 Hello and welcome to the drum history podcast. I'm your host Bart van der Zee and today We are joined back by our old friend Kurt Ekstrom. Kurt welcome back on the podcast. Hello. Thanks for having me once again Yes, number three. I think for you. Yeah return your repeat offender because I can trust you and you always have very good information and today is no exception because we are talking about Alex van Halen who has maybe some of the most famous iconic Huge unique drum sets in the world and you've been working on this for a while So I appreciate you taking the time and putting all this great information together for everyone. Well, I appreciate again You having me on here. It's always great to be on this show because there's so many great episodes and And I just really just got to say like if Alex if you ever watch this or anything I mean Alex has probably been my greatest inspiration I know I did an episode on John Den's war and you probably couldn't find a more polar opposite But but when I was you know, 12 years old I discovered, you know playing drums in van Halen and and it just you know It was just infectious and it was one of those things that I just Alex has been my greatest Inspiration over the years and he's done so much. I wouldn't be half the drummer I was damn today if it wasn't for that influence. So yeah, thank you. Yeah, absolutely There's something I mean, yes, so Kurt said it he was on he did a John Den's more gear episode You also did a WFL drum History episode which is more pure like the brand the WFL drums. So I'll put those in the description but Something about it Alex van Halen is just It's funny because I you know here I am mostly playing a four-piece kit 90% of the time and and but when you look at you know I was a 12 year old and you look at this guy behind this Rocket ship of a drum set with a pair of sunglasses on and you know and the guys are just like having the time of their lives It's like, okay, like where do I sign up? You know, like of course, you know, like they are having fun That's for sure. Maybe a little too much fun at times because those they kind of defined a generation of Partying you look at this like the 80s as Van Halen and and partying And that's the thing too like obviously I won't get into really any of those, you know The hard stuff or anything like that But but those guys literally were able to as much as Partying as they did they were able to also like put off a great show like it rarely ever Did they he let the party and get in the way of a great show? No, Alex and Eddie are like above all else world-class Phenomenal musicians Eddie unfortunately passed away. I guess a couple years ago at this point One twenty twenty. Yeah, twenty twenty. Yeah, okay. That makes yeah, but anyway So we're gonna dig into all the gear today, and I'm super excited, but very fast before we do this I want to give a patreon shout out. We got a new upper-tier member Which they get a shout out on the episode and you can too if you go to patreon.com slash drum history Podcast and you can sign up there, but real quick. Thank you to mr. Seth McConnell for signing up He said McConnell drum co he runs a small drum company that builds vintage style custom drums for youth groups and churches and it's McConnell drum co You can find him on Instagram as well McConnell drum co and check him out there So thank you to Seth McConnell for doing that really helps support the show So Kurt let's jump in here. We got a lot to cover. This is gonna probably this is definitely gonna be a multi-part episode We have lots of photos if you were watching on YouTube And it's gonna be awesome Otherwise you can just listen and we'll do our best to explain everything if you're a normal podcast listener So Here we go. Let's jump in and Kurt take it away with you know the beginning of Alex's drumming career so Just to get a little brief brief, you know History of where Alex and Eddie came from they were born in Holland And and Ben basically music had been in their family because their father was a clarinet player and a jazz sax player and and Met their mother who was from Indonesia. So Alex and Eddie are Dutch and Indonesian And long story short, they had family members that were living in the u.s. specifically, california and In 1962 they moved to california with basically like 50 bucks and a piano And so they came to america and they were they early on took piano lessons. And so Alex uh excelled in like violin and piano and he actually was able to read really well and it's also I've heard that he has perfect pitch whereas in eddie was more of a Played by ear and all that and so they were winning piano competitions, but They got sick of the piano scene and so at some point eddie wanted to play drums. And so He got himself a paper route and he went and it's a famous story went and bought himself this 125 st George drum set just to explain you just so people think they heard that correctly Eddie bought the drum set first because he was the drummer in the family first Yes, so this is you know when eddie and alex were kids, you know back in holland You can see they already had you know something something going on musical And they also actually had a band when they were kids called the broken combs where eddie played piano and alex played saxophone And so um and they had a couple of friends which ironically played the guitar and drums But when we get to this drum set the 125 dollar japanese drum set eddie Is the one who bought this thing with this paper route money. And so uh alex at the time Got flamenco guitar lessons and because i guess their mother wanted them to do something respectable And so while well eddie was out throwing the papers as he recalls alex took to his drum set and ended up being able to play wipeout a lot faster than eddie could And so basically eddie got frustrated and irritated that alex could you know play the drums better than he could So he said fine I'll take your guitar and that's the famous swap story and And and and of course as eddie tells the story over the years He makes the gripe saying well alex was better than me so i took his guitar But if you listen to alex tell the stories as well the minute edward picked up my guitar He goes, you know you any fool could see that he had a natural A gift for it and alex said you know i could play the chords i could read the music But it just was a piece of wood with strings and when edward picked it up He was making music with it and it was instant and so i guess technically they're both right But but that's so anyway, they're yeah a good brotherly Love there, but that drum set he's playing on there. What was the brand you said st. George? um St. George. I get it's probably um one of the many millions of knockoff japanese names and and so Or one of those kind of parent companies. Yeah, and it looks to be like in a sky blue pearl type of finish It's really hard to tell from the photo, of course And then it also looks like it's likely like a 20 a 12 and a 14 But um, but there really is not a whole lot known of this period between when alex actually started to play the drums To win eddie, you know, they switched and so the next time you really like here much There's a there's a great book called van halen rising that was written by greg reinoff And he details a lot of the early years of the the van halens And apparently their father was the guy that was the one who was um the fun You know, he was the one that played in bands You know, he had a regular day job, but he also played in bands to get by And and all you know all of them lived in a a small small house And so um, alex's mother was the one that was you know, he was she was the one that would crack the whip But apparently their father seeing a budding interest in their son's, you know, musical Stuff was always very encouraging to them Like here's a picture of eddie and uh, you can see eddie in the middle sadly, you know holding a cigarette But you can see um, you know how young they are and alex has one too and they're with their friends And this is like 1967 you can actually see the Beatles picture in the background Where it's like, you know the from like, uh You know magical mystery tour or something. Yeah, but uh, the guy I believe that is on the far right with the guitar Is a friend of theirs that actually played bass and so eddie and alex would play in a trio with this guy playing bass And then sometimes they would switch off and this guy would play guitar and eddie would pick up the bass But these were just a bunch of their friends hanging around but in august of 1969 Which ironically was pretty much like woodstock weekend There actually has been floating around online this bill of sale from a music store that's in, um, california It's like music for everyone I guess and it was in pasadena where the van halins lived And you can see that John van halen their father traded in some musical instruments to um, and they got eddie his first, uh Gibson guitar He got like a Gibson goltop But when you look you see under the drum set it says cooper pro drum set and it was like 200 dollars I kind of looked, you know, just to see what what was what as far as 200 dollars in 1969 And I mean if I were to guess I would say that drums that might be the equivalent of like a grech cattle I know like a you know, like a midline grech not the lowest line, but I um, but uh, but a cooper pro was like apparently I I discovered this online too with helps from some people on drum form That um cooper was a store owner and basically he would import these brand names in from like pearl Who would make all these millions of names probably like the st. George? And so he was putting his own name on stuff cooper I've heard that a lot of times before that a lot of times people will find him and they'll say What brand is this and it's like it's probably the shop owner. It's never heard of it If that star it's probably you know the the extra brand drums or something But but sadly this this receipt is cool as it is and it's I mean Unbelievably rare to find it. It doesn't list, you know, nobody bothered to write anything about the drums as far as like I don't know if it came with symbols. I don't know what hardware came with I don't know how many pieces the set was I'm gonna assume it was likely maybe some kind of a four piece if it was only like 200 dollars but um But the interesting thing that I know in this the next picture I'll show is there is a picture of eddie and alex and i'm assuming that previous guy that's playing bass I think it's him and if you look at this picture It's the only picture I've ever seen like this But it looks like alex is playing like like a sky blue blue pearl type of drum set But clearly it's double bass and so it makes me wonder if this cooper bro Drum set was actually in like a sky blue pearl color and he just like basically added the pieces to that old You know, uh, st. George and made a double bass kit out of it. We've all done that in our life Your every everyone who's owned two drum sets has gone wait a minute. Yeah, I can create a double bass set Yeah, which looks cool. Well, and the other thing that don't there's several things that are really kind of cool to note Uh, and one of them you can thank edward for but uh edward was as many know was a constant tinkerer And and in alex too to a degree It's really kind of interesting to think that yon van halen paid, you know, like 600 dollars or whatever it was for that guitar But eddie, you know was never happy and so he was constantly like taking the pickups up or changing something around So, you know, think about it in today's world like, you know, you buy a brand new gibson What's the first thing you're gonna do you're gonna take it home and rip the pickups off and like no I know you're gonna like exactly So it's really interesting to note that eddie and and even alex Really just were like if something did not work for the way they wanted it to work Then they would like, okay, we're changing it and it really didn't matter what it cost or whatever the end result was Was worth the means, you know and and clearly it worked out for edward because he you know created a style and a sound and Which is a whole nother story I just want to throw in that like It's very common for like famous drummers to not be gear Nuts and fanatics Because just because you're incredibly talented doesn't mean you want to go home and rip apart your guitar Or your drums and know everything about them and memorize every piece of gear and that's honestly a lot of times Why I talk to people like you instead of maybe the drummer themselves Not that i'm have access to alex van halen, but you know what i mean I know exactly what you mean sometimes the expert like you knows way more But it sounds like in in these guys case they are absolute gear Gear heads well and it is but it just blows my mind that like as we'll see as we move on to the next kit It just blows my mind That that if you know alex or eddie didn't like something about whatever gear they were using It didn't matter if it was a it could have been You know a gresh white falcon that eddie was playing and if he didn't like the sound of it He was going to do whatever it took to make it sound right It didn't matter if the guitar was worth a hundred thousand dollars or was worth, you know It's they just get out their tools They got a sound in their head and they want to get it and then you know by you know, they're gonna get it And so yeah the last cool thing to note in this photo and it's a consistent you will see in every Picture of alex is that he just he was a he was a big guy He was tall and he liked the hi hats as high as they would go And so if you look at this picture, which is like a very very early picture of him Jammin with eddie with that less paul So it has to be probably i'm guessing between 1969 and early 1970 But you can see the hi hat is all the way up as far as it would go And alex also sat very low almost like he had the stool go as low as it possibly could go So like if i were to ever have sat on one of his kids I'd have been screwed because the hi hats would have been no way up here And i'd be sitting on the floor and i'd be like wow But he must have had a very tall torso because at a lot of times in videos and stuff You'll see how he can just sort of flip his wrist and hit a symbol It looks like it's like 20 feet away from you know Or are you sitting and stuff this episode is brought to you by yana tech Yana tech is happy to offer all natural products to help keep you at the top of your creativity Yana tech's formulas were created for musicians by nicholas mcgrown Who has worked in the natural product industry for over 20 years And is also a working musician and teacher of all things drum related He understands the wellness demands that being a musician requires Empower yourself and your creativity with yana tech's flagship product magnum mind Magnum mind is an all-natural new tropic formulation designed to support cognition memory and mood This helps keep you sharp on the road in the studio or in the rehearsal space Keep those pesky germs at bay with their immune supporting formula defense for with vitamin c vitamin d3 Zinc and quercetin This can support your wellness while traveling working long days and nights in the studio Or just encountering the demands of daily life They also offer wild mountain oregano oil and capsules to help protect you during the cold and flu season Throw a bottle in your carry-on to help shield you when the weather gets too cold for comfort Use code drumhistory 15 for 15 off your order Find yana tech online at yana tech dot store That's yana tech dot store and also readers of the popular magazine downbeat can also find yana tech in the current issue And in the upcoming winter issue featured at the 2024 winter nam show Thanks to yana tech for sponsoring this episode. So 19 he was born in 1953 if this is 1969 He would have been 16 So it's a pretty tall and lanky time for a lot of people who are like have his body style of like You know his limbs are all like I don't want to say gangly but there's a lot of 16 year olds who are you know Have very long torsos and limbs and haven't grown into it yet So so the other thing to note is it is he got this cooper pro drum set in likely august of 69 and clearly, you know probably No fault of his you know his father I mean, I'm sure he was more than grateful to get this set, but it just wasn't a professional drum set You know, he was you know, he and edward were on on a path to playing You know the real deal edward was yet to get his famous marshal and you know and and he's made a comment about how You know kids didn't play these things, you know only god like eric clapton playing them and stuff And so so alex of course was a big john bonham ginger baker All you know, he loved all those guys and and so of course He's had his sights on a ludwig kit and so this is the part I'd be really curious to ask him about at some point but And this kit when I talk about this kit I know alex is in an over metal overly sentimental guy when it comes to his drums He's given a lot of him away and stuff But this particular drum set in my opinion is one of the most like Just important drum sets in the entire van hielen history because he got this kit likely in 1970 That's a ludwig pro beat and so it's a 24 with a 9 by 13 10 