Van Halen have said goodbye to the sour grapes of Roth, and hallo to a Hagar. So what does Van plan to do next?

Goldwater Canyon is the wrong name. Not only is it quite warm here, the streets wind narrowly up a mountainside. The mismatch of name and place, however, is only a subtle indication of an even greater discord that has recently taken place within these heavily guarded confines: the re-forming of Rock powerhouse Van Halen.

Behind a security gate, under the watchful eye of constant electronic surveillance, is the home of 29-year-old Dutch immigrant Edward Van Halen. At the moment it's peaceful: a bevy of Ferraris and Lamborghinis sit quietly in the driveway, and the only disturbance in the pool is caused by the wind. A few yards away sits Edward's home studio, a place where he spends his time defining the electric guitar's role in Rock music. But for now, not a sound is heard.

It was roughly a dozen years ago that Edward joined together with his brother Alex, Michael Anthony and David Lee Roth to form Van Halen. Now, six platinum albums and three top 20 singles later, Van Halen once again find themselves with something to prove: that they are still 'Van Halen' without the presence of Rock's pre-eminent flash-child, Roth. The singer and Edward Van Halen were the creative backbone of the band – with Roth contributing the lyrics and the vocals to music. They always had a turbulent relationship, so their decision last year that they could no longer work together – for art or money – was not shocking.

Short, thin and chain-smoking, Edward is a self-described introvert who didn't share the garage-band sensibility of Dave Lee Roth. He spends every possible waking moment in his studio, dubbed 5150 (police code for the criminally insane), engrossed in his music. He has become the uncontested guitar hero of the '80s, winning numerous 'Best Guitarist' awards and having his original, two-handed playing technique copied by countless guitar players. But unlike Roth, he'd rather not talk about it – to anyone. "I don't like doing interviews because I don't have a lot to say," he snaps. "I speak through my music."

Just one year after the band released a number two charting LP, 1984, and attained its first number one hit, Jump. Van Halen splintered. Edward remained with his brother and Anthony, and Roth went off to pursue a music and acting career. Or was it that simple?

"I hate to say toward the end but toward the end it seemed like things were getting too businesslike; we never really hung out anymore," reflects 30-year-old bassist Anthony, the ever-steady foundation behind Edward. "Ed, Al and I would be here at Eddie's playing, and all of a sudden Dave would make his entrance, and it would be like,'Okay, rehearsal may now begin.' He'd walk in with that kind of attitude. He wanted to do his movie, but we figured because our last album and tour were so great, we'd do another great album and tour, and then we could do anything we wanted. But that never materialised with Dave."

"Van Halen is a springboard for movie stars, and I direct them all," quips Edward, who claims the split was amicable. "Roth didn't want to do the record, he wanted to do a movie. So he went off to do his movie, and we went ahead and started the record. It's really quite simple: he wanted to be a movie star and we wanted to be Rock'n'Rollers, and we are Rock'n'Rollers."

So, apparently, is replacement Sammy Hagar.

In the past, Hagar has strutted about the stage plucking Gibson, Charvel, O'Hagen and Roland guitars through Marshall and Hiwatt amps. Now, with a Van Halen tour due to start in March, the onstage possibilities are endless. Will we see both Hagar and Edward playing guitar? Will Hagar play guitar while Edward works out on his latest creative outlet: keyboards? Will Edward sing? With the addition of Hagar, there's a chance for Edward to really explore his musical boundaries.

"I'll mainly just sing, but I'll also play a little bit of guitar if it's needed," explains Hagar. "Edward is not the kind of guitarist who needs another guitarist; I'm the one more than anyone else saying that I don't see myself playing guitar in this band.

That's basically because singing in this band is enough of a chore, especially singing well. I've always liked traditional bands, just guitar, bass, drums and a singer, like the Who or Led Zeppelin. And I enjoy the role of singer."

Hagar has already proved that he can fire up a crowd just as much as Roth. Witness his performance at the Farm Aid extravaganza last November, during which Edward joined Hagar's band for its final performance. Apparently Hagar did a little cussin' during the introduction to his hit I Can't Drive 55. Rumour had it that a number of parties which had donated money to the Farm Aid cause yanked their support because of Hagar's actions.

