Van Halen III - Ten Years On

“Classic Van Halen wanted you to drink, dance and F**k, current Van Halen advises you to drive a Nissan and maintain a relationship”. David Lee Roth made this cheesy remark about Van Halen’s darkest album, Van Halen 3. 
Fans felt that its the only Van Halen record that deserves to be trampled underfoot.

1998 is the year and Van Halen are back with a dozen stories, of sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll…not! 
Eddie, Alex and Michael, the trio remain the same, they rope in Boston’s blue eyed operatic soul singer, Gary Cherone.
1998 was also the time where bands in the US were fading out, hair metal bands singing their own dirges and digging their own graves. Van Halen could have picked any of the run of the mill singers from bands like Motley Crue, Warrant, Tesla, Poison, Et Al, but Cherone landed the gig.

Van Halen was the band that played Rock ‘n’ Roll with a broad smile, filled with sexual innuendo, but here was Gary Cherone who was at the height of his Christian fervour and had previously headlined arenas with Extreme singing songs of a God shaped vaccum, ‘Hole Hearted’ and ‘God Is’nt Dead’ from the 1993 conceptual (almost Christian) album ‘III Sides to Every Story’

But THEY don’t like it, the old school VH fans hated this configuration! Come on, THEY thought Sammy Hagar was unfit even after successful albums like, 5150, Balance, F.U.C.K and OU812.

Anyways, apart from the sex and the Jack Daniels, Its official that the Brothers Halen and Michael Anthony are mad about the music on stage/in the studio and Van Halen 3 is probably their best studio production till date. Eddie plays an acoustic guitargasm ‘Neworld’ using passages from the corresponding track ‘Without You’, innovative totally. Michael seems like he took some lessons from an intensive bass boot camp, resulting in some groovy-bottom-end-phrasing. Alex’s crisp drumming can be distinctly heard on each track, its a lot different and better than old school Van Halen. Keyboards/ Piano, Edward Van Halen has always been a genius and does show off his ebony and ivory chops on the closing track ‘How Many Say I’.

Gary Cherone was raised on opera and Freddie Mercury and one can hear those shades all through the tunes…’Josephina’ and ‘How Many Say I’ being the finest examples.

“Returning home of the prodigal, holding the intangible, 
To believe in a miracle, believe it, can you believe it” - Once

” I don’t wanna find religion, or another man’s opinion
Can’t choose whats not my decision, when there’s only one under the sun ” - Dirty Water Dog

” There must be some kind of way that we can make it right
  But i, i just can’t do it all without you, without you ” - Without You

Van Halen 3 is dark, but sophisticated, profound yet an intricate collection of songs, it was also the first time in Van Halen history that the lyrics came before the music, unlike the previous records where the music came first. 
Cherone wrote all of the lyrics for Van Halen 3.
Being a devout Christian, Cherone brought songs of grace and a positive attitude towards life. Probably the reason for the album’s let down, the themes did’nt sync with the image of the band.
Cherone got fired soon after the album’s failure and the band hasn’t done anything significant after Van halen 3, their comeback tour in 2007 didn’t do any wonders either, but thats a different story.

Its hard to believe Van Halen songs with deep themes as these, fresh and soothing, but the album failed, quite miserably. Maybe people wanted to hear radio friendly music with whammy bar dives and “reach down, between my legs….oooohhhh” and “gotta bleed for it baby” lyrics. Maybe fans are right when they said that its worthy of being trampled underfoot, but probably it wasn’t made for the fans. Maybe David Lee Roth was right, but hey, isn’t life great driving a Nissan and maintaining a relationship?

Van Halen 3 is great story on record that needs to be heard, over and over again, IMHO.