It rarely stemmed from any sort of hostility. It was just childish and irresponsible . . . and, quite often, a lot of fun. But there were occasions when interpersonal dynamics and fragile band relationships factored into the equation. I am talking specifically about the deep and unusual bond between the brothers Van Halen.
It was fairly early in the tour when I saw them go at it for the first time, but it would not be the last. Look, I get it—families are complicated and codependent organisms. I grew up in a dysfunctional household myself, with an alcoholic father and an abusive mother; my sister and I both suffered in this environment, and because of that I am no stranger to the complexities of family dynamics. Still, the Van Halen brothers seemed to test those familial bonds to an extreme, beginning with their relationship to their father, Jan Van Halen.
The first few times I met Jan, I found him to be a likable man who had led an interesting life. He obviously loved music and wanted his sons to succeed. Most of what I learned about Jan’s life was revealed during sessions the two of us shared at a local shooting range in Los Angeles. Jan enjoyed making his own ammunition and collecting and trading weapons. But most of all he enjoyed shooting. Does this make him sound like a scary guy? Not to me. I’ve been around guns most of my life and know they are only as dangerous as the hand in which they are held. Which, of course, is not to say that everyone should own a gun. But Jan seemed like a reasonable enough fellow, although he had that peculiar way (not uncommon for the Dutch) of seeming both laid-back and intense at the same time. Still, we shared many good times together.
The shooting range we visited most frequently was close to Jan’s house. We would swap old stories, and his were always more harrowing than mine. And as I got to know Jan a little better, I saw behavior that I found odd and frankly unappealing. For one thing, he was an alcoholic. Forget for a moment that drunks and drug addicts shouldn’t mess with guns—Jan always seemed responsible in that particular arena; it was the way he talked about drinking and how it affected his kids that gave me pause.
I don’t doubt that Jan loved his children, but he had an odd way of showing it, and of attempting to foster that love. For one thing, he believed that one of the best ways to bond with his boys was to drink with them. I’m not talking about a father sharing a beer with a couple of grown children of legal drinking age. I’m talking about a guy getting shit-faced with his teenage boys in the hope that the camaraderie of drinking would encourage honesty and transparency in their relationship; that booze would enhance their relationship to such an extent that there would be no secrets. Jan would be the cool dad whose kids would tell him everything that was happening in their lives: the good the bad, even the ugly. Now, it always seemed to me that Jan utilized this method to excess, to put it mildly. By the time these guys got around to bonding and communicating, they were too blasted to discuss anything of substance. To me, it all seemed completely pointless, and probably just selfish on Jan’s part. It was a way to rationalize his own drinking and to avoid the admittedly hard work of raising responsible children. Instead, he was an alcoholic father blatantly passing the torch (or bottle) to his sons, who would also become alcoholics. I suppose this hit a nerve with me because I too had grown up with an alcoholic father, although mine was more obviously abusive than Jan. Still, I understood the pathology and had suffered from it firsthand, so, even though I liked Jan, I couldn’t help but question the wisdom of his parental strategy.
I heard similar and corroborative stories from Alex, as well. He used to tell me that he felt like he got along best with his parents when he was completely smashed. Not when he’d had a couple drinks but “smashed.” And when Alex used the word smashed, it carried weight, since it took more to get Alex loaded than almost anyone I have ever met. By the time I met Alex he was already well down the drunken highway, drinking copious amounts of Schlitz Malt Liquor on a nightly basis.
I liked their mother, Eugenia, but she was a complicated and unhappy woman, and my affection was born largely of compassion. You see, she suffered from what I can only assume was a type of mental illness, represented most glaringly by an irrational and sometimes paralyzing fear of Jehovah’s Witnesses. Now, I understand that Jehovah’s Witnesses confuse nearly all of us who are not of their particular Christian faith and interpretation, but Eugenia’s feelings about them went well beyond annoyance; she was inordinately terrified of them. I don’t know the origin of this phobia. During World War II, Dutch Jews and Jehovah’s Witnesses (among others) were rounded up and hoarded away in concentration camps. I know only that it was excessive and irrational. Eugenia firmly believed that Jehovah’s Witnesses had followed her from Amsterdam and were trying to destroy her. She would pull you aside as if she had a secret to tell you; then she would reveal her fears and suspicions, and eventually get around to asking whether you were “one of them” and intended to do her harm. The first time this happened to me, I mistakenly presumed that she was joking. She wasn’t. Instead, once assured that I wasn’t a member of the Jehovah’s Witnesses dispatched to hurt her, she would ask if I had seen any of “them” on my way to her house. Were they lurking nearby? Hiding in the trees, perhaps? I didn’t know how to respond; I simply felt sorry for her. It was clear from the look of abject terror on her face that this nightmarish scenario was entirely real to her. And it was crippling.
Irrational and unfounded though it might have been, this fear resulted in Eugenia’s becoming largely a prisoner in her own home. While the boys played music often in front of Jan, their mother was an infrequent presence at concerts. As the wealth of the Van Halen brothers grew, I couldn’t help but wonder whether they had done everything they could to help their mother. Then again, maybe they did. Perhaps there had been private consultations and m
edication and interventions of one sort or another. I can only assume that they did try, and that their efforts were unsuccessful.
Alex sometimes seemed to bristle over his heritage—or a portion of it, anyway. For example, he used to note that he had “chine eyes.” I couldn’t tell whether or not he was kidding, but I hated it when he talked like this—usually after he’d been drinking. I don’t know what it was that he saw, but it had never occurred to me that the shape of his eyes, inherited from his mother, could be something negative; it didn’t seem to occur to all the women routinely fawning over him, either. He was a good-looking guy (as was Edward) and together the two of them certainly did nothing to detract from the Van Halen brand, so to speak—despite Alex’s apparent insecurities.
Alex drank because it was in his DNA to do so, and he was tutored at the knee of a pro, but I also think it had something to do with the fact that he toiled forever in the shadow of his far more innovative younger brother. I felt from the beginning that the brothers’ relationship was complicated by the very thing that also made them so close: music. Specifically, as I said, by the fact that Edward was so clearly the more gifted artist. No shame in that. But it had to have been challenging for Alex to see his little brother develop into a superstar. Don’t get me wrong, Alex was good—damn good—in his own right, and would later go on to be named number 51 on Rolling Stone’s list of the 100 Greatest Drummers of All Time. He could play the hell out of his drum kit, and his work functioned as the backbone to Edward’s riffs, Michael’s rhythmic drive, and David’s crooning vocals. But Edward was, for lack of a better term, a savant. He lived and breathed his craft in a way that most people couldn’t even begin to imagine. It was the way he interfaced with the rest of the world—everything was filtered through a lens of music. It came to him naturally, intuitively, but more than that, it was like it came through him, as if he was simply the universe’s conduit for kick-ass chords and mind-blowing guitar solos.