by 14 16 by 16 and a 16 by 18 And but somehow and I don't know how this all worked out He added another 14 by 26 to make it a double bass kit Which became a pretty much a consistent as you'll see going forwards in his size choice sizes He always seemed to prefer having like two different sized bass drums Yeah, I don't know exactly why maybe it was because of ginger baker because ginger baker had 20 in a 22 And maybe that's where it stems from but um, sure But alex got this kit, which was a silver spark or like like ginger baker And I would guess if I if I were to guess, you know a brand new Ludwig set from 1970 in in those sizes I mean it must have cost a fortune Absolute fortune and it was clear from listening to those guys talk about their childhood that they were broke They didn't have any money But there is a story where alex Was working in a machine shop for a while And he ended up quitting because he nearly took off a finger when he was working in the machine shop I guess he caught it really bad and I don't know exactly when this was but but if I were to guess I would say maybe he worked, you know worked as bought off enough to earn enough money to like, you know Afford this Ludwig kit. There there's just there's no there's no receipt for it It's never been talked about where it came from or any of that But when being a Ludwig historian, you know when you look at the kit that when let me see When you know when you move on when I move on down the road to like other pictures of the kit It's got clear maple interiors. It's got blue all the badges Which first appeared in late late 1969, you know So the kit is likely a 1970 I'm guessing and I would likely guess that he probably acquired the kit sometime like maybe a year after After like that. He got the cooper pro drum set So 70 ish. So it's got it. I'm guessing it's at least a 1971 and the set as you saw in the catalog picture It came with a five and a half by 14 chrome superphonic Which is basically like they made Ludwig made billions of them And so that's what the kit originally came with now We're talking about Alex's size and all that there's a couple of pictures from like high school You can see him at like his prom or something and it always kind of as you say gangly and tall guy and then here's his High school graduation picture you can see But now this next picture I'm going to show I feel like it's one of the coolest pictures I've ever seen So this picture here is Alex and Edward and you can tell that it's from about 1970 or so And it must be like right around the time he got this Ludwig kit Because normally you would say well, you know, how do you know it's not the cooper pro drum set because you can't really see much But if you look there's definitely two floor toms I mean if you were to really look at the bottom of this picture, there are definitely like two floor toms there there are definitely like um Edward's playing the less paul You can actually probably and I'm not a guitar expert But he's probably already modified that thing in some way or another with the pickups But the coolest thing to note also is the fact that they are literally set up in the living room of the van hielen household Like here these guys are with alex with his big giant double bass kit, which as again would be a 26 a 24 You know 13 14 16 18 And I think he may have been playing zildren symbols I mean that's the thing people have called me out on the dens more episode I'm just not really great at looking at symbol profiles and guessing Because there's some great trots of these symbols But um, but peisty symbols were you know granted they were distributed by ludwig They were still not the easiest things to get and they were they were likely expensive and and I have heard That alex likely started off with zildren symbols But he of course later on gravitated to peisty and has played them ever since on that photo Is that one of those like double stack? um Symbol stands where like it looks at the crash in front of him is coming off of the Through the bell of the I guess that would be yeah another or a ride maybe in that Yeah, it does look it. I I wish that photo had been pan down just even an inch You know like I would have been able to see a little bit more But I would bet just about anything that that's that's probably the earliest picture of that ludwig kit Uh, that would be my likely guess Just I mean really putting yourself in that moment of like it could have been like I just got this incredible drum set Let's kind of have fun and celebrate and set this thing up in the living room And mom was like okay with it because it's brand new probably a week later or day later She's like get this out of my living room. I don't know. I mean I I've read a lot about those guys And I really heard that the parents let them basically do whatever they wanted in that You know when it came to practicing, you know, it's good good thing The neighborhood kids would come over and their mothers would mother would make, you know, every kid a sandwich and Oh, that's you know stuff like that. So anyway, uh, when we move on, um, because somewhere in those years They uh, they were playing as a trio called mammoth for a while, which is where you know, wolf gang You know was borrowing the name from the old, you know, van halen was called For I guess they were called genesis for a while and they changed the name to van mammoth and then after mammoth They changed the name to van halen actually on the suggestion of david roth Who have actually made his way into the band in 1973? And so and that's a whole story that's you know for whatever but um, when david joined the band They actually had a keyboard player And they had a bass player named mark stone and so that was you know So there's this great picture that a friend of theirs took when they played some gig outdoors Now you can add another couple of cool things you can see in this photo. There's clearly there's the Ludwig kit but the one thing that's kind of weird about it is um He's using some um Like he's still somewhere. I'm sure he just didn't bring it with him But he's got you know the 13 and the 14 toms, but in this picture He's actually playing a no-name stencil silver spockerel tom that was drilled out with a Ludwig mount on it And so it's like his toms at this picture probably 12 13 with a 16 and an 18 But you can see in this photo him basically sitting on the ground as stools as low as it goes Yeah, uh, you could also see that he's got the hi-hats all the way up again And the other thing to note And something you'll notice in all the future things is When they when it came to monitors back in those days Alex was just needed to hear eddy. And so they would literally have a cabinet next to Alex that was just eddy And so in these early photos you could see that he's got like an amp on the ground It is likely just eddy blaring at him because he needed to hear eddy Looks like there's a wah pedal just kind of on the ground next to him Oh, you know, he's got a a beer next to his right foot. There's a beer And uh, he's on this crap crappy old blanket and you can see the not a not a rug but a blanket Yeah, and you could see like those, you know, the stringy guitar chord hanging down is, you know Eddie's guitar chord and uh, but the other thing to note, which you know, the guy's not standing there But you can see the world's her keyboard was set up in the background And that's where they had a keyboard player and I guess, you know eddy always hated it because he always liked to Improvise when you had another courted instrument like that You know, you kind of had to stick to the changes because the guy was playing the chords and so anyway So there's that early photo. But one of the things you'll note in this photo is the bass drum interiors are still clear Um, because that's how they came from the factory. They stopped using the white paint around the early part of 68 And they went to a clear maple interior So as you move along, they did some uh, early early demo sessions And here's a shot and now you can clearly see that little 8 by 12 tom It's it's not a ludwig clearly when I first saw the picture I thought it might have been a grinch, but it's actually I think a no-name brand Um drum you can still see the clear maple interiors in the set And it's and it's you know, funny to see he's got no bottom head on the floor tom And then his hi hats again all the way up But they're in this recording studio, which I believe was called charity studios And they made like a really really early demo of some songs and stuff And so obviously, you know, he didn't bring the whole kid in there You know, because you probably didn't need it And here's another shot from here. You see again hi hats all the way up playing the 5 by 14 superphonic Sitting on the floor You know the typical, you know that kind of thing it looks like you're using ludwig atlas hardware All probably with stuff that came with the set So when you move on this photo here the next one, it looks like um I believe this is when michael anthony joined the band I think that's michael anthony all the way over on his left But what you'll see that's kind of interesting is now alex has that, you know, no name japanese tom On the far, you know, his far left as far as sitting at the kit But then he has the 13 and then he has the 14 So he's using three racks and so you can see, you know, he must have been fooled around with that kind of thing And you can see that the toms have to be the 13 and the 14 because they're mounted off the bass drum And the blue all the badges are facing audience side, which is the way the set was intended to be set up Um So there's that and the other thing that looks weird is I can't tell but there's the person at the bottom I can't tell what they're doing But i'm wondering if they have a camera And I wonder if it looks like a camera or placing a mic or something But it could be definitely be a camera. So maybe that's out there somewhere And it's it's bizarre too because edward doesn't have his guitar and michael's not playing on bass And alex is playing and you don't see any symbols in this picture like I don't know what they were doing but It's promo shots or something and it's it's hard to know. Maybe you you could be right Um, yeah, so anyway as you know, we progress, you know, as the club goes club days go on You can see alex, you know playing the edwards still playing this less paul Um, you know, they were into sort of the the flannel lead. I guess you called the grunge look later, but But there you he's got no, um, looks like you know, he may have the front head on the right bass drum But not one on the left bass drum Uh, and no heads on the floor toms you know, um But the interesting the thing to note is when you look at this picture and you'll see in later pictures The interiors of the bass drums are now white. Oh, yeah, so they so he painted them So he painted them and you might you know If you didn't really see the earlier pictures with the maple you might think well lovely painted white interiors Well, as you'll see as I move along here to these other photos They're clearly white inside the bass drums now But the funny thing to note is like I don't think he took the hardware off Because you can actually see he painted right over the screws and everything But that goes to my earlier point of the fact that like I'm wondering if alex Like you like he talks later on about like how you know He wanted his drums to sound like john bottom and he was frustrated that the fact that you know They went into the studio and had to take the bottom heads off Well, I'm guessing in the club days They probably just didn't have microphones and he was looking for added projection and volume Because eddie was playing a marshal at one point and before he figured out and this is a whole another thing You could find anywhere else But he in a nutshell basically to figure out this very act thing He would put in his amp It would let him lower the voltage so he could keep the volume You know the amp sounding the same but prior to that he had to turn the amp up on 10 or let's you know I guess every guitar player tells you that but you know you turn the guitar on 10 to get the tone And so alex not having you know a real set of probably good microphones had to compete with that So i'm wondering if he thought you know what maybe if I paint the shells white and take the bottom heads off They'll project more But it sure it goes to their saying earlier as I was saying that like this was you know say 1974 of these pictures So this was a drum set that had to have been what three years old Yeah, that'd be my that'd be my baby that I would never touch I'd probably be not even want to change the front bass drum head or you know, and they're just like Yeah, and you know, I'm gonna take it out into the garage and it also it makes me wonder Because it wouldn't surprise me because when people are poor and things like I actually wonder if that's the same White can of spray paint that eddie used to paint his original frankenstraat Like it wouldn't surprise me one bit if the white paint inside those bass drums was the same spray paint can that was used, you know That's just in the garage. It was just in the garage and so Um, but it is funny to note in these photos you like you literally he painted right over the hardware And uh, but you can also see the little tom again You can see that small eight by 12 and it's clearly like a no name You can actually tell that wood grains are going up and down so and so and you can tell that alice is playing the 13 inch tom on the other side because the badge is facing the audience And it looks like there's like egg carton kind of material Or like that like the the kind of egg foam whatever you call it Yeah on the inside of the bass drum But it's also kind of neat to notice that you know ingenuity serves best that he Used like basically like a symbol arm that you would use like basically on a like a symbol mounted off the bass drum kind of a You know like in the 60s kits where he would have the symbol off the bass drum It looks like he used one of those and mounted it straight on the tom holder to put his You know left side crash up there because as you well know and you're trying to put a crash in on a double bass kit Unless you have a boom stand it can be a real pain in the butt Quite the different logo van Halen, you know and that was the early early logo they had for van Halen I believe it was designed by the original bass player Mark stoned which ironically is you know mark stoned passed away I want to say like a month before edwards. You know like they were it was the same year everything was very strange But so I know I'm like spending some time on this kit, but we're it's a very evolutionary kit And this is why I find it very fascinating So as we move along to the next one you will see Now like you know look you can see all the toms got painted white inside He put front heads on there But the other thing to note is that this had to have been around 1975 He acquired his first super sensitive So prior to that he was playing this five by 14 superphonic that likely came with the set Well, he got his first super sensitive. I'm guessing around 1975 and so um, he really For some reason I guess you really like the super sensitive six and a half by 14 And and also to note that's off to his far left is a slingerling like it's almost like I think it's a um 12 by 15 or something like that So it's like this, you know 12 by 15 marching drum slingerling that he has all the way off to the side and as you'll see in later photos He moves it around on the kit, but um, but now you can see The 12 and I mean the 13 and the 14 inch toms are mounted off the bass drum But they're not mounted in the traditional way. So now the badges are facing out instead of the audience So you can also you can tell that they're you know the same toms just mounted Because the mufflers are facing out. Yeah, tony williams style. Yeah, so they so so that's what's going on with that Cool-looking drum set. I mean it really is a you know It's it's the the drum sets of the era are changing and he's right on pace with that You know what I mean with the big bigger drum sets and the double bass drums and all that Yeah, and uh, I just find it interesting how like, you know, he just well, I don't let's paint the whole thing Let's paint the inside, you know, like Okay, you know, there's people like it's more reflective or let's put tin foil on the inside of the drums It'll be more reflective. I mean, I guess is it really maybe but it's cool that he tried and it does look pretty cool The light catches it and some of these photos and you kind of it's it has a look to it I'm just you know, as I said, I'm really gonna guess that it was purely for like getting more volume out of the kit And so like here you see them playing You know 1975 Edward's now playing a destroyer or some kind of guitar like that. I don't know if it's a destroyer Huge bell bottoms Well, and you'll also note in the earlier photos that they were wearing all the flannel and all the stuff Well, when davidly rock joined the band, he was the guy that basically like was like, okay You know, I know you guys liked it like slouched around slouched around in t-shirts and jeans and And he was the one that got him to get platform shoes and and get the