Cries from the Quiet World: Van Halen "A Different Kind of Truth"

lunes, 22 de mayo de 2017

Van Halen "A Different Kind of Truth"

A Different Kind of Truth is the twelfth studio album by American hard rock band Van Halen. Released on February 7, 2012, by Interscope Records, the record is Van Halen's first full-length album of studio material with former lead singer David Lee Roth since 1984. Likewise, it is Van Halen's first studio album since 1998's Van Halen III. It is the first to feature Eddie Van Halen's son Wolfgang on bass guitar, replacing Michael Anthony, who had played bass on all of Van Halen's previous albums.

A Different Kind of Truth was recorded at Henson Recording Studios and Eddie Van Halen's own 5150 Studios and produced by John Shanks. Seven of the album's thirteen songs are musically re-worked and lyrically re-written songs that had been demoed in the late-1970s/early 1980s, but never officially released. The album received positive reviews upon release, with several writers referring to it as a return to form, and multiple publications ranked it as one of the best albums of 2012. It was also a commercial success, debuting in the top ten on numerous record charts. It debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 and, by the end of 2012, had sold in excess of 411,000 copies in the United States alone. The album was promoted with an arena tour.

In 2007, Van Halen reunited with original lead singer David Lee Roth – who had left the band in April 1985, at the peak of their global popularity – for a North American Tour. This tour added bassist Wolfgang Van Halen, the then-16-year-old son of guitarist Eddie Van Halen and actress Valerie Bertinelli, forcing out original bassist Michael Anthony, who would go on to form both Chickenfoot and The Circle with Van Halen's second lead singer, Sammy Hagar. The reunion tour consisted of 74 shows from September 2007 to June 2008, and became the band's highest-grossing tour of its thirty-year history, earning over $93 million. Eddie Van Halen was reluctant about the possibility of recording new material with Roth in 2009, citing the poor reaction to the three new songs recorded with Hagar for the 2004 compilation Best of Both Worlds. After Wolfgang became enthusiastic about recording a new Van Halen album, Eddie's opinion changed: "We're doing this [album] for us."

Eddie, Wolfgang and Alex Van Halen began jam sessions at the former's 5150 Studios three months after the tour's completion. During this time, Wolfgang discovered rough, unreleased demos from the band's archives. After listening to these and believing they had potential, he brought them to Alex and Eddie to rework and refine. The first of these tracks, "She's the Woman," was completed by August 2009. It had originally been demoed by the band in the mid-1970s. Roth decided to join the project after hearing this song, as well as two other reworked tracks: "Let's Get Rockin'" – later renamed "Outta Space" – and "Bullethead."

Wolfgang's original intention with the album was to create a collection of previously released b-sides along with three reworked demos, with Eddie saying: "It would [have been] a record of our more hardcore songs and none of the pop stuff. That was the initial plan, but the deeper we dug, the more we found. At the same time I was writing new songs. Dave got very excited about that. We all did. We ended up recording demos for 35 songs." After deliberating over whether to self-produce the album or choose a producer from a list that included Rick Rubin and Pat Leonard, Roth suggested John Shanks. Shanks liked the first three songs, and agreed to produce the album, working alongside Wolfgang to pick the demos that would be developed into the album's tracks. While all of Van Halen's albums since 1984 had been produced inside 5150, Roth persuaded the band to work at Henson Recording Studios—where he had been recording for more than a decade.

By mid-January 2011, the band had moved into Henson Studios with Shanks, staff engineer Martin Cooke and engineer Paul David Hager. The band would record music for 12 hours a day, five days a week, with Roth coming in to track his vocals at night. The instrumental tracks were completed within three weeks. Eddie said that he was relieved to relinquish some of the production work to his son, who was considered by the band to be acting in a co-production role: frequently talking to Shanks, being consulted by his father on the musical direction and developing the songs. Along with creating new bits, such as a new breakdown on "She's the Woman"—as the original ended up being used on Fair Warning's (1981) "Mean Street"—and an arrangement for "Stay Frosty," Wolfgang improvised some bass sections, such as the capo intro to "Chinatown."

By the end of March 2011, the band returned to finish the record at 5150 with engineer Ross Hogarth. Most of the work at 5150 was for guitars and bass, as Eddie "couldn't hear them at Henson the way I'm used to." Both he and Hogarth felt that attempts at mixing there were not progressing due to sound-quality issues. Eddie attributed this to the tape machines at Henson, claiming that: "Everything ended up sounding like it had a sock over it." The final mix took place over a period of six weeks in the summer of 2011, with each song taking a day to mix. Hogarth indicated that because the process was done at a mixing console, "We couldn't move on to the next song until a mix had been approved by everyone and could go off the desk." Hogarth would start with the drums, adding bass and guitar to finish a backing track, which would be complemented with multing (hiving off different sections of a given part to different tracks) and parallel compression. It was then finished by bringing in Roth's vocals, backing vocals, and further details such as ad libs, screams and guitar solos.

