| AL, MIKE, GARY INTERVIEW
Interview by Jeff Hausman, Jon Zahlaway & Brad Starks.
Edited by Jon Zahlaway
Here's a small excerpt from one of the many interviews we conducted at 5150 studios for Issue 10! Enjoy! Inside: What old songs do you think you're going to play this time? Gary: Me and Mike have been going over stuff. Mike: Oh man, it's kind of hard because we haven't really collectively, all four of us, gone over the songs. Gary's showed me things that he's written out and there's some pretty tasty old stuff on there that I wouldn't mind playing at all. Gary: Obviously, you can't play it all, but I picked out some stuff that I showed Mike. It's a fine line you gotta draw. You don't want to play the obvious but you don't want to ignore it. Mike: You don't want to make it seem like "Van Halen Plays Their Greatest Hits From Their First Album..." Gary: "...Greatest Obscure Hits." We'll do "Panama," the "Ain't Talin' 'Bout Love," the gems. Mike: I mean, he had stuff (written down) like "Romeo Delight," "I'm The One," "Beautiful Girls," to name a few. Inside: That's exactly what people want to hear. Gary: People ask, "What's the production going to be like? What's the stage going to look like? To me that's all--it doesn't matter. It's going to be the old songs. Granted, it's a  new band and we want to push the new songs, but I think the highlight is going to be the old shit, and I got no problem doing it because I'm a fan of that stuff. Inside: The fans are going to be so stoked to see you guys live and hear these old songs that haven't been played in so long. It's great that you recognize that the band has its history of all these great songs and you're eager to go out and perform them. You'll be a hero. The fans are just going to go ballistic. That's one complaint I've heard from a lot of fans: "It's always the same four Dave era songs every tour." Alex: That's right. Well, how do you think we felt? (laughter) I'm serious. Mike: Before every tour, I remember myself writing out lyrics to different old songs that we would end up not doing. Inside: Well, obviously Sammy wasn't comfortable singing a lot of the older songs. Was it a group thing where you just said, "Okay, well, yeah, let's just concentrate on the Sammy-era," or did he say he wasn't comfortable so you said "Well, okay, we won't do them"? Alex: It was the second. You have to have a certain amount of respect for everybody in here. There's a certain point where it's no longer respect, it's that you feel like your being manipulated, and enough is enough. There's only so much you can do. What are you going to do, just throw him out in the fucking middle of the stage and say, "Do it or else"--or else what? I'm serious, you know? You become very childish. There is no rhyme or reason for it. It's better left that way. The fact is we're here now and now we can go on and do these things. Inside: An aspect of the live show that we love is when you guys jam together on songs such as "Pleasure Dome" and "Sunday Afternoon in the Park," which you did a couple of tours ago. Are you guys gonna do other stuff like that, just jammin' an instrumental? Mike: I don't know; we really haven't given it too much thought. Alex: Once you get in the middle of playing the whole two hours--'cause we do these things called rehearsals, you know?--you kind of get a feel for it. Besides, it can change any night. I know it sounds like I'm not taking you seriously, and you're partially right, because you can grind this thing to death to try to put a two-and-a-half hour thing of music together and you may never be happy with it. In reality, it's going to change night to night anyway. Especially this time. This time we have the oppurtunity to play from the previous records going back to '78, so there's a lot of ground to cover, a lot of history and a lot of songs that I think the audience was denied for a number of years. Inside: Denied for a long time. Alex: Yeah, and that's no longer going to be the case. Inside: That's great. Alex: Yeah, it opens a whole new door. Inside: We're so excited to hear the brand new stuff and the really old stuff, because we've heard the middle forever, you know? The Sammy-era. Alex: Uh-huh. You're absolutely right. Inside: I went to a soundcheck on the Balance tour when you guys were playing "Romeo Delight." Alex: Sure! It's music, you know? To not play those songs is kind of like denying their existence. Inside: It's part of your history. Alex: That's right. Inside: The doors are all open. Alex: That's right. And it's great. Inside: Not only just to play the old songs again, but to get the word out that you are playing them, because I think a lot of fans who aren't going to the shows have given up on you guys playing any old stuff. They might not know that your about to unleash the old stuff. Alex: Well, it's time to get the word out. Gary: It'll probably be the most fun part of the night, you know? It'll wind up second nature for these guys, and for me it will be... Alex: TelePrompTer time. (laughter) Inside: A lot of the fans that have become fans of the band since Sammy was in the band never got to experience those songs live. Gary: Absolutely. That's a whole generation. Alex: I can take it a step furthur; we were on a stadium tour in Europe in '95 and I  couldn't believe--I thought some people were pulling our leg, but-- there were people who would walk up and say "Do you have any records beside Balance?" Gary: That's a trip. Inside: It's wild when somebbody just gets exposed to one album and doesn't know the whole back catalog. Gary: It's funny. For example, new Aerosmith versus old Aerosmith; I talked to a lot of people when we were on tour with Aerosmith and they wanted them to play "Angel" and all this stuff and then when they would play an old gem--"Mama Kin"-- there'd be silence in the audience and I'm going, "Fuck, are you kidding me?" Mike: The crowd thinks they're playing a new song. Inside: That's wild. I just saw them over the summer; they pulled out some old stuff and you could see half the crowd go, "Yeah!" and the other half doesn't know what's going on. Mike: We're going to turn a lot of our fans on to the earlier albums. Inside: I'm sure you noticed the reaction on the Balance tour when Ed would go into the "Mean Streets" intro for 30 seconds and everybody would jusy go "Yeah!" Mike: Or when we played a little bit of "Runnin' With The Devil." Yeah. Inside: Speaking of playing live, the shows during the Balance tour were, on average, almost two hours long every night. Will it be the same this time or maybe a little bit longer because you have this new, younger front-man? Gary: What're you, fuckin' crazy? (laughter) Mike: I think it all depends on how long Gary's throat will hold out. (laughter) NOTE: This is only a small portion of this interview | 