"Before we launched into 55 I said to the audience, 'Here's a song for all you tractor-pulling motherfuckers out there,'" steams Hagar. "Now, that's the way every teenager I know talks, and I was just talking to my fans the way I talk, completely unconscious of the fact we were on TV. I was just doing a regular show. I went into my own pocket to the tune of 25 thousand dollars to do that show. The response we got was just unbelievable: it was more than anybody else in the whole goddamn show. And anybody that thinks I hurt that show is either jealous or full of shit! My mom saw the show and said, 'You didn't have to play the show either.' I just did my thing, and if anyone can prove that I hurt that show, I'll pay the difference out of my pocket. But first they better add up how many people I attracted to the show, because when we came out, the signs went up all over that coliseum.

"I think I was criticised because I didn't go up there and give some kind of bummed-out speech and sing a couple of Country & Western tunes," continues Hagar, turning as red as the T-shirt he's wearing. "And I want to say in print, 'Fuck anybody that didn't like it!'"

If Hagar performed like he was doing a Sammy Hagar solo show, he'd better change fast. This is mostly Edward's gig, and he means to keep it that way. Contractually, Hagar does owe his label one more album and promises that it won't be just a 'contractual fulfillment.' He does acknowledge, however, that he will not be touring as Sammy Hagar anymore. "I'm not a solo artist unless this thing blows up," he adds. "Van Halen are a time bomb just like any other great band. Not because of personalities, though, because of musical intensity."



Hagar's right. After receiving a generous preview of the forthcoming Van Halen (Van Hagar?) album – which includes the band's first ballad, Love Walks In – it can safely be said the intensity is still there. One reason is that Hagar sings better than he ever has before. But the real factor is that the three remaining members display the consistency so necessary for a Hard-Rock band to have at the time of its seventh record. Some would argue that the word 'consistency,' when applied to music, can translate into 'stagnancy.' The same old thing. To a certain extent, that is true of the new Van Halen album. The consistency is in the band's instrumental sound, save maybe the expanded role of keyboards within its driving texture. "Not expanding," Edward shrugs, "just using keyboards." A comment largely inconsistent with his actions on the 1984 tour, where he performed a guitar solo on an Oberheim OBXa, much to the chagrin of the audience.

Brother Alex Van Halen is still playing his excessively large Ludwig kit, and you may still speculate as to whether he really needs all those shells up there, or whether he is doing it for show. Though he hasn't decided what he'll take on the road this year, he recorded the new album with the Simmons SDS5 kit that he began to use two years ago. It's a double-bass-drum setup with three rack toms mounted in front and two lower toms on his right side. Alex's fills are done on 13" and 14" Ludwig acoustic toms and a 20" Ludwig floor tom, and his Paiste 2002 series cymbals include a 20" China, three 20" crashes, a 24" ride, 15" Sound Edge hi hats and a 40" gong. All hardware is by Ludwig, as are all of his heads. Alex uses a 14" x 6½" Tama Rosewood snare, and his sticks are Pro-Mark 5As.

"He loves to use these old Ghost pedals," claims his roadie, Gregg Emerson. "The company is out of business, so we stockpile them and always appreciate getting used ones as well."

Even after six world tours, some of which lasted as long as 10 months, Alex claims that "There is no better feeling than playing in front of people and watching them get off on your music.

"And," he adds grinning (and showing no noticeable signs of hearing impairment), "having a million watts of sound blasting away behind you. That's why we keep doing it."

"We're lucky because people do like what we do," add his brother, "but we never sit around trying to figure out what people will like, we try to figure out what we like."

Not that Van Halen haven't been known to pander to their mostly teenage crowd. Asked whether or not he'll be doing his famous 'Trash-My-Bass' solo this year, Michael Anthony explains that despite his desire to get across his chops first, there's always that element of showmanship: "I doubt if I'll be doing any bass trashing this year," he says. "Dave was always more into that showy stuff. This year my thing is going to be my chops and, of course, a little showmanship – you've gotta do that! A lot of those 15-year-olds don't care about anything else – they just want to see me jumping on my bass."

