Expert: Andrea Murphy Date: 11/8/2004 Subject: Van Halen II
Question Hi Andrea I'm researching for an album feature that I do on my station Q92. This coming weekend is Van Halen II, and I could use your expertise on anything at all regarding the album, the band, and any stories in 79 regarding the tour or recording of II.
Hope you can help a brother out.
Answer Hey Brett!
Prepare for some info!
Van Halen II was recorded in 6 days (a week after the first VH tour ended)
Released on 3/23/1979
Reached #6 on the US charts
Hit gold status on 4/3/79
Platinum on 5/8/79
Has sold around 6 million total at this point
2 stories about the cover and liner
David Lee Roth broke his foot during a photo shoot for the back cover. He leapt 3 times, landed badly the third time and broke his right foot. That last shot made the back cover. If you have any access to an album with the inner sleeve, you can see him bandaged up a few days later.
If you look in the liner notes, you'll see that the band thanks the Sheraton in Madison WI. They trashed the 7th floor of that hotel during the first tour. Fire extinguisher fights, TVs and furniture out the windows. Alex Van Halen used to like gluing people's door knobs shut or putting vaseline on the door knobs so people couldn't turn them. They blamed the whole thing on their headliner...Journey.
Dance the Night Away and Beautiful Girls were the singles.
The tour was called the "World Vacation" tour. It started 3/25/79 and lasted until 10/7/79 and hit the US, Europe, and Japan. Eight stage barricades were destroyed in the first 6 weeks of the tour.
During this tour Alex VH retired his original pyrotechnics. This consisted of dousing his drum heads in lighter fluid then hitting them with lit mallets. He lit himself on fire one night due to excees lighter fluid and lost a good deal of his hair as a result.
The band played the California World Music fest on 4/8/79. Aerosmith, Toto, UFO, Cheap Trick, Ted Nugent were all on the bill. Van Halen showed up with 300 "guests" in a convoy of 16 white limos. A chimp dressed like DLR accompanied by 2 little bodyguards greeted the guests as they entered.
Dave collapsed due to a stomach ailment and exhaustion during the Spokane WA show 5 days later. Too much partying in my opinion.
I hope this helps! E-mail me if you need more and have fun spinning that CD!