Hogarth aimed to "bring Ed's guitar sound into the modern era, but maintaining all the DNA of the past." He suggested that the guitar sound be split naturally between stereo channels, instead of separating lead guitar to the left channel and panning effects to the right by using two guitar amplifiers placed far apart. The idea was to have a guitar sound "that was wide and mono, and not digital delay-driven, and it's what you hear on the record, with only a few overdubs." A more-complex structure would be utilized for Wolfgang's bass, as the band wanted "a bass sound that covered the whole spectrum, from high to low and clean to dirty," and his instrument was recorded by up to eight separate microphones. A multi-mic set-up was also employed for Alex's drums, with most of the final drumming coming from overhead microphones. Roth's vocals were all recorded at Henson, without compression.

A Different Kind of Truth was described by Roth as "a sort of collaboration with [Van Halen's] past." Seven of the album's tracks are based on material which Roth suggested dated back to between 1975 and 1977, whilst Eddie indicated that others had been composed "when I was still in high school and even junior high." "Blood and Fire" dates back to 1984. An instrumental version of the song, titled "Ripley," appeared in Eddie's score for the film The Wild Life. The original title had been inspired by the Ripley guitar used by Eddie on the demo, and he sent that guitar back to Steve Ripley for repair so that it could be used on the album version.

Roth rewrote the lyrics for most tracks, as he wanted to incorporate a point of view from his current personal life. He declared that: "All music is autobiographic. Particularly when it's not meant to be," adding that by retooling the songs "there is a body of new that meets halfway there, that I think makes very colorful sense." Only lead single "Tattoo" contains a synthesizer, which was played by Roth. Two other songs, "You and Your Blues" and "As Is," have a processed guitar that sounds like a synth. Roth also performs acoustic guitar on the intro for "Stay Frosty"—a song he had written which was re-arranged by Wolfgang. Among the effects units used by Eddie on the album were his signature model MXR Phase 90, a Whammy pedal, and a Wah-wah pedal. The latter is prominently featured on the "kind of Hendrix-ish" "The Trouble with Never."

Van Halen amicably split from long-time label Warner Bros. Records in 2002, although they would later sign a one-record deal with the label shortly afterwards for the 2004 release The Best of Both Worlds. The band briefly entered into negotiations with Columbia Records, but these stalled after Roth indicated he would not sign with the label. In November 2011, the band signed with Interscope Records, after its chairman Jimmy Iovine became personally involved in negotiations.

"Tattoo" was released as the album's lead single on January 10, 2012. One day after its release on iTunes, it was the No. 1 selling rock song in the United States, Canada, Finland and the Netherlands, while also charting in Sweden, Belgium, Germany and the UK. By January 23, the song peaked at No. 1 on Billboard's Hard Rock Singles chart, becoming the No. 1 most played song at classic rock radio, as well as the most added song at mainstream and active rock radio. Two days later, excerpts of both "Tattoo" and "Stay Frosty" were featured on CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.

The record was released on February 7, 2012 in both standard and deluxe edition versions, with the latter containing a bonus DVD titled The Downtown Sessions. This DVD included acoustic versions of "Panama," "You and Your Blues" and "Beautiful Girls." A performance of "You Really Got Me" from this acoustic session was posted online to promote the album. A double gatefold vinyl edition of the album was sold exclusively through Live Nation Entertainment. On February 28, "She's the Woman" was serviced to radio as the second single. Its music video was released online on April 13, and on May 4 a promotional vinyl 7" single was serviced to 83 independent record stores to be given with purchases of A Different Kind of Truth. The band members opted to avoid excessive promotional press, an attitude that Roth described as "a sterling statement" on them not following "so many people on television telling you why you should buy something".

The cover artwork was designed by Los Angeles-based Smog Design, following a concept sent by Roth. Smog co-owner John Heiden picked the image, featuring a New York Central Railroad J-3A Dreyfuss Hudson steam locomotive, photographed by Robert Yarnall Richie, from the Southern Methodist University's photo library, stating he chose it because "Richie's angle on the photo makes it look like the locomotive is in motion and coming off the page." Aside from the reversed angle of the train, the artwork shares similarities to the 1975 Commodores album Movin' On. The booklet includes Roth's hand-written lyrics for the songs. Regarding the title, Eddie stated that he liked it because "there's always their reality of what other people think, and there's just the different kind of truth, which is the real truth."

After performing three warm-up shows at Cafe Wha? in New York City, Henson Studios in Hollywood, California, and The Forum in Inglewood, California, Van Halen began their A Different Kind of Truth Tour in Louisville, Kentucky on February 18. This tour consisted of 46 shows, ending on June 26 in New Orleans, and was the eighth-most-lucrative concert tour of 2012, with a total gross of $54,425,548 and attendance of 522,296. A second North American leg was cancelled, with the band claiming exhaustion. This was followed by the postponement of three Japanese concerts, as Eddie underwent emergency surgery to treat diverticulitis.

In 2013, Van Halen performed the rescheduled Japanese concerts, along with headlining gigs at three festivals: Stone Music Festival in Sydney (the band's first concert in Australia since 1998), Rock USA at Ford Festival Park in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, and the California Mid-State Fair in Paso Robles.

Track listing

All tracks written by Van Halen/Roth.