The bass that Anthony (rumoured last year to be joining Quiet Riot) treated so poorly on the mammoth 1984 tour was a Kramer which the company had put together for him especially for that purpose. His main rig, however, is a custom-made Yamaha BB 3000, and he is currently having two five-string models prepared for the band's upcoming tour. He's also got a new endorsement deal with MESA/Boogie. Previously an Ampeg SVT man, Anthony claims to have had it with that amp's little quirks, including the annoying habit of "clipping once they get up there," and is now using MESA/Boogie's D-180 both on stage and in the studio. His cabinets – as are Edward's – are made by an Orange County firm called Flag Systems, which loads Anthony's boxes with Gauss drivers. He also used a custom-made Schecter on the new album, and he's having that company build him a long-scale version of the guitar to take on the road. The pickups in all of his basses are Schecter split P-bass models, he uses Rotosound strings, and he still runs through the same Schaeffer-Vega wireless system he's had since 1978. Even more interesting, however, is the instrument Anthony is having Kramer and Steve Ripley build for him; a five-string stereo bass that he intends to incorporate into his onstage solo. Effects are a Yamaha delay, MXR and Electro-Harmonix flangers and a couple of old Colorsound Tonebenders, of which he says, "For cheap pieces of shit, they're great for a quick pop every now and then!" but perhaps his most interesting instrument is his Jack Daniels bass. Born of a joke, it's become one of his main guitars.

"Because I drink Jack Daniels," laughs Anthony, "everybody said I should make a bass out of the bottle, and one of our crew members and I put the thing together. The body was cut out for me by Charvel, and the hardware is from some of Kramer's old Duke basses. It really ended up as a lot of scrap from a bunch of different basses. A company called Zeta Systems made me the pickups, which go in the saddles of the bridge, and when it was done it sounded a whole lot better than I thought it would. I imagine I'll be using it again on this tour, but I'm also trying out some new things. I was using a Roland bass synthesiser a while back, and I may bring that back. Roland recently invited me to its factory to check out some of its new stuff. Since I'm going to be playing a little bit more technical music now, I might use a bass synth just to colour it up a bit."

Edward, however, will be sticking with the gear that for years has given him his self-described 'brown' sound. His main axe will be a Kramer/Eddie Van Halen bastardised block of wood he calls the 5150 guitar, with its single Gibson PAF-style pickup, single volume control, Floyd Rose tremolo, Schaller machines and extra-light Fender XL strings, which he boils before installing. His main amp remains a 100-watt Marshall with Celestion drivers. Van Halen's also been making use of his Ripley stereo guitar – "the fourth one ever made, the real super-duper model" – which he used on Top Jimmy on 1984 and he recently ordered his third Steinberger guitar, featuring that company's new transposing tremolo system. His main keyboard is still the OBXa, and his effects include MXR's Phase 90, flanger, echo and Micro-amp, an ADA preamp, a Roland DC30, and he plays live through a Nady FM wireless-system.

Perhaps Roth's temporary decision not to comment – a rarity – on what happened is the greatest indicator that the split wasn't quite as amicable as Edward claims. There are also the stories that have been passed about Alex becoming furious over Roth's succesful 1985 Top 10 solo EP, Crazy From the Heat, to fire up your imagination. And you can add to that Alex's curt dismissal of the subject: "We prefer not to talk about the past because it's a waste of time," he says, "and Van Halen have never been better. End of interview.

"I think that people are going to look at anything we do in some kind of comparison to what the previous Van Halen was," continues the 30-year-old drummer, who began his musical career strumming an acoustic guitar while Edward earned money from a paper route to buy himself a drum kit. "We are not making a conscious effort to go in a different direction, to say, 'Hey, this is the real Van Halen.' We're just making music without trying to maintain or change anything."

"Getting Sammy in the band is like a breath of fresh air," sighs Anthony. "All of us get along so well, it's become difficult to get any recording done, because we just like to hang out and have a good time. It has also brought about a renewed friendship among me, Al and Ed; everything is a lot looser and more comfortable. With Dave it was always like, 'Grrr, we will do this or that now, and you gotta be punctual and you gotta do this then and be there now...' He would make us go out and buy these clothes for that photo session. Now we can just be ourselves. The music is better – shit – the whole thing is just a whole lot better!"

Edward?

He smirks. "We're all becoming actors."