Alex Van Halen may not have played much on one of the band’s last albums. In a recent conversation with TheBlueGrassSituation, the legendary Mike Post was asked a ton of questions about his career as a musician. This included his friendship with Eddie Van Halen.
It was noted that Post and Van Halen were friends before producing Van Halen III. Post compared Van Halen to historical musical geniuses like Mozart and Earl Scruggs, noting how Van Halen, like them, brought a revolutionary approach to his craft that changed everything.
Let’s be honest. Eddie Van Halen is not the first martian that landed on the face of the planet, okay? Look at Mozart! Fast forward… how did Earl Scruggs sit there and go… [imitates the banjo]. Every once in a while, a genius shows up and changes everything.
Their friendship evolved into a creative partnership when Van Halen approached Post for help with a project. Despite Post’s lack of experience with drugs, Van Halen wanted to create music without their influence, leading Post to question his role as both producer and sober mentor in a pretty hilarious way.
After becoming friends, Eddie turned to me and he said, “Hey, will you help me with something?” I said, “Sure. What?” And he said, “I’d like to do one sober.”
I’ve never done any drugs. And Eddie knew that. So he said, you know, you can help me do this without any substance.
And I went, am I producing an album or am I the sergeant at arms at the door? Am I your sponsor? And he goes, man, I don’t know, both? And I went, all right, F***it. Let’s go.
Regarding the Van Halen III album, it is to be noted that the album barely uses Michael Anthony on bass guitar. In fact, Anthony only played bass on “Without You”, “One I Want” & “Fire in the Hole”; Eddie Van Halen actually recorded bass for the rest of the album tracks that feature bass.
Mike Post revealed that Alex Van Halen was going through a horrible time in his personal life, which is why he was not involved in Van Halen III as Eddie Van Halen played everything.
Basically all I did was get out of the way. It’s not a very good album. It’s nobody’s fault. It was an experiment. Unfortunately, [Alex Van Halen] was going through a terrible time in his life. So Al didn’t play on that. Eddie played everything. It just didn’t have magic. That’s all.
In related news, Eddie Van Halen was also once rejected by Nirvana, which is a very bizarre thing to think about even now.
