Everybody Wants Some by Ian Christe

enough that Alex later claimed to have convinced Eddie to keep Van Halen together. “On the whole album I was angry, frustrated, and loose,” Eddie admitted. It was a dark time for him personally.
    Consequently, Fair Warning was a major departure from the playfulness of Women and Children First . Before work began in the winter of early 1981, Roth had spent a few royalty checks for a glamorous jungle adventure to Haiti and had been punched with an emaciated paw in his conscience. He saw poverty and corruption in doses unavailable in Pasadena or Indiana, and he came back to the fractious Van Halen camp ready for a revolution of his own.
    The record brought back the dynamics of the debut album, the silences and rhythm-section showcases that formed the full heavy metal machine. At the same time, it was much denser. Musically, almost every song had thick overdubs on the rhythm and lead guitar tracks, and the band recorded using smaller studio amps to control the sound instead of capturing it directly from typical high-decibel stage rigs. The sunshine backing vocals were held to a minimum.
    The album cover was also odd, a collection of drawings of violent street situations, each panel loosely corresponding to a song on the album. The images were chosen and arranged by Van Halen’s lighting designer turned all-purpose creative director, Pete Angelus, based on paintings by troubled Canadian-Ukrainian prairie artist William Kurelek. Alex had discovered the paintings, and instead of a collage he initially was interested in only one image: a man ramming his head into a wall.
    This tough fourth album declared the band’s reign over the rising tide of heavy music. They were pictured uncharacteristically wearing black leather, nodding to the British metal sound just arriving in the United States. Yet Van Halen remained wary of the term “heavy metal.” They had Americanized heavy metal, styling their hair and projecting exuberance and confidence instead of the dour attitudes of their European counterparts. As Roth said, “This is not like Judas Priest and Black Sabbath—that’s for young boys. I maintain that Van Halen is for everybody.”

    Oozing with menace, Fair Warning was the closest Van Halen ever came to a thematic concept album, a suite of songs about life in the ruts. The opening cut, “Mean Street,” became an anthem. Beginning with Eddie’s fast-motion slapping pattern on high and low E strings, a technique he adapted from funk bass, the track stepped into skid-row territory instead of strolling down Main Street. The main riff was lifted from the band’s midseventies staple “Voodoo Queen,” while the funky transitional riff came from “She’s the Woman.” Now past the point of reusing old songs, Eddie was chopping and rearranging the hot moments of his back catalog.
    Fair Warning was a masterpiece made in the studio, not honed like past albums in the clubs before recording. While demoing the song as a work in progress, Dave slurred the lyrics in a monotonous jive, hustling the band toward a bang-up heavy metal can-can finale, far flashier than anything used on the album.
    Eddie again picked up a guitar slide for “Dirty Movies,” though he had trouble reaching the high notes on his SG-shaped Gibson Les Paul Junior. Ever one to bend his tools to fit his needs, he sawed a chunk off the vintage guitar so he could play the song the way he thought it should sound.
    Eddie claimed “Push Comes to Shove” was a nod to dub reggae, instigated by Roth. If so, the template for dread-rock fusion was years ahead of similar sultry tracks by Rastafarian punks Bad Brains or the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
    Saved as a big punch for the start of side two, “Unchained” was the biggest riff since “Runnin’ with the Devil”—a barrel-chested headbanger built on crunchy guitar, Roth’s screams, and a plowing bass line that left Michael Anthony free for high-pitched backing vocals. At the end of the guitar solo, the band