“I thought, ‘There must be three guitar players playing this stuff’”: Gene Simmons remembers the first time he heard Van Halen live
Gene Simmons has reflected on the first time he saw Van Halen live, and the lengths he went to in an attempt to bring the band under his production company’s wing.
Appearing on the Adam Carolla Show, the Kiss bassist recalls being mesmerised by the magic of Van Halen’s sound from the moment he heard them. “All of a sudden, I hear something symphonic,” he says of that fateful night in 1967 [via Ultimate Guitar].
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“Almost like And Your Bird Can Sing by The Beatles. When it first comes on, you go, ‘What is that?!’ Y’know, three-part harmony. And I go up, and I guess, ‘There must be three guitar players playing this stuff.’”
To his amazement, there was just one: Eddie Van Halen.
“And I’m looking on the stage… There’s only one guitar player doing that stuff, one great bass player, killer drummer, and this great looking guy with long blonde hair, bare-chested, doing acrobatics,” says Simmons. “I said, ‘What is that?’ And within the first three songs, I was backstage, and I convinced the guys to sign with me on Man of 1000 Faces, my production company, and I flew him to New York. On my dime.”
It wasn’t just flights Simmons had forked out money for though: “I buy Dave [Lee Roth] his first, I don’t know, high heels or whatever, leather pants and all that. Because I want them to audition for [William] Aucoin, our manager and all that. But before then, decide to go into Electric Lady and do 15 songs, a 24-track demo using a guy named Dave Whitman who mixed Humble Pie and all that legitimate stuff.”
Of the 15 songs, one was called House of Pain, whose title might sound familiar to Van Halen fans, though Simmons explains that “this is not the House of Pain that they eventually wound up recording.
“This is the original version, which bears no resemblance. In fact, that song under the name House of Pain was never recorded, and it’s a steamroller,” he says. “I can’t believe that the band never used that. So that’s the version we do live. And I’m telling you, as soon as it starts, it’s like zero to 60.”
Just to clarify, Van Halen did eventually revisit House of Pain years later, re-recording it for their 1984 album. While the lyrics were changed, the music closely resembles the version Simmons helped produce. Check out the song below.
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Source: www.guitar-bass.net