bell bottoms and and I mean as much as you know You could rag on davidly for a lot of things like these guys. It's cool Probably if it was not for davidly, nobody would have ever heard of anhill and and that's an argument for the ages But like they probably would have been the best known like you'd hear guys saying I remember this back in our party band that was like the killer But davidly was the guy that got them like into the clubs. He got him out there He got him seen and as much as you know, he may be Maybe people thought of his shortcomings He was the guy that really like, you know, put them out in front of the masses So you got to really give him credit for that But you can see in the kit it may look like alex might have a couple more symbols or You know, it looks like the symbols have grown a little bit I'm sure when those guys played gigs and you know Every painting they had went probably either into the gas tank or into the you know buying sticks buying heads buying You know any piece of gear they could do Well, it looks like just to kind of touch on symbols because we know people like all the different very, you know various things It looks like there's hi hats and then to his left kind of facing us It looks like there's two crashes on his left On the photo with david that you were just looking at there and then over on his right. It looks like a ride Yeah, and then another crash over there. Not sure about sizes. I'm sure they're 18 inches or yeah, whatever 17 inches and then Maybe another symbol off right behind david's Hand there or that but that might be a part of the background there. I'm not 100 sure but nothing too crazy yet You know, you know as we move along you could see, you know, there's a tom again off to the side You can clearly see the super sensitive snare to hi hats up You know, it's never crashes, but he's got the front heads on there Yeah, with the logos. Yeah with the logos on there, which is kind of you know at this point you need to see We're not in any way like a professional sponsored by Ludwig. We're still kind of a party garage band We meaning Yeah, like they they are right they they they played the clubs Uh, they've actually got sort of discovered by gene Simmons, but that's a whole story and it didn't really go anywhere But they played the clubs were like basically another year and then it's when they got, you know, signed by Warner Brothers But you can see where Alex is, you know, still playing the same kit and these photos from around 1977 You can see, you know, the kit at this point. You can see the rims look sort of Rusted a little bit almost like like he's I mean they they must have gigged everywhere under the sun You can see him You know and and those guys, you know, all of them are like stick thin They they probably barely ate meals. You know what I mean? Like They just played and played and played and so, you know, we're moving along You'll see a good shot of the slingerlin You could actually see in the slingerlin like the lug screws that are painted straight over Like he just literally just painted right over the things Yeah, which if you take them out then you're gonna like ruin the if you can get Yeah, if you can get them off they're all stock and so so from there They those were probably some of the last shots that I have where they were still a club band And so they got signed by Warner Brothers records And basically they went in and they caught like a club They basically had them go into the studio and record this demo With and they basically the the thought was like Just guys rattle off everything, you know, we're gonna record it and they did like 25 songs in like one day or something Then they went back and then they cut the vocals the next day And so they had this demo but but um Ted templeman who was the producer was still busy working with like the dubious brothers or somebody and so They basically had a waiting period which kind of sucked for them But they they had this period where they just really didn't gig all that much And they were waiting just basically going to the studio to cut the actual album So by um, I want to say it was like August late august september of uh 77 They finally went into sunset sound and recorded the album They banged it out pretty quickly and uh And uh and then after that it was you know, basically like taking promo shots and getting ready You know, they had to wait and prepare for a tour. So, um They got these shots that were like used for the out to the album cover There's a take out take shot from the album cover And you can see he's playing the same, you know, silver sparkle kit and at this point now You can see he's playing feisty symbols. So somewhere along the line He got his uh, you know, he got like bonafide real feisty symbols And he was playing two thousand twos Black labels and you can see he's playing um like uh black dot heads So this shot is from an actual these are promo video for a couple of a couple of the songs on the album And it was you know before mtv and all that but I guess it was just a way to sort of showcase the band So they went to like um, I guess they went to the whisky of go-go and film these promo videos But you can see now he's got that sliverland tom placed in the center of the of the two toms Where it would remain for the you know duration of the Entire first tour he's got the front heads on there And so the other thing big change you'll notice is he's got the elongated bass drums So basically what he did was he had the you know, those those are the same Bass drums that he had probably since 1970 But he bought another 14 by 24 another 14 by 26 And he joined them together and he joined them together by using like I don't know if he like screwed them together somehow But he covered up whatever the seams were with a big leather strap on each one that went around the bass drum The other thing to note and I've asked a few people that are more in the note this than me But his drum tech that he actually had whose name was greg emerson was basically a high school buddy of his I don't think the guy even played Instrument at all, but it was like alex's best buddy best friend And the guy basically started working for alex probably some point in the club days And it was probably one of those situations where like he followed the band around help move equipment You know hung up with his buddies and that kind of stuff They didn't eventually morphed into you know now is his best friend out in the road with him and this and that And so um from what I understand I've heard that greg was probably a little bit handy as well So all of the kits that got customized by alex and stuff I I'm almost positive that the greg likely had a hand in helping alex do the work But again and here we are talking about you know those guys got signed in 1977 And uh and everybody looks at that album that sold so many you know over 10 million copies Well when those guys got signed they didn't become instant millionaires They were still broke for quite a while They were adi and alex lived at home until probably about the third or fourth record And so They really did not have any extra money But here alex went out and bought a brand new 14 by 24 14 by 26 You'll see coming up in some of these later photos I was always wondering because the switch from three ply to six ply shells occurred around You know some point maybe either 76 or 77 So I'd always kind of wondered okay, so when he got the new drums Did he get six ply shells or did he get three ply shells? I was always kind of curious as to what the deal was with that But but again, it's always funny to note that he probably spent a you know A small fortune on a 14 by 26 and a 24 and the first thing he did was Screw you put screws into it and it drilled them into the front of the you know existing drums Is that something that has happened with another famous drummer that he liked to like elongate their bass drum? Is that like a thing that has been done before? I would probably like to guess that he may not have been the first one to do it But I but I I don't I've never really seen anybody do it before him I don't know what you know, I get the he Eddie gets a lot of credit for being the guy that changed Guitar and he was always a thinker and a tinkerer and but you know, alex was pretty much you know in my mind He was just as creative and just as ingenuitive and always thinking outside the box a lot like eddie I mean alex may have been more of an in the box kind of a person Then and then edward but um, but alex certainly was a very creative individual that really like thought, you know And I think he also really knew how to think for the show like, you know As we'll see as we move into these other kits that they're basically like, you know, it's all about the show You know, do I need 25 drums? Probably not. Do I need 25 symbols? Probably not I could do everything I need on a 40s kit probably But it's like, you know, we're putting on a show that's larger than life We want people to walk out of here and go what the heck did I just see and it worked, you know And so so alex elongated these bass drums And the other thing that I'd be really curious to know because all all of his kits You know pretty much after this had an elongated bass drum It's like, how did they fit them into a case? Like where did they where did they go? Yeah, really? Yeah, like that. It's they're just they're huge They're long. Yeah, uh, and they must not have they must have been extremely cumbersome to haul around And it's also funny to see the fire extinguisher too because just going to say yeah, like that's where that began Well, it began there But the fire extinguisher as you'll see later on was really like there when he had a kong and they would like the kong on fire But prior to that there really wasn't a need for a fire extinguisher. Maybe it was just for It just looked cool. I guess. Yeah, it's more stuff and I could be wrong about that But I mean, I think I've ever seen a picture because you get to remember in that first tour They were still an opening act So they originally opened for journey and montrose and then quickly ended up moving over to black Sabbath And so there wasn't really a lot of room for them to really do much else other than because they had you know Bill Ward had a big drum set with black Sabbath And then you got alexis silver chain in front of it And it's like there just wasn't room for much else back there and certainly not for a flame show You know, I mean like no no and so so anyway, there's so that's you know, there's some cool pictures there Of you know, there's the kid again when they're playing live. You see bill wards kit behind him But the other there's some really cool pictures that I found and I think they came from a japanese book somehow But somebody you know, and I'd love to just think thanks to this guy took some excellent pictures of behind the kit So here's a great shot of you know, the kit you see this the um super sensitive snare You can see you know the ghost pedals. He was playing ghost pedals You see like the atlas hardware I mean you see how dirty the snare drum is the thing probably played forever And the other thing that alex did with that snare drum and it's I don't think I have a picture where you can see it But a super sensitive was really meant for like classical music They used them in you know, it was kestrel symphonic And so when you're playing, you know, heavy back beats on them the snare throw off would tend to sort of disengage Because most people were playing, you know, you know like rudiments on them and things like that And and you know, they weren't really bashing on them like two and four And so the alex had this problem where the throw off would disengage And so he used like a spring from like a carburetor or you know, maybe an engine somewhere And he basically like Got this, you know, put the screw through the throw off and then attach it to the drum So the throw off wouldn't disengage anymore and it's cool that it's from a carburetor It just feels right. I think it was. I mean, I mean, I could be wrong But I mean it's just you know, but it's ingenuity again and it's best, you know You figure out why something doesn't work and you fix it. It looks like there's wooden Beaters on his bass drum pedals on that on that one picture. He does tend to like wooden bass drum beaters Uh, I think he got more crack and snap out of him But the other cool thing to note when I finally saw these pictures is that it solved the mystery for me Now if you look at that picture of the left bass drum You could see that clearly the front bass drum is painted white inside. So that's the original 1970 bass drum that got painted white inside But the bass drum behind it is a clear interior But you can actually see the re-ring in the front So clearly he must have got, you know, a 14 by 26 and a 24 that was a three ply shell still So it was probably like some of the last three ply shells before the switch to a six ply But you can see how they're you know, he's got chain chains at the top of the bass drum The other thing I noticed in this photo and I wondered about this and I read about it somewhere If you look at the floor tom on the right the 16 There's almost like a hole above the top of where the um leg is and from what I understand or what I've heard Which is just another thing that just blows my mind is all because of the show But I guess alex in the club days used to have this trick where he would basically like He caught a hole in the side of his floor tom and he put a tube in there And basically like he would blow into this tube and it would raise and lower the pitch of the drum And so awesome. So here we again, you know, let's kind of hold the side of a drum that you know, like Okay, really nice drum. Yeah, let's you know, let's just kind of hold it and throw a plastic tube in there So that we can whack the drum during a drum solo and make the pitch go up and down like it's all about the show I've never heard of that And I just you know, I'd heard of it. But when I was looking at this photo was like, geez I wonder if that's where the hole was like I've heard that he did it. I've seen people in interviews talk about him Doing this crazy drum solo where the pitch would change and and the other thing to note in this photo too You can see at the very top. He always had a cowbell. I was just looking at that. Yeah, it's come it's it's weird it's The placement of it is a little in the way. It kind of is But it's I mean, obviously it's his setup and he is comfortable with it But it's interesting and the other thing to note too when I was so going through the gear stuff and and John Douglas was talking about all of the gear which, you know Again, I will probably defer to him because he's you know, Alex's friend. He's been in tech for years But he says on all the early kits that Alex was playing a 24 inch ride but I almost think it's a 22 because um When you look at some of these photos that I got coming up that just a 24 is huge It just doesn't look as big as a 24 to me But but then again, my eyes could be playing tricks on me The other thing you'll note in these photos is um Uh, and this will sort of play into later You can see the strap where they know the leather strap is between the lugs But you can see on that snare drum You'll see how the blue olive badge is slightly tilted It's like when they put it on at the factory It wasn't straight and they just stuck it on there a couple of more photos from, you know The someone whoever took these photos looks like thank you very much. I mean, these are great photos And uh, you can see all the the the different the different things going on with the uh, the kit and this and that The gas mask again and and again because people are just listening now We're looking at a photo that is like it's just that's just for cool factor, right? Yeah, that is let's put this gas mask and then we've got a chain wrapped around it We've the the two bass drums connected and you can see in these photos really like the the bolts and things Yeah, these two bass drums were And it is very cool. There's a couple more photos. There's him on, you know, somewhere on tour pretty cool photo another Very cool looking gas mask. Yeah, the gas mask to hang it off the front You know, sometimes I think he would put it on During his um, you know, something he would throw the thing on it just looked funny So after they finished up the van Halen one tour They literally and this is a common theme with van Halen. They never stopped They literally got back and Warner Brothers basically they sold like a million units and basically Warner Brothers told them They owed them like two million dollars Like and they were just like wait what and so Literally like they went back into the studio probably like a week after they finished the tour and so To record van Halen two and fortunately they had some of the songs already written But when Alex went in the studio, he likely took that silver sparker kit recorded it again But this time instead of like wears and I think the first album all the bottom heads and the front heads on the bass drums Were off These had the bottom heads and everything on and you can definitely tell the difference when you listen to van Halen two The toms are a little more tonal. There's a little more resonance coming out of the drums And