The impact and influence of Van Halen’s debut album was nothing short of phenomenal – with Eddie Van Halen revolutionising the art of rock guitar playing with a level of technique and innovation not heard since Hendrix. But as Van Halen’s bassist Michael Anthony stated, EVH continued to experiment long after that debut album was released in 1978.
In an interview with Classic Rock in 2010, Anthony celebrated the 30th anniversary of Van Halen’s third album Women And Children First – a fan favourite featuring some of the band’s most powerful songs and some of Eddie’s most explosive performances.
Released on 26 March 1980, Women And Children First was recorded at Sunset Sound studios in Hollywood with producer Ted Templeman, who worked on all six albums from the band’s first era with singer David Lee Roth between 1978 and 1984.
Michael Anthony told Classic Rock that some of the material the band recorded in 1980 had actually been written back in the mid-’70s.
“When we made Women And Children First, there was still some material we were using from our original demos,” Anthony said. “Take Your Whiskey Home, I always loved that song, and that was written even before I was in the band – that’s how far back that song goes.
“In A Simple Rhyme and Fools – those were songs from our demo sessions for the first record. We took little parts from old songs and expanded them.”
It is widely reported that Women And Children First was recorded in just two weeks. Legend also has that the preceding album, 1979’s Van Halen II, was cut in a mere six days.
Anthony confirmed: “In the early years of Van Halen, pretty much everything happened quick. We’d always go into the studio as a band and record together, record live in the studio, and a lot of ideas would come out then.
“We never took a lot of time actually recording an album until the 1984 album. The record company always wanted us back out on the road, so we’d barely finish an album and we’d be back out on tour.”
Anthony hailed one song from Women And Children First as a perfect example of Eddie Van Halen’s experimental approach – the album’s opening track, And The Cradle Will Rock…
“Eddie was always experimenting with different stuff,” he said. “When we did And The Cradle Will Rock… all of a sudden keyboards entered the mix, but it didn’t sound like a keyboard because Eddie played this cheap little Wurlitzer just blazing through Marshalls.
“It wasn’t like he was trying to make any kind of a keyboard sound, but growing up as a keyboard player he was always messing around with them. We heard it and said, 'Wow, this was something different!’”
Van Halen News Desk has recollections from Eddie Van Halen about this song.
“That was the first time I played keyboards in the studio,” Eddie said. “A lot of people don’t know that because it doesn’t really sound like a keyboard.
“I had an old Wurlitzer electric piano and I pumped it through my Marshalls. I just pounded on the lower registers and put it through an MXR flanger to get that weird sound.
“Ted [Templeman] said, ‘Wow! What the hell is that?’ ‘Oh, nothing. Just me screwing around.’ So we recorded it.”
Famously, Eddie’s use of keyboards met with resistance from David Lee Roth.
“That was my first encounter with the band not wanting me to play keyboards," Eddie said. “They didn’t want a guitar hero playing keyboards on stage. When we did the song live, Mike [Anthony] played it.”
Eddie also revealed the inspiration for his solo in this song.
“The solo is unusual,” he said. “I do one short lick that’s very spontaneous. It came out because I had been listening to Allan Holdsworth, who I think is the baddest. This was a first take – a bunch of songs on that album were first takes.”
And The Cradle Will Rock… was the only single lifted from Women And Children First. It was not a hit, peaking at No.55 in the US.
But as Michael Anthony put it to Classic Rock: “We never wrote with singles in mind. We considered ourselves an album band. It wasn’t until Jump that we had a gold single.”
Anthony named his favourite song on Women And Children First: “Romeo Delight was like a steamroller coming right at you,” he said. “When we toured we started the set with that – it was right in your face.”
He revealed how a female backing singer ended up on a Van Halen album for the first and only time in the band’s career.
“Ted Templeman was dating a girl called Nicolette Larson. She was a backup singer, and she was hanging out in the studio, so she sang on Could This Be Magic?”
And to finish, Anthony confirmed what most Van Halen fans always knew.
“It was party time in the studio,” he said. “When we went in there, we tried to make the least amount of work of it as we could.
“We partied all the time in the studio – that was one thing there was no lack of!”
You must confirm your public display name before commenting
Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.