1982 Eddie Van Halen defends Diver Down: "They're good f**kin' songs..." (phone interview)
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- Опубліковано 9 лют 2025
- July 30, 1982 - a couple weeks into the tour for Diver Down, Eddie talks to Jas Obrecht for Guitar Player Magazine. Ed talks about the new album and defends all the cover songs ...
"They're good fuckin' songs, why shouldn't they be redone the way we do 'em for a new generation of people" ...
"I don't think any cover tune we've ever done sounds like the original. It takes almost as much time to make a cover tune sound original as it does writing a song. -- so fuck the critics!"
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38 years later, couldn't agree more with Eddie. Diver Down is an amazing Van Halen record on par with the others that gets dogged far too often for the cover tunes. A fun, summertime Van Halen extravaganza. A big part of Van Halen was their fun, party vibe and this is their most fun, party vibe album ever recorded.
4 of their coolest original songs (Hang Em High, Secrets!, Little Guitars, The Full Bug)
3 amazing & innovative Eddie instrumental pieces
Plus a handful of fun cover tunes that were totally Van Halen-ized including Ed and Al's dad playing on a song and a Van Halen concert staple with "Happy Trails" that was played on every show from 1982-1984.
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This is Gold after he’s gone. He was a huge part of my 80’s. Rest In Peace EVH 🎸
That was the album that got me into VH,I remember being in Wildwood NJ on the boardwalk in 82 and hearing Secrets blaring and I LOVED it,I was 10
For me also the late 70s, '77,'78,79, six albums great.
“It chopped his finger off” “uh huh”
I love Diver Down.
Doing covers in no way made me feel that they can't write originals, since their originals were obviously ground breaking, sold millions, and changed rock and roll. They were just fun, and I loved their versions.
Diver down is a treasure
.EDDIE VAN HALEN FOREVER❤❤
Forget the critics! It's the fans that matter! Miss you Eddie!🎸
I still think to this day Ed and Dave really loved each other, despite all the crap/drama about then later when Sam joined. 😊
100% DLR/ED had a lot of love & respect for each other. But had that love/hate relationship and ego/power struggle at times.
DLR was and is one of the weirdest dudes on the planet who entertains himself very much. I am sure he is hard to take over long stretches.
Diver Down is a great album, period.
Big Bad Bill really showed me the real dianamics between Dave and the band. He showed them that song, and THEY wanted to do it. And DAVE had the idea to put the brothers father on the record, immortalized him forever. No one can take that away, and it was Dave's idea. Dave was always all about the band. Unfortunately anger and the media caused Eddie to stab Dave in the back. Later he would go on to say the covers were Dave's idea, and he didn't want to do them. As you can hear now, that wasn't true.
But man I miss Eddie. Still shocked my idol is gone.
Truth
That was one good thing Dave accomplished...Getting JAN on the record. Sure . Ed didn't really 'stab him in the back' though....It was much more complex that. Plus I don't know if Ed changed his story in the way you suggest or whether when he gave this interview he was just towing the party line with the band but was secretly frustrated. We dont really know either way.
He liked the covers and defended them… and we liked them too… 😊
All the posts about ED not liking Diver Down and how Dave pushed Ed to do the album now can be put to rest.
This is like a nightclub show-theme album . I wasn't disappointed .
Never heard this. Awesome. Thanks!
WOW...😮
First album I ever recorded off the radio on a cheap TDK sounded awful but it was mine haha…
Van Halen The most ultimate Rock Band of all time R.I.P EVH
It's nice hearing Ed not shitting on it the way he did in public after Roth left.
Ed definitely had 2 sides to his mouth.
absolutely... Most fans only cite his negative comments much later, which was really him using it to attack DLR and Ted Templeman years later
they should have filmed themselves doing Big Bad Bill. That would have been an amazing video.
Would've been cool to see Jan Van Halen playin' the clarinet solo on video. Big Bad Bill was as far away as Pluto when it comes to the rest of the VH catalog - and I always loved it. Same for Happy Trails.
@@SilentKnight43 no true. Van Halen always had silly songs on their Albums. VAn Halen one had " Ice Cream Man" " Women n' children First had" Could This be Magic" to name a few
Diver Down is a masterpiece. As great as all the others.
Little guitars, The full bug, Hang em high and Secrets are great but as great as the others? No even close!
What a cool interview clip and such a great story about their dad playing on the record. I've yet to meet anyone who doesn't think DD is an AWESOME and very fun album. True VH fans knew what was up from the day it came out!
Eddie: We like to do do the cover tunes so they don't sound like the originals. Interviewer: Yeah Eddie: Fuck the critics. Interviewer: So Pretty Woman is a pretty straight forward cover.....
😆
I love that album growing up on it made me bang on phone books and Pringle cans to practice my drumming
Every cover on DD is better than the original, and every original song on it is awesome. Hang 'Em High...Secrets...Little Guitars....etc.
There are great tunes and great covers on this album. Hang Em High may be one of his top solos and VH songs period.
1982 was 41 years ago!!!!!!!!!!!! wtf
I knew he was gonna say what he said - the arrangement of DITS is a masterpiece , especially the rhythm of the Moog : it’s a solid GROOVE and the solo is excellent
I was 10 when 1984 came out and I got hooked as soon as I heard Jump. That was my first recollection of VH. I got the cassette and I wore it out. I wanted to be Top Jimmy when I grew up! The next VH cassette I got was Diver Down and I fell in love with that album right away as well. Fuck the critics.
Thanks for uploading this!
You were born in 1874?
thing is they had a lot songs that were good that were theirs and never released i don't know why
When The Mighty VAN HALEN covered a song...you never needed to hear the original.
True!!
Still profoundly missed..
I always thought Edwards guitar style is him copying his father's clarinet. I'm taking about the leads. If you could isolate his father and run it through Ed's amp it you would understand.
Of course he’d defend the album the year it’s released, because he wanted it to sell. Though I remember a 1990 interview he did for a guitar magazine where he identified Diver Down as his least favorite VH album because of all the covers.
I know. You know?
It really depended on the day of the week.How he felt about that record. Because after dave , he said he hated it same with alex. 🤷♂️. They both have spoken about hating that record.
Sounds like he's trying to defend Van Halen while not really liking the album. It was a good album.