and also and I don't know if I noted this in the when they recorded van Halen one The bass drums were still the single, you know, they weren't elongated yet it was the period between after the album was recorded and They went on tour where they had this downtime of a couple of months before the you know The album was released. They went on tour Somewhere in that vicinity is when Alex decided to elongate the bass drums So when they recorded van Halen two now you they were the bass drums were You'll see in this picture is a picture of that sunset sound The bass drums were, you know, obviously they're elongated The other thing to note about this picture is you'll see stainless steel drums in this picture I have been told Although I it's hard to know because you can see all the microphones mic got everything mic'd up But it has been told to me that Basically that this photo was sort of a prop photo like the band There's a bunch of photos of the band in the studio beer cans all over the floor and trash everywhere And it was supposedly, you know, they brought in photography for Neil's lower and uh to to basically like photograph them in the studio But they sort of threw trash around and made it look like it was a little more like You know of a ruckus Scenario than it probably was. Yeah, I mean it seems kind of staged like the what looks like a sennheiser the 421 The sennheiser In the back above his like octabond looking drums isn't plugged in and then also you'd think the engineer would go like He'd come in and be like, all right. I'm hearing a rattle Oh, maybe it's the chains or it's the fire extinguisher. Oh wait, maybe it's the gas mask Like when they really really record right recorded it. I wonder if they took that stuff off Yeah, it's yeah And it's hard to know but um the other cool thing to note in this this this set is you know, you'll see the stainless steel toms Which you know will lead into his next tour kit, but it's likely that when you know, he um Took this picture. I'm guessing that because they elongated the stainless steel bass drums too Then maybe they weren't either they hadn't been completed yet or they weren't finished or whatever it was and so maybe he got the toms ahead of the the bass drums, but either way it's a it's a Hodgepodge of both kits in this photo But one of the things you'll note is that there is another super sensitive to his right on the floor right next to eddie's You know unfinished amplifier cab Um, so my point was bringing up the the snare drum and then here's a promo shot from van hielen too And you could see that he put the slingerland Over on the um, you know the far far right just because he probably wanted to get a good photo shot of him And the thing kind of was in his way I I never liked that slingerland tomm in the front because whenever You know they put him on a riser and he was up there that thing just basically covered the entire front of him Yeah, and to me that I've never liked the and you know, I know this is going to be I'm sure someone's going to disagree but like even like back when like louis belson or someone would play that Giant kind of floor tomm in the middle. Yeah To me i've never been a big fan of that look of having one big kind of drum in the middle with the triple It's just a little much. I really everyone can like different stuff. This is the way I like to see this cat I like seeing the slingerland off at the side. I like seeing it, you know this way, you know in my opinion This is the way I feel like he's got the you know the 26 on his right foot side and you know back in the club days You'll notice that he you know flip flopped sometimes the 24 was over there But he's got the 26 this way and are these octabons. I mean, I don't know if they are officially octabons Are those those are a new addition? Yeah, and the octobons appeared probably late later in the tour from 1978 when they were out with black Sabbath. I told you before how um, you know why I covered this kit in so much detail Uh, I spent so much time in this particular kit and it's one of my favorites Because you can see the history it has when you go all the way back to that 1970 folder with them in their living room all the way up to The first tour and the second recording the second album And I mean there's a lot of inhale and history made with those drums And alex apparently he donated them to a hard rock that's over in europe somewhere So this is the kit as it is today and of course just like every hard rock They have no clue how to set the thing up, you know, it's just it looks a crap, you know No one's legs would be that far. Yeah You know, they got the toms in the wrong spot the slingerland in the wrong place You know, it should be on a snare stand They got this um, no name, you know snare drum because the super sensitive is not with the kit In regardless it is the kit the kit, you know, it's nice to know that it's still it exists. It's alive Those bass drums look so long in this picture. They do they're just it's probably just the angle of the photo the perspective Yeah, I would just like to see this kit with like the bottom heads on the toms in the right spot I you know a correct snare drum with it and in my opinion I know as I said that alice is an overly sentimental But this is one of the kits that I think that you know You need to hang on to this one This one needs to be somewhere in real van hielen history because there are so many miles on this kit You think about every club day every club show. I mean literally, you know 10 years worth of use on it I mean, it's come on. This is like Unbelievable the amount of history that goes behind this kit the other thing I wanted to note You know when we finish up with this The silver sparkle kit is at some point down the road It came into light that there was a super sensitive snare being sold that belonged to alex Now I won't want to I don't want to give away names. I don't want to give away, you know Who what but I know the snare snare drum in this picture literally came from Alex's warehouse. I mean, it's you know, obviously that's his signature on it It's it's legitimately his drum, but the drum was told To to be the drum that he used on the first album and tour Now the thing that I find interesting is clearly was it was his drum and it was clearly he used it But if you look in this next photo that photo I showed you earlier, see how the badge is crooked Yeah, you can see that the super sense the super sensitive that was sold The badge is straight as an arrow And so the way it's supposed to be the way it's supposed to be So my guess is if you look at the photos again Going back to You know the double bass kit here you can see there's a second super sensitive on the floor next to him I have a feeling that he probably acquired another drum at some point and Basically probably when he got the stainless steel kit And so if I were to make any kind of a real guess I would say that maybe you're looking at the one that's being sold is actually the second drum Still his drum. It's still his drum. He probably used it on all kinds of crap. It just you know, I don't yeah And of course, you know, alex told this person that you know, hey, I used it on the first album but like You know, if you're looking at a drum where they made millions of them and they all look alike And you look quick you might you just might not know like I mean And I'm not trying to just read it alex in any way shape or form I'm just going by csi investigative, you know pictures and I'm looking at a crooked badge versus one that's not But yeah dni drum drum nerd investigators But there are plenty of pictures of alex later on playing a super sensitive with a perfectly straight badge So like, you know, including the jump video, you know, I mean so I mean like There's no doubt in my mind that he used that drum It just may not be the drum that was used on van Halen one So that that's all i'm saying and the only other way for me to really would know for sure Was if I could see the drum in person and look at the serial number The serial number might tell me that it was a later date or an earlier date But I don't have access to it and I don't know what it is and lastly This is a picture of his tech greg emerson, which is as I said is like his best friend So we move on from uh, you know the quick period where they had basically, you know It's reported like two or three weeks to basically bang out van halen two They go back straight out to the road don't even stop for two minutes And alex gets this stainless steel kit. Is he sponsored at this point? Like is ludwig aware of him? I mean, I'm sure they got to be aware of him But he is not officially sponsored by ludwig and I don't actually think you know, and I I've I've asked around about this I don't honestly think he got sponsored and this was his choice till about 1983 Uh, which seems really odd to me. You would have thought it would have been a lot more before that I mean, I think he probably was able to get anything he wanted with not little very little problem But I don't think he officially became an endorser till about 83 and the other thing is I don't think he became uh He was probably I think he became a piste endorser first And um, and then he also uh, it basically has been noted that he has had Basically four endorsements that he's used his entire career. So regaltip being one of them Remo heads Ludwig and piste symbols. And so I think piste was probably at least You know probably around 79. I'm not real sure. So here he is playing this newly um Stainless steel kit once again, you see him sitting practically on the floor He's got the you know the high hats all the way up and then he's got like, um I guess it was noted in the um the gear book that they're like motorboat headers that he used to you know for the base room And um the sizes of the kit were again, you know, you have a uh a 26 and a 24 that were long elongated But then you have like a 12 a 13 and a 14 inch tom and his floor toms actually went from 18 to 20 Instead of 16 18 he went for like 18 to 20 You can see in this picture You can see the Ludwig logo on one of the the symbol stands. You see he's playing 2002 piste's But then he added these uh clear octabands. He had like Two six inch out in the front. He had uh two eight inch to the left And then he had four eight inch ones over off over the floor toms And you'll note that the ones over to his left are actually turned the opposite way It's because um during the song light up the sky where there's a little bit of a drum solo at the end Eddie would come over and use a stick and he would sort of like everybody would just walk around the kit with a pair of sticks Michael david eddie and eddie user and and this kind of Remained a theme for a couple of years where they would either have a set of timbales or a set of um You know the octabands pointed the opposite direction so eddie could play them It looks like the cowbell moved over to his side High hat level. Yeah, it looks like he moved it over there It's easier to play songs like dance the night away with it off to the side And um and then the other note is uh that same japanese book that i showed with the uh the one kit They also did the second kit So the thing that blows my mind is that 12 inch tom that's over on his left Like it's crammed right in there like underneath the high hat Like i just like you know, you still see the ghost petals with the wooden beaters You you can see but you know and and the ride symbol that looks like a 22 inch to me and not a 24 But again, I could be mistaken But he's still playing a super sensitive snare drum which switch one it is is you know, who knows? I mean, maybe they brought two on tour and they swapped swapped them depending on what one you need You see he's playing block black dot heads But it just blows my mind like if I had that tom right there where he has it There's to be no doubt in my mind that I'd be cutting my hand wide open with that thing Yeah, we've all cut our fingers a couple times. I mean look at that thing. It's it's just he has an interesting setup That's for it's crazy. It's just like tucked way in there And the kit must have weighed a thousand pounds like I feel so bad for greg emerson that like I mean like Like number one they get again, they got to find a case for these elongated What did I say they're 28 by 26 and 28 by 24? And you got to find a case for them and then you know say they're in a foam case You got to lift them out of the case I mean two two stainless steel and bass drums must have weighed an absolute ton I they would have to Unlike ratchet off and reattach those I would be literally a little exhaust header, you know the pipes from a boat They'd have to reattach those. I just there are so many things that would be interesting to know And the other thing to note is I I can guarantee That they figured out how to do this as efficiently and quickly as possible because once I said earlier Not to rag on them, but greg emerson was alex's buddy And I'm sure he was pretty hot to truck to join in the action like after the gig was over and you know Who wants to spend you know five hours putting away a 26 piece drum set, you know, so no you want to go party Ghost pedals you don't hear about too often because they didn't have that long of a run There's an episode about Ludwig pedals that's been on the podcast, but um Those were not that common to see out and about No, I have one here and I've actually played them, you know back in the 90s I kind of got into them a little bit and they were actually kind of fun to play but I've heard horror stories about like if you tension them the wrong way like the spring breaks in there You never want to open one up because you'll basically you could get murdered by Opening up because the spring will come out and just like it'll just cut you into Shreds because they're just so sharp and it'll turn you into a ghost. Oh geez But you know in a little brief history the ghost of course named after a battleship or whatever, but anyway But Alex preferred ghost pedals I guess he used them for quite some time and eventually he gave them up because they just you know harder to find You don't make them anymore And he just Probably wanted to go with something that was a little more readily available and reliable on the road But I think he really liked the ghost pedal quite a bit But this is definitely a unique setup for sure and and once again when i'm looking at that ride symbol It looks to me like a 22 which especially when i'm looking at like that You know the second floor tom is supposedly an 18 by an 18 by 20 You know, I mean like it doesn't look that much The ride does not look like a 24 to me and that's just me so No, and it's it's just the little things too. We can point out like there's a there's one stick ready to go kind of coming out from the top of his bass drum where I remember doing the Lars series and um It would be like he would use half a cymbal stand with a stick sticking down into the cymbal stand to get it because Now I mean we think they had stick bags looks like there's some sticks down there on his between the floor toms But like to get that one ready to go Now we all have those little kind of like stick Holder that goes off your hi-hat. Oh, yeah Now that wasn't the case then so he that was kind of his ready to go one in the you know And it should be noted, you know, I mean, I don't know like I'm not certainly not an expert on his sticks But he used a very big stick Um, I'll I have a picture. I'll be showing later on you can actually see but but he used like a 3s marching style stick I mean, they were they were literally baseball bats and uh very huge and then later on of course, you know Uh a regal tip special stick and they were long and much longer than I would normally use Oh, here he is, you know customary, you know Drinking his drink and at some point they put stickers on all the drums just to For the hell of it, you know the flammable on there like it just looks cool. It's it looks cool I mean again for people just listening it's got literally just numbers like you would go and buy As like you'd put them as like your address or something like 1984 they've got it's almost like airplane sort of theme Yeah, and who knows maybe it helped out greg. I don't know, you know I certainly would have wanted to number some of the later kits. I'll tell you that much Yeah, but it's like maybe write a look put a little tiny note on the inside not like a go to a hardware store and get a 4x4 sticker and slap it on the front That does really look cool and the flammable looks awesome. I mean these are yeah, it's it's iconic And and and of course at this point now too You'll see he's got the the fire extinguisher down there and all that You know the china up there. He's got the the octobands off the side But as we move to this photo you'll see Everything's in flames because they put lighter fluid on all the heads and all that I mean imagine seeing that at the end of a concert. It's like It's awesome, you know and yeah, and that's you know clearly why you needed the fire extinguisher And as you'll notice you look at pictures of alice from like the 1980 tour His hair is a lot shorter and it's you know, it's been it's been said that he singed his hair off doing this But no big surprise. I mean you can't tell me you know, I mean that looks pretty dangerous I don't know how long the flames were like that, but it's cool That's all it's cool You know and it was a and you could and I think as the tour went on he added more octobands You can you know, it's almost like you can see more in the front there Yeah, there's just they just you know, he like that's the problem with like outlining these kits This is like he was constantly, you know evolution Changing the kit adding more symbols trying a different one. Maybe if a symbol broke, they would you know, I mean You know alex has admittedly said in the early days. He was over crash and bash Although, you know, I still found His playing and his technique to be very um musical and very I feel like he was very um articulate in the way He played You know, but even though, you know, he claims that he didn't really start learning Proper rudiment and technique until about the second album and I'm guessing that you know When they toured that first tour and they toured with journey and montrose Steve smith was on his first year in journey And so of course if you're spending a tour or a part of the tour because they didn't tour very long with journey Because they basically outsold them with tickets at all But if you're spending a tour with steve smith who's probably like a practice sound and the guy like basically is like A student of the drums and he's just an incredible technician Some of that's got to rub off on you and I've heard yeah stories where you know I think alex and you know, steve probably used to warm up a little bit But yeah, it's got to be it had to be most Inspirational watch a guy like steve smith do a warm up. I mean the guy was a guy just incredible So absolutely. Um, so as we're looking at these pictures here Like, you know, the ones where they're starting to get the flammable and the The octabons all over what year are we at? So we're in 1979 Van Halen two tour So he's like 26 Yeah, and they and they just literally like we're having the time of their lives The band was still very much a unit and they were functional and they were They were cranking along and and it was basically album tour album tour And they were just you know, again having the time of their lives doing this stuff And so here's another shot of the kit from the front And I'm not really sure where this was taken of on stage or whatever But you can see how there's plenty of the you know, the octobands and view He has tons of them there, man. I mean, and they're all mic'd. I mean there there's one two, three, four, five, six, seven Or eight of them that I'm saying So as we definitely move along into the kits, you'll see that would be one of my comments is like Some poor schmuck had to mic all this stuff, you know what I mean? And there's you know, they mic'd all of it and it's insane to me So and you can also see like the bass drums as far as I can tell in this picture There's no muffling whatsoever. I don't even see a felt strip And it's I mean, it's just a wide open 26 and a 24, you know a long-gained bass drums like I mean, there must have been like little cannons Uh, you can see in this photo here that this is a you know, the silver This is a stainless steel kit that he donated to a hard rock somewhere And he autographed all the heads and that top in the top you can see there's a super sensitive Hang in between all the different drums And uh, you know, the boat headers must have been something they just sort of Put in place is like a decoration because you can clearly see the the bass drums have their You know typical 70s curved spur You know lugging spurs on them And so um, so you can see, you know, there's the stainless steel kit I mean that thing must have weighed You know quite a bit A lot of a lot of fingerprints, you know, so that takes us out of anhill and to and once again 1979 into 1980 they literally came home They really barely had a break And went straight into the studio and recorded to a woman and children first Uh, all these albums so far being recorded at Sunset Sound Studios And so for the tour, this is where alex started to really bring out some creativity So he has this white kit and you'll see that it's again, you know surrounded by 2002 pasties He's got some tama octabands in the front He's got like a little tama a 12 by 10 single headed tom off, you know to the far left But the bass drums are the interesting thing. They're basically 50 by 26 And I say 50 because they're I don't even really know how you measure them because yeah As you'll see when I look at some of these other photos The bass drums had you know, basically like tubing material inside of them And basically they were able to sort of snake around And so yeah, they're like again for for our non youtube friends here. They're like it's like industrial It's like industrial rubber. I would imagine but it's bolted on it's bolted on you can see he's got another flammable sticker on the bass drum You know more fire extinguishers But the other thing you'll note in some of these photos as we get along here is a great shot from behind He added a a 40 inch symphonic gong Now you can also see where he's got no, you know the same little tom crammed in under the hi hat But the cool thing you can see when you're looking at this photo is I think it's this photo Or it might be one similar but they have basically like a gas line that runs up the the length of the gong You know the gong thing so at the end of the show when he's bashing the gong The whole thing lights up lights up, you know, but this time instead of haphazardly They probably figured out pretty quickly that dumping lighter fluid on a drum kit was probably not The best idea and so no they probably rigged it up away much like you would use a gas grill Where they had a wire that went around the gong You know you turn on the gas light it up like a like a grill and in the gong goes up in flames When you're done with it and then you turn the gas off You know that's like movies like I was listening to something the other day about how they made the movie the thing And they were like all right, we just turn on the gas line and then the whole room would light on fire And then we need to shoot it again. Okay, turn the gas off. It's like yeah, they're getting smarter with all of They're getting smarter. They got to probably a little bit of money now They're starting to make a little bit of money the alms are selling eddy was really becoming widely known as You know the greatest guitar player and alex is you know, of course, you know He's playing this this crazy kit that he devised came up with with these weird bass rums You can see that um, he's now added these pearl very pitched toms Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, which are sort of a competitor to Rototoms they're like rototoms and pearls sort of you know with a shell with a shell and so um The kit that he's playing here actually was auctioned off several years back. So there's some really great photos of it You can see you know, this is it somebody actually really set it up the correct way But um, it's not you know, it's not his biggest kit by any means But you but you can see those Bass rums are very unique in the way they if you know, they sort of elongate and move around and he loves to tape The tape setup for his his you know, kind of kick pad. Yeah is That's some muffling right there, of course. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that handles some muffling Here you're putting but you're also playing a wood beater and it's probably Helping the head last longer and and it probably gives it a little you know There's like if you look at these kick drums and I'm sure you know granted This is years after Alex was done playing the set I don't think he actually used any muffling in there anyway And like so I'm sure they helped muffle the kicks a little bit And then the front bass drum head in one of these pictures you've provided here looks like it's got that Where it was a thing at the time where you just basically leave the edge of on on the front Head you leave the edge Of the head so you do have a head on you can keep the rim on And then you can see the Ludwig logo. Yeah, he's playing silver dot heads and he's got um, you know And at this point too, you can see where he started like taping the snare drum up Later on you'll see where he gets more of a a famous thing going with the snare drum So that's basically the 1980 kit. So we uh, you know, they toured with that Again, you know, I know it's gonna sound redundant But they literally went from the 1980 tour back into the studio again Recorded, you know, the next down which was fair warning now The things that I don't really know and I've never really heard and I've always been curious to know Is that Alex has always claimed that, you know, whatever I take in the road I've taken the studio But I have a hard time believing that he took that white Kid into the sunset sound to record fair warning like, you know, like it just seems a little Over the top to bring a kit like that when you're you know, no one's going to know the difference when you're listening to a record So it's hard for me to know exactly what he took into the studio But but on some of those studio recordings like fair warning and all that you can definitely hear Him playing like, you know an eight inch or 10 inch tom somewhere So or even in um, you know, women and children first you can hear some Either roto toms or very pitched toms or whatever they are So he clearly had some of that stuff in there with him Uh, he brought him along But I mean, but it how much of a really brought to the studio is Not really the slinky the slinky bass drum wouldn't be as necessary for when no one sees it It's like, yeah, you would think it would be a little part But again, Alex has claimed that, you know, all that stuff was used in the studio and then, you know I took this I included this one picture just because they uh, They made some promo videos along the way and sometimes like they'd be on a tv show Or they'd be on something where they had to mime along to the song So of course, Alex is playing like this. I think it's a slingerland kit And you see the names blocked off on the on the top sure and uh, and again I don't think he was a Ludwig endorser But he just blocked off the slingerland name and you can see those are the slingerland 70s toms that had Like sort of a cut in them But they were recording, you know Eddie's got the outfitting world all through the 1981 tour where he's all striped up and And Michael Anthony is wearing his like, you know parachute jumpsuit You know, yeah, they like the look of it and before we move on I just want to say too that like He has the slinky kind of tubing on his cymbal stands and his tom mounts And I mean like there's some design and really some thought going into these joints You know what I mean? Like it's a stage design. It looks great And you can also see too like in this particular kit. He painted the shells inside black He either wanted it to look that way or already thought it might project a little more. It's hard to know He definitely had some some ideas But the big huge change coming up for the fair warning album And one of the biggest signature van Halen things is This is around the period where alex acquired the famous tom or rosewood snare And so, uh, I know it's been talked about That alex had this tom or rosewood snare and not really much was known about it other than the fact that You know, like I'm not a I'm not a tom a historian by any means So these tom guys were probably, you know, no 10 times more than I would but there's a picture of alex You know from that tour and he's got the snare drum They're chained to them And um, but I took this photo came from just somewhere on the internet and I found it if it's basically a tom A master craft I believe is what it's called and they call looks like they call those coffin lugs and so When I was actually years ago, you know, this actually plays in when I was looking around Uh, ebay one time I found one of these that somebody was selling and this may even be the picture or the one that was being sold But the guy that was selling it actually had this real cool story And I don't know if I ever would have heard this any other way or found this out But the guy basically claims that he bought it from the original owner and now he had to sell it But the original owner that bought it was a store employee at some Okay, so he worked at a place called docker music in pasadena and according to the guy selling the drum The person that sold it to him said that Um, alex and eddy came into docker music as they oftentimes would to look at gear or whatever And this tomah rosewood snare that was brand new They had a couple of them in the store and alex tried it out and fell in love with it And immediately purchased this tomah drum Well, the store the guy employee that sold him the drum thought well, geez Maybe alex was onto something You know, so he decided to buy the other one they had in the store And so the guy that had this other one basically had it all these years And then he sold it to the guy who was selling it on ebay who had to sell it for whatever reason But it it's kind of a cool story because it sort of gives a timeline As to what alex had and then and it also the guy's drum that he was selling Was literally probably the identical drum that alex ended up purchasing And so and you can see that uh, unlike the super sensitive There's a different type of a throw-off system on it and the biggest note of differences is the um die cast tubes that are on it like kind of like what grech would used to use It is a beautiful drum and it's uh, those are expensive. I mean now i'm pretty they're very expensive They are extremely expensive now worth a lot of money if you can even find one And so alex actually um, I believe if I listen to the album. I mean my years I I think he used it on probably about 60 to 70 percent of the album Whereas and I feel like he used like I feel like on like songs like unchained and uh, maybe like um So this is love. I think it sounds to me like the super sensitive. He had been using previously all along but on songs like um mean streets and uh um push comes to show maybe um Um center swing. It sounds like the tom or rosewood. You know, it's got a distinctive sort of a woody sound to it And it's actually basically everybody calls eddie's guitar tone the brown sound But eddie actually coined the term Actually, he coined it off of alex's snare drum sound Because he basically thought the sound of alex's snare drum reminded of of somebody like beating on a hollow log Which is probably the sound that alex got out of the tom or rosewood most likely So that was probably likely the inspiration So so when they actually, you know, they finished the album they went back straight back on tour again This kit is just insane kit like so this is the This is the kit when I was you know, I started playing drums in 1982 And I was 11 years old and my brother was bringing home You know, he brought home the first couple of inhalant records And he brought home diver down which had just come out and basically like a either this picture or one very much Like it was on the back cover and not knowing not even hearing a note from the band not even knowing anything about them I was like, what is that? What is that? I mean just monster. It's a monster kit stripe Yes, and you know, of course, he's got a pair of sunglasses on a big grin from ear to ear It looks like, you know, he's commanding the ss alex up there. I mean, it's it's it's huge And so of course, as you can see over my shoulder here the poster that's of the same kit I mean I've had that poster since I was 12 years old. I mean, I bought the thing I thought the thing in probably like 1984 or 1983 Yeah, and it's out of my bedroom wall for all through high school And so, you know, I I probably looked at this kit more than any other kit in the photos Although, you know, it may not be my favorite of his kits. It's just it's an amazing kit So it's iconic. Well, we'll tell us what we have here and I know you you might not know every size But just kind of what are we what are we run us through what we have? This is where I where I was telling you I kind of needed to write some stuff down because it's it's a monster So it basically, you know, you have the same the 28 by 26 and 24 inch bass drums The uh, two bass drums on the outer side connected with the houses are 14 by 24s Um, the toms go from 8 by 8 8 by 10 8 by 12 9 by 13 10 by 14 12 by 14 11 by 15 and 12 by 16 just in the toms And then of course you have an 18 16 by 18 floor 16 by 20 floor You have the same tom a mastercraft rosewood snare Then you have tom of two inch, you know, the two eight inch octabands out in the very front And then you have tim ballies off the left of the kit Which you can kind of see all way off to the past the hi-hat And those are pointed out to the other way for edwards so that, you know, he can get up there and and jam on the tim ballies So it it could then of course, it's a it's an array of, you know Pistons ranging, you know, Alex always seemed to play 15 inch hats and then you have, you know, 18s 1920 You know, uh 20 inch, you know, you have mediums in there It's just it's hard to know exactly which cymbals he had and he used, you know It says he's using a 24 inch have it right at this point. And then of course behind him He's got the 40 inch symphonic gong And I got a throw out there that that china on Above kind of his fist that he's holding up. Yep. I don't know if I'm missing some sort of a joint or another stand But that is the longest arm of a simple stand that is like I mean judging by the length of his arm That's like a five foot long boom on holding up a china. Maybe six feet. It is unbelievable I actually talked about this in like when we were talking about the john denser or Issue and I told you about my gretch kit and I have a picture of myself in high school In one year I can remember in the 80s I asked my mom for like a symbol stand for christmas And and I guess that's what you buy in the 80s And so my mom gave me this it was I believe mine was a rogers But it was like probably from the xp8 series or whatever and it was huge and of course at those days I was probably playing a 16 inch crash So I've got this you know Simple stand that probably weighed about 50 pounds and it could probably boom out about as far as that one And i'm holding a 16 inch crash on it and i'm like this is ridiculous It's this I mean that is ridiculous how long that is and it's crazy. So again, here's more pictures You can see the gong is on fire Banks in the gong the you know if you have there's um anybody that that is curious to see There's a couple of videos from our oakland california 81 show they got filmed And um, you know, there's always been long rumors that the whole show's out there But nothing's ever come about except these three videos. So uh, there's unchanged So this is love and hear about it later and um at the end of the unchained Alex, you know gets up and I think it's unchained He's bashing the gong and it lights on fire and it's just like you know They had a backdrop that lit up like a city So the whole stage will you know gargantuan and um the funny thing is is when they got the end of this tour I believe they did a the at this point They were a headlining act and they really didn't open for anyone But when uh, the stones ask you to open for them, you know, you don't say no to the stones You open to the stones. So yeah, you can well imagine alex on stage opening for the stones playing this kit When charlie watz is playing, you know 22 12 16 inch maple finish grinch kit and it's like are you kidding me right now like it's just wow It's insane. And so here's a couple of angles of it and you can just see Just you know, there's that china boomed up. It's just it's huge So can you explain a little the bass drum set up because before I didn't really realize the connection of The tubes. How is this so again there's four bass drums How are these things connected? They're just they're literally connected by like a a tube that is screwed to the outside of the other bass drum and um, so of course alex's thought or belief and he claims that he could hear the difference. I mean, I'm not sure What but he claims that by doing this the other outer bass drum would resonate giving it more tone So like basically so they're mic'd their mics, you know, so they're all mic'd apparently and so It may look silly to some to see four bass drums But apparently he claims that the resident vibrations You know were producing sound and getting you know Tone out of those bass drums and so by mic'ing those bass drums, you would get extra extra tone And it's funny too. You can actually see in this picture There's some octabands that look like they're uh on the other side So they're likely, you know, Michael Anthony might have been playing those You get Eddie playing the timbales and David the Roth would come up and the other thing to note Because I actually saw this kit in person when it was stacked up at the uh guitar center in LA back in like 1998 They vibra foamed the shells. I guess they used this like Vibra foaming it almost looked like plastic pairs. I don't even know what you would call it I wish I had a better description of it. I just remember seeing it going What the heck because it really like the kit looks great in these photos when you're looking at like, you know It's it's a cool-looking kit But when I saw it up close and in person It looked kind of sloppy like I was just kind of like like the insides Let's look like so many it's almost like when they spray spray foam insulation in a house It's almost like somebody just went into the inside And and I guess the reason for them doing this was to add strengths to the shells Which just absolutely blows my mind that this could happen But apparently and I wish I had a picture of this David the Roth used to jump up and stand on top of the bass drums And sure these are, you know, vista like in pattern I don't know what pattern if it's f for what pattern it is But but it's not even like it's a solid vista light shell that are like glued together seams of a vista light So the fact that David Roth stood on them. It just amazes me that somewhere in the middle of the tour the bass drums didn't collapse But apparently they never did because they're still they're still here today But that whatever they did to the inside of them was like basically gave them This added extra strength So yeah, and it's cool that he's using the vista lights that are in the color pattern That aren't just the clear or the blue or the amber because you don't see Super often people using I mean Bonham had a set of black and white stripes Yeah, they've been twisted, but you don't see these and this had to have been 1981 would have been probably at the very very end of the run of vista lights They they stopped making them probably by 1982. I'm guessing um, they just and I think you know Particularly when they started making these pattern vista lights it started getting cost prohibitive And they was just you know and they were falling out of fashion But but it's interesting to note that Alex used a vista light set and you know He's got that same Thomas snare drum and and just like every other picture You can see he's practically sitting on the ground and the hi-hats are all the way up And it's likely he's playing the same cowbell because that cowbell looks pretty beat up at this point But the other thing to note that I find interesting You know when i'm looking at these photos and there's another cool shot of him You could see clearly in this picture of the gong. You can see the gas line going up and around the gong Um, sure, you know, so I don't know where that line ran to if maybe they had a propane tank Hidden under the stage or something like that You could actually see you know Obviously Alex would never be able to hit those octabands that are way off to the side behind the three thoms So that must have been you know Michael Anthony must be be able to hit him or something And so there's there's they still get playing ghost pedals another shot of him playing You know, you see how low the stool is the stool is like all the way to the ground Again, the hats are all the way out. It's kind of like baseball baseball pants on and yeah, like football pants or something Yeah, or football pants They're like kind of like to your like knee kind of and he wore a he wore a headband because you know, they would You know sweat and then of course here's the the gong on fire That's a pretty cool shot And uh, you see how how entertaining that must have looked from a You know, especially if you're a young kid and you're going to your first concert and you know The gongs on fire and it's a wow and then in this picture here, you can see how big the sticks are I mean those things are literally like baseball bats. So you know, he's playing the black dog heads The piste 2002's all that stuff And the other thing to note, you know, it's funny when like when I look at these photos Like the photo I have the one behind me in that poster I remember I used to like sometimes I would count the microphones I remember looking at that picture so many years when I was a kid And I mean, I think I I think I at least the number I think I ended up at And you couldn't even see the whole kid in this picture was about 29 Maybe somewhere around there on just the drums and you think about this And it's like and if Greg Emerson really wasn't a drummer like somebody had to soundcheck this And it's like you think about, you know, going to a club and watching some clown You know five check a five piece kit, you know kick drum kick drum, you know Scared you're like, okay, you know, first time You know second time third time fourth time fifth time, you know, bass drum Bass drum four, you know, like oh my god, like crazy and saying like how many microphones are on this thing And like how much work that must have been and then of course, you know You had to you know to balance it and mix it and then you had overheads and oh my god It's a huge. I mean this stuff It's probably a whole another conversation But I mean, I'm sure this helped push forward all these things help push forward like Staging and the the industry in general and things get bigger and better and of course, you know, like Alex and Eddie You know, it's like their their big big big joke was always like more is but more is always better You know, like they they always had a saying where they said their dad would always say like, uh You know, it's all like you need for a buck. I'd like two bucks worth, you know, like You know, it's just You know they they that's some of the the philosophy they had and of course Alex has said in interviews that some of these kids were so damn big and he said, of course, you know You know damn well somebody's waiting for you to hit, you know The rototomb all the way to your left and so like at some point you just had to reach over there for no apparent reason Yeah, for you know, play this wacko Phil just because you knew somebody was looking for And so exactly. So, you know, this this was probably if I were to guess This kid and the next kid are about the pinnacle about as far as The number of pieces and the size and the you know overall So as we move, you know, here's an ad where he did an ad for piste You know playing this kit and then You can see um Actually, you can see in this picture You can clearly see that tim ballie is over to the you know, the side there that eddie would play But then there's a picture of the kit where it's all, you know, dumped on the floor or whatever You can kind of see how dingy inside the shells look They it's kind of slopped together. You're supposed to see him from a from an arena or whatever, you know You see him from an arena But you know and then you know the dreaded picture of me back in the 90s standing in front of this kit And so that looks good. They had a nice hair. Oh, yeah I had a you know long long hair going and it was about 1998 I think when I was out there and uh, this was at the guitar center in hollywood And of course they had this thing set up Totally wrong They know all those toms you see over the bass drum probably were the ones that went over the floor toms They had the real tom stacked in the floor You know, but they have a super sensitive with it You can see and they got you know the bass drums and they're just not facing the right way I mean, they know they just throw those things around they put them down But it was still cool to see it It's very cool And uh, you can see one of michael's basses and now and eddie's guitar back there But I mean this guitar center was probably you know 20 minutes from their homes or whatever and it's been rumored that you know I guess alex had a warehouse where he kept all of his kits that were not being used And so uh previous kits would be stored in this warehouse And so yeah, so you know we again we finish up 1981 and and it's really kind of funny because um They move on to the year 1982 and their plan their manager had a plan that he you know The band was just getting burnt because they would go from album tour album tour And the plan for them for this time around was going to be like, okay You guys have earned it. We're going to take some time off and that way you guys can concentrate and record your next album Well, of course davily ross the ever, you know Was ever, you know restless person decided that it was um, you know, maybe we should put a single out Just so that people know that we're still around we're not going anywhere and we'll be back And so they decided to record that cover of pretty woman Well when the record of the fair warning album, they really didn't have you know It was probably even though it's probably like every van halen's cult favorite van halen album at the time when they released it It didn't really have any radio from the hits It was the lowest selling album in van halen's catalog It was you know, they had a rough time getting sales out of it even though You know, as I said now everybody, you know, it's everybody's favorite van halen album But when they released pretty woman, they instantly had like a top 40 hit And so of course water brothers went well, where's the album? And they were like, well, no wait, you know, we're not But we don't have we're time off. We're like, no, no, you guys have a hit single We need that album So they turned around went back into the studio banged out another album But this time the album was done In a very short time and it was like half cover songs. And so This is the period where eddy got really frustrated because He felt that he would rather bomb making his own music than doing a bunch of cover songs And I think, you know, david and ted teppelman were of the You know the the philosophy that if you have a proven hit, you're already halfway there and And the the one cool thing that came from the album I mean, there's some great originals on there like little guitars is a great song and Secrets and and there's some other cool stuff on there the flamenco stuff that eddy does for little guitars in the beginning But um, but one of the cool things they did on there is that david roth had heard he had a transistor radio and he heard um, I picked up a radio station that was playing old jazz tunes and so He heard this old song called big bad bill And so they worked up this tune as a jazz number and they actually had they know yon van halen Who was you know the father of course come in and play clarinet on it and the guy hadn't you know played in a long time He was old and retired and and he was nervous and they had him play this clarinet part that was just perfect You can totally tell listening to him play, you know where the van halen feel comes from But it's neat because you know, michael anthony's playing one of those big You know up mexican basses that you see in the restaurants eddy was playing a jazz guitar And he's just like strumming, you know eight note chords But alex is playing brushes and he plays you know, basically just a kick drum a hi hat and a snare drum And he's you know swinging right along just like any great jazz drummer And it really shows that he had a you know people talk about his ability to swing and play and He certainly had that feel he could have probably stepped back into the 30s 40s big band era Fit right in with all those guys so just a good drummer a very good And of course the thing that that really I liked about it and I loved about it to this day Because it's one of my guilty pleasure tunes is I just love hearing them jam that tune is my drum teacher Was teaching me brushes and stuff when I was young but of course, you know, when you hear it from I don't know It just didn't seem quite as cool until I heard that on a van halen record went wait a minute My drum teacher is cool like wait a minute. These things are cool. Brushes are good They're you know, it's it's a really dumb thinking Looking back on it. But it's you know, when you're 13 years old, that's you know And of course, that's that's also the same year. I saw buddy rich. So So all of that started doing okay, you know, okay, this is pretty cool. So um, yeah So anyway, so we move on from the album They went straight back out on tour again without a break without any rest But the next kid that alex had was just as big as the fair warning tour kit Just gargantuan huge look at this thing. I mean, it's just Unbelievable and uh, he started off the tour with the uh, the two toms mounted way up top But he got rid of them not long after the tour started and it would be my guess that he probably because he had them like that on the Fair warning tour, but maybe he got sick and not being able to see eddie Um, I'm guessing it's really kind of funny and I've never heard anyone confirm this But it's just a haunt or a guess of mine But when um, when you hear them ending songs live a lot of times You'll hear them come down on a crash And then you'll hear the last crash that they do alex will do a precursor kick to that crash It'll be like, you know, it'll be like, yeah Yeah, exactly. And so it is my belief personally It's my best my best guess and believe that some of alex's sets were so big That he just could not physically see where eddie or anybody was and basically The end of the song fell on alex and so basically you hear that first kick That second kick is coming right after it and that's where you ended And it would be my guess that they came up with this way because alex probably was like, you know what? You guys are doing, you know split kicks and running around the stage and i'm behind this behemoth of a drum set I can't see anybody. So this is how it's going to go. That's the cue That's the equivalent of gene krupa doing this little cowbell to get out of a solo kind of thing Exactly. This is going to be And it's never been confirmed. You know, I'd love to ask alex that Knowing those guys, they were so intrinsic musically as a band and I mean all of them including michael anthony I mean, they just they were all so intrinsic It wouldn't surprise me if it was nothing they even said alex probably did it one time and they all went, okay We got it. This set though is is incredible. I mean, so explain this a little bit We're looking at like two bass drums that have I think I counted maybe 17 or 18 Smaller tubes coming out of it. So which is kind of a visual thing The thought process for alex was at the time and again, you know These are just wild ideas that he came up with that he was thinking along the lines of a church organ And so I think his original thought was that like, okay You know wonder what it would be like if I had different tubes like a church organ and depending on the room I can mic different sections of the tubes and get different sounds Uh, and it's a little crazy. It's a little out there, but it's but it's you know, it's why not try it And then of course you can see he's got flanking bass drums again that are radial horn, you know into the You know on the outside which were miked and all that and you can clearly see the timbollings in this picture And uh, so the kit if I were to run it down again, you have a 20s, you know 28 by 26 8 by 24 But then you have um, two 16 by 20s like on either, you know, one on either side of the kit So that's a little different having a 16 by 20 Back there because I think the previous kit had 24s on it, but then, you know, you have the same Uh, the tom sizes you go from 8 by 8 8 by 10 Which are those little toms and then you have the 8 by 12 9 by 13 10 by 14 And you can see they're using the modular mounts, you know those big triangular mounts on the toms Uh, the insides are painted white again Uh, and then you could the floor toms again were uh 16 by 18 and an 18 by a 16 by or 18 by 20 And then you have uh the tom a master cross snare drum You know a couple of pearl very pitched toms, which we'll see and then the timbollings And then the addition in this kit, which was brand new for him was the addition of the Simmons So he started adding like three Simmons pads then with the stsv brain those came out around 1981 And he started getting into those You know, he got rid of the two small toms up top, which again probably gave him a better view of eddie You know, they got the lion logo at the top, you know, I'll just get the gong behind them 40 inch gong the china up there All these different things It's just awesome. It's visually it's incredible. It's incredible Uh, you can see like they got flames in front of the kit now flames at the back The whole thing is just you know, well, they got these I don't know if they're real if there's wall of speakers back there. Just you know, it's an intense looking big stage And so the Simmons looks like this. This is the brain of a Simmons stsv Which, you know, we'll get into detail more later as he got more into the Simmons And then of course, he used the original stsv pads, which look like this Um, you know, and they got the chrome the sort of a chrome thing around the edging and they're they're Black, I guess the way they made those pads too is they um They're they're plastic clear and they would paint the insides of them, which I was unaware of So as you can see as we uh, along these pictures, Alex had There were the three Simmons pads over on the over the floor toms And he really got into those I think his influence for roto toms and uh, Simmons kind of came from um Bill bruford kind of gave him that little bit of an influence And so that's a new addition to the kit And so that pretty much takes care of the the 1982 set that he used And so what happened was is again The plan for them finally was to get off the road and Take a long well-deserved break so they can concentrate and make their next album But what ended up happening was um, they did they played a series of shows in South America at the end of the tour And after the tour was over they went back to the states. Well Um, all the gear was you know, very slow in getting back to the states And it was like I don't think they really thought much about it because they didn't need it David Roth was on one of his jungle stud, you know trips out in the amazon. Well around may of 1983 This computer Uh genius guys d wasniac came up, you know what you had this us festival that he did and he offered You know the opening headlining slot to van halen on on metal day and basically they were offered You know offered the slot and initially they turned it down because they were like, you know We're we're taking a break. We're we're fried. We're taking a break And when they found out how much the payday was which I guess they had a clause which you know They ended up being the highest paid act and the entire thing So they got something like 1.5 million dollars or something for one show or something, you know And for 1983 it was it made the Guinness Book of World's records and and all this stuff And so of course when it came to the stage show All the gear was you know being eddie had basically said even though they made 1.5 million dollars They spent just as much on the stage show because they didn't have anything They had to have a whole new stage built and they just for this one show So alex got another kit and so this is the kit which is you know, the only time he ever used it was at this show So it's a it's a three-base room kit. There's actually only three base rooms. I don't know why Um, the only elongated, you know, I mean the only base room attached, you know on the edges the one far left And then you can see he's actually using power toms, which is something new all of his kits previously had like standard depth sizes Like 8 by 12 9 by 13, but he's using um At this point now, you know, he's still got the 26 24 inch elongated base drums But he has um a 16 by 24 all the way to the left But his tom sizes are now 10 by 12 11 by 13 and 12 by 14 with the modular mounts He has a 16 by 18 and then he can be 20 floor tom Um the tom is near once again He's got the pearl very pitched toms. He's got tim ballies off the I believe he I think you might have tim ball But he says Simmons sds v with three pads again And if you watch the video they use um, they put out for with the us festival footage He actually uses the Simmons pads almost like ad nauseam like he's playing them Everywhere in lieu of the regular toms like I don't even think he uses the floor toms hardly at all It's mostly playing, you know, he'll do a few fills and stuff on the main toms But he's being with three toms. He's playing a lot of the Simmons on there And um, the other thing that's really bizarre is I believe this photo Which is one they used in the cover story for modern drummer for 1983 Um, which was my first, you know, uh, one of my first issues of modern drummer was with him on the cover there But this they use these pictures and you can see he's got white logo base drum heads on there in the radial Radial horns, which are kind of new but um, but for some reason when they did the show Uh, because I believe that picture at first was soundcheck Um, if you notice the show pictures not only are the heads clear now, but the um The bass drum hoops are red instead of white. It's really bizarre like really like I don't know why I don't Yeah, I don't know why somebody did that and and it's not like these are different shows Like he only uses kit once to this one show that was it now the the horns like are those function Is there so looking thing? I think you know, and I'm not positive at this point yet because he eventually Gets to the point where he's triggering Simmons bass drums From the kick drums and so I don't know if he had done it on this kit or not And I don't know if the radial horns had the sounds coming out from there Or if they were just for looks or I mean, I guess he claims that they were You know Everything had a had a a purpose with it It's better in including the long gated bass drum and the the side bass drum and it's just one of those things But um, yeah, but but again to explain for people just listening This is literally like old the horns from like the top of an old giant Yeah, I don't like the radial horn and I believe they were all tank landing You know is what they were and so later on the kit. It's weird this kit Alex once again, I think he may have either auctioned it off or given it You know a charity or something But it got stolen at some point and it showed up it was just for some reason It showed up in some weird like sketchy ebay ad and this is like a picture of it Basically from this weird ad like the other bass drum is gone and these are the only parts of it And you can see like even the the the drums look faded like the it's almost like the The pictures of the you know, the the lips pictures got faded out in different various places Yeah, I mean and again to explain for people just listen It's it's got like lips and a mouth all over like a collage all over it So it's kind of a hard kit to like, you know, it's pretty unique and it's uh, you know Pretty unique for sure. And then of course, you know the day of the show He was wearing the the lips, you know the t-shirt So here he is again with greg emerson his tech and uh wearing the t-shirt and it's it's you know, it's interesting But it's a one-off show and so in the interim while they did this show Eddie had gotten um probably got an idea from frank zappa He had visited frank zappa's home at one point and sort of befriended, you know frank And and that's where he got to know dweasel zappa And frank had his own recording studio and I want to say it was something like the research Like he called it something weird like the research muffin facility kitchen or something like something weird like that It's only something frank come up with but nonetheless It's it sparked eddie got him real interested in in having a studio of his own and I think originally, you know Nobody really thought of it much more than eddie just having like a couple of four tracks And he could go in there and lay down ideas or whatever But I think this is where eddie seed really started to build where he thought You know, I I really I think I can have a real studio And so uh, that's just where 51 50 was born in around 1983 And he was built out of a racquetball court that was on the back property of edwards home up in the cold water canyon And so it originally started off as a pretty small area And so when they decided to record 50, uh 1984 there, uh dawn landy was the engineer on it But I guess ten temple men wasn't all that happy about them recording there where you know He was a record producer and he was like, you know, you you go to a studio like sunset sound recorders Like you don't record albums and and this was back in the 80s Like it's pretty commonplace now like, you know, kenny erinoff has a studio and a you know You know probably a storage unit that he rents out, you know that you know No, not then it'd be like you want to do it in a racquetball, you know So they had this old racquetball court They converted over and then dawn landy the engineer who had done all those albums with ten temple men and And all the dubby brothers and little feet and ten I guess uh dawn landy was a just a really smart guy And he could fix and wire anything up So they had this old api board and they wired it up and and uh, he did all the wiring to it So so basically the story is the the long story is they um when they recorded the 1984 album Alex recorded it with mostly a hybrid kit of simmons rototoms and the um the tom of mastercraft snare drum So um, so the story is is that you know It's it's odd because I've heard all these conflicting stories And i'm one of those people that's like I can't just listen to an album or watch a movie like I like to like I like to know How it was made I like to know how they did stuff. I'm really curious And you know in this big this debate for years about like, you know Did uh, they back up a Lamborghini to the record at the beginning of hot for teacher did alex play it Is it a harley davidson? What is it? You know and it's like they're conflicting stories because ten templemen is saying it's the lamborghini But it's well known that they used the lamborghini to get the revving sound in panama So I mean, you know, the lamborghini has a different sound to it because it's a an italian Sports car, you know, and it doesn't you know, you know, that's why people think it's a harley But truth be told and this is my own personal opinion. Alex has never come out and said this I think he played the thing on a Simmons sdsv. I think he played it in one tank. I think he it's all him I I personally think it's a hundred percent him Um, I've got some Simmons drums myself that I bought, you know from his influence And we'll get into that more in the next next episode But I have an sds8 brain which is baby Bayfully like the you know the baby sister to the sdsv and it does a lot of the similar sounds And you can literally tune the floor tom to sound like the kick drum And so when you have you know kick drums going in the floor tom going they sound like a like just like that intro It sounds very similar And then when you listen to any live recording of them on the tour Alex will do the intro for like a couple of seconds But it actually when he goes into the solo at the end of hot for teacher He's basically doing the intro as part of his solo And it sounds just like the record to me So I have no doubt in my mind and I actually heard this story somewhere That that and this this would probably not surprise me in the least that alex shotgun six beers Before he went in and recorded hot for teacher and literally probably like one take And it's just like an absolute masterpiece of a drum track That she's what the yeah, it is the other thing that is odd that I find It's been said that they had when they recorded in there because he was using the Simmons And everything was all closed quarters They couldn't really use the real drums because everything would bleed into one another And so they had to like try to you know It was easier to get isolation by using the Simmons And so there are a lot of overdubs on there and I can hear in some songs like if you hear like um Apparently when they did I'll wait, you know There's the reason alex didn't hit the crash when he came off the toms is because the crashes were overdubbed And he forgot to put a crash there and they liked the way it sounded without a crash And uh, and you can actually hear it in songs like drop dead legs where they Overdubbed some symbols and all that but then there are other songs like girl gone bad and hot for teacher and even jump Where it sounds to me clearly like he played that set Straight up with the symbols everything right there. So I don't really understand What what the issue really was with it and not only that and I'll get into this later I've got a friend that I know that actually recorded at 51 50 with a band in the late 80s And he recorded in that room same room before they added the drum room And he was playing his acoustic camco drums and like they They literally, you know, mic'd him up like any drop set would and recorded it and sometimes, you know, the complaints from the Uh, you know eddie will complain and say well alex had to play Simmons drums because we were limited in the studio But I don't know. I mean I I think that was a long time ago. I think he liked them I think he wanted to use them But you know, some people find them to be dated I think they're I liked him. I enjoyed him. I thought that he got some great sounds out of him So yeah, so they they took the better part of a year recorded 1984 And this is where I'll get into the last kit in the the day of years and then we can move on to like You know, sammy hangar years for the next episode or something So when they recorded I got a couple of photos like you can see actually see the studio I'm not exactly sure what year this is and you can see how small and cramped it is There's trash everywhere, but you can see the kit. There's a red, you know sds five kit You can see the black toms see the roto toms and then you can see the oberheim obx a keyboard right there Which is likely, you know At eddie was probably facing alex when they recorded jump It is rumored that the first thing they ever recorded in that studio was in the midnight hour That was never released so van halen fans You know for years have been clamoring over the fact that there might be a version of you know In the midnight hour by wilson picket recorded by van halen But it is yet to ever come out of the waltz and it likely never will But supposedly the next the the first thing they were really you know recorded and there was jump And it was basically one night eddie had the riff that had gone back to about 1981 or so reported it on you know in the back of a bus or on a cheap keyboard and so he basically um You know queued up the sound if you look at that keyboard You can see that you had to a little twist a bunch of knobs to get sounds and he created the you know The famous jump sound and and basically recorded it just him and alex probably staring at each other one night And then everything else was overdubbed the guitars later the bass later the vocals A lot of people talk about jump and they they talk about how you know I can't i'm sick of the song or they went pop or but when i listen to that song It's just the take between eddie and alex is so magical You know even though eddie's on a keyboard It's it's just a magic take alex is playing is so so nice on that He got he's got a great swing feel they do these like you know It's a pop tune, but yet they got these offbeat things going in the solo. It's got syncopated parts I mean it's it's a great song. I mean I just I I I can never hear it enough times It just you know, I know people get sick of it, but I love the thing I just think that original take they did in the studio they you know sometimes You've probably done it when you're recording at home and you just somehow did something You can't realize how to recreate it and I think that I think they just got they got the money right on that one It was beautiful. Yeah, and so that's why I love hearing it It's just magic in a bottle So they recorded the album and they decided at this point mtv had already been out for a couple years So they decided you know, they had to step into the ring and they had to make An mtv video and so that's when they came up with the jump video. They were going to release jump as the first single and so in the october of 83 they um rented out like a little studio and they went um They went in and they recorded the jump video now originally davily roth had this idea where he wanted to have all these weird Shots or shot around town and he made these videographer guys go around and shoot the band at all these different locations and doing different things and um And basically like he wanted them interspersed into the video Well, the director of the video felt strongly that the video should just be a performance video And so he basically cut a version of the video without any of this extra crap in it Brought it to eddie and alex and said look, you know, i'm probably going to get fired for this But this is what you guys need to put out and alex and eddie agreed and that's what happened Which of course, you know was you know Not happy for davily roth, but so this picture Here is a shot of alex and his warehouse and it was taken from those video shoots And you can see all these different drums. You can see silver sparkle drums from the you know, the old kit You can see black drums from the from the diver down tour There's part of the lips kit, you know different hoops the white toms in front of them from the 1980 kit But the one that puzzles me is the rosewood bass drum right to his left there or is right rather It just i don't know what it was used for it makes me wonder if he used it in in the studio and like fair warning Or something like that, but you know, you can see he's like sitting on one of the toms from the fair warning kit Um, you know, so and there's back behind him over his left shoulder There's you know the numbered kit from van halen too So it's pretty cool to see all these kits all piled up in the you know And then when you watch the little outtake video clips that are floating around on youtube They actually tried to film him like he's buried under all the drums And he stands up and all these drums roll off of him And he lights a cigarette with a bullet x you know fire extinguisher and and uh, but they didn't use any of that stuff For the jump video So when they you know recorded the jump video the video you can see him playing this kit and he's got In the video he's playing the super sensitive, but he's got the famous tape You know triangle tape scenario for the snare Which is something you know, it's kind of a thing his thing Yeah, and he's playing this kit that's surrounded by rototoms and then he's got these uh bass drums that have um The uh beaters glued all to it. So like you could see in parts of you know the jump video Here's you know the kit he's playing some rude crashes and stuff that are piste lines But but you know when he's got the gong behind him But this was like you know glitzy kit This is one of my favorite kits ahead because you know if you haven't figured out yet You know all the times you've talked to me I like wacky, you know modern finishes and glitzy things and and I just you know the beaters look really cool They got a nice glitz to them So it's basically like a broken mirror kind of disco Disco ball looking thing and apparently alex hand glued all the mirrors on and i'm going to guess he did it with you know his tech Um, uh, greg emerson probably you can see the bass romano off to the sides are connected with the hose Again, but this kit is primarily made up of rototoms The rototoms were only used in like the video shoot You can see he's playing you know again the super sensitive snare drum With the straight badge the badge is perfectly straight You can see that he's um got you know surrounded by piste symbols china's on either side of them Black dot heads on the floor toms porn in the bass room You know you can see that's a 2002 ride he's got going on there When they move on to the tour you can actually see there's some photos floating around early on in the tour where I think he set the kit up when he rounded it out with simons pads told the entire kit had like six simons pads around it And you can see that like basically the the basis for the kit was you know You know everything else was just barely augment But you have you know two bass rooms that were the main part of the kit and six simons pads So What do you do with the front because I think it probably looked a little weird that way So you can see like he started off like okay, let's throw some octabands up there Yeah, I don't know if I like that but you can see as he progressed along Okay, let's put some black ones up there So he put black octabands up there and it was probably like okay, that's getting there It looks a little bit better, but you know, maybe we should make them look like the kit You know, so here's like another shot You see the black toms and they just look a little weird like it looks kind of kind of strange It just looks big four bass drums, but these tiny little tall. I just didn't look right So eventually you end up with voila And so they ended up You know putting the mirror finish on all the and they added a the seven total Octabands on there in various sizes cut to various lengths and so they put them up there and so So it just made the kit look a lot more cool And so it looks incredible and there's there's a close-up shot That's kind of a funny one where he's pouring a beer in his mouth But the the moment they caught that angle it looks like he Is pouring the beer and it's going in his eye Yeah, it makes me won't laugh too because the sdsv brain was not far probably from his You know out and so I wondered if he got beer all over it, you know, and yeah, probably, you know And those things are probably not meant to have beers spilled in them. So there's you know, you can see It just it looked cool under the lights because the beer is reflected And they would also there was also an ad they put out I thought this is something I always kind of found funny is I have you know You kind of see it behind me over to my I guess over that way I have this ad and framed. I've had it since the 80s But it says, you know here alex jane hillan and his Ludwig's on vane hillan's latest Well, if you listen to an 84, I don't actually think there's a Ludwig on that album All the sim although the base rooms are Simmons the the toms or roto toms the snare drums of tomah So there really isn't a Ludwig on there isn't a Ludwig on that album claiming it though Well, it is it's funny to see that you're here alex on his Ludwig's well And even the tour kit there isn't a Ludwig in the tour kit I mean the the the shells are Ludwig with Ludwig hardware, but they're being triggered They had plywood sheets in there which would you know trigger the Simmons kicks were in there And so the base drums were Simmons the toms were Simmons And the snare was a Thomas It was just kind of just kind of funny to see that I mean the kit was just really cool looking Um And it was and it goes the stage setup was just gargantuan It's almost like it's almost kind of like you know the the guys in the band knew That they were going to be you know, this was the last time they were going to Go out with Dave or whatever. I don't know if they knew it instinctively, but they went out with a bang and and it's funny because Uh, we will touch on this of course in the next episode, but I wanted to see this tour like you I mean I was already a huge fan And um when this tour came around I was 13 and it came to the Worcester centrum And of course I live in New Hampshire and it's a good good, you know hour 45 minutes away And I could remember begging my parents and it's funny because my mom who knows really nothing about concerts I can remember her saying, um You know, you know, it's a You know, you're 13 years old. Maybe you know, I don't know how concerts work the next time they come around maybe you'll be uh You'll you'll be older and it's like you can have a license and you can drive yourself and And and sure enough, you know, that came true. Like I saw them on the next tour But no Dave And so I never got all the years I've been a van Halen fan I have never seen van Halen with all four original members that just blows my mind So I could remember laying in my bed thinking geez they must be hitting the stage, you know, like like it was like Yeah, you know March of 1984. I was just like I should have been there, but it just wasn't in the cards 13's a little 13's a little your mom now that I have kids. I'm like your your mom was probably right Probably when you consider that the the whole concert was, you know, pretty raucous and pretty pretty wild But still nonetheless and in the 80s, I mean 13 year olds got away with a lot more than 13 year olds Probably get away with now No, definitely You would have you would have seen some some bare-chested ladies as a 13 year old boy there And I'm sure and I mean just how cool does Alex look he's got camo pants on and sunglasses and you know when you're 13 year old I mean, it's just like oh my god, like, you know, again, this is this is my guy And uh in behind this just ridiculous set of drums, which is so cool And then of course there's a shot where you can see the toms have the you know the mirrors up close And they're probably, you know Sloppily probably glued on there. I'm sure it wasn't anything but it looked great from the stage and Yeah, which is all that matters really. Yeah, and so the other thing that was really cool And this is the last thing I'll touch on because we're getting near the end of this is um What happened was is they um as the tour progressed They they really only toured till about like July I want to say of 84 and then they took up like like a month or so off And then they did five shows to end out the tour and they played the monsters of rock starting in um, England they they played with acdc as the headliner and it was like um, I want to say uh Motley crew was there and all these other bands that were Um, you know played. I think ozzy osbourne was on that bill or something And so they played the monsters of rock and they played just as the sun was going down In castle dawnington england and the thing that was really cool is that um All these years like I've heard a bootleg audio recording of this forever And there's been a video of like the hot for teacher Basically, but a video just came out and it's pretty much gone now You know, I had to like sort of capture it when it was out, but it was literally um A pro shot video that somebody filmed from the stage and it was clearly sanctioned by the band because the bands You know making faces in the you know in the camera and they you know The guy was literally like a fifth member of the stage and um, wow And and to see this video just blew my mind because I saw angles of the kit and stuff that I'd never seen before So you can see in this, you know, you can always tell This is like one of those shots because the backdrop of the stage is different They weren't able to they were outdoors number one And it was like dusk and they weren't able to use You know the full walk around like there's actually a part of the video where david the roth You can see him like trying to get up on the catwalk to go around the back of the gong And he's like wait a minute Where the hell's the catwalk, you know, like there's no catwalk. So like can't get up there And so he's like, okay, forget that and the other thing that just blows my mind This is like this was probably One of the first of five shows and that last show they did in nuremberg, germany was the last show They ever did as the original van halen with michael anthony and david the roth in the band and and and so here we are five days out And and at this point without getting into too much there were obviously tensions within the band It was not, you know, there was some the band wasn't firing on all the right cylinders But man those guys still knew how to put on the show. It was unbelievable Whatever problems they had off the stage, whatever issues they may have had, you know, personally or even with, you know, substances Whatever they could just put on the show and there's a there's a perfect part like When you're watching like running with the devil, you'll see michael anthony all of a sudden like he just at the very beginning of the song He backs up Well out like missing a cue and he sort of crouches over as david the roth does like a handstand flip Over his back and if you blink your eyes, you probably would miss it But you have to think it to yourself There are 20 ways that thing could have gone wrong. There are, you know, david the roth is totally insane David the roth was probably half in the bag to begin with and the fact that he did a handstand flip It went literally off the back of michael anthony pops up over the other side And then this guy's just like it's just like not even missing a beat Like i've done stuff where i've played gigs and i'm gonna all throw the stick in the air like, you know Pair and catch it and you know in i'd say, you know nine times out of 10 You know drops on the floor I mean like there just so many ways that trick could have gone sideways and here they are just like Do-do-do is just you know another night another night, you know, and so those guys really had the act out They had that thing too or they're meant to be Unbelievable how tight that band was when they wanted to be in just like running the money So here's a really cool shot that i screen captured from that video and you can see how crystal clear the video is They actually might the snare drum from the side They actually, you know, it's this tomas snare drum with the coffin lugs And they actually have the mic on the side of the drum. I heard alex talk about this But I was like what but here's actual like the microphone I mean i've always miked a snare drum from the top Or you know and and or the bottom. I've never seen anybody mic a snare drum from the side That is just insane to me and then yeah, here's another shot where you know He's I mean the video's got some really great shots in it and the camera guy was on stage And then here's a cool shot from where the guy was standing up over alex He'd get a good view of things and uh, the other thing I thought was kind of funny I saw this on a guitar for him. He can't see this in my photos But where alex is um, he's playing the solo at the very end of hot for teacher Well, um in the video you can see over to his left Greg neverson creeps up over his side and does something to the hi-hat And I was watching this um interview on a you know some guys on a guitar show were talking about this And they were saying alex is so powerful He broke the hi-hat and you can see his tech end to fix it and I'm like, you know, of course I'm laughing going bunch of guitar players They don't know anything I mean because he was playing half a teacher where they had the hats partially closed So greg had to come in he wasn't using a hi-hat clutch So greg had to come in and he had to reopen the hi-hats again Greg would literally manually come in lower the hats form so that he could have him partially closed for half a teacher But while alex was off to the you know floor toms finishing up his solo Greg would sneak in there and put the hats back up But I just thought it was funny because I know as a drummer I knew exactly what he was doing but to see a bunch of guitar players. Oh, he broke the hi-hat No, they don't know what they're talking about. I thought that was kind of humorous. That is funny Some other you know shots you can see the set list off was left there. It's a still kind of daytime So that basically our you know, he did these five shows and it's really kind of a sad way to end things but they ended up um Doing the last show in Nuremberg, Germany and Went their separate ways went home and and and that was it the band never really, you know The band you know, they can they they carried on but sammy hagar joined but the the kits became You know the kits stayed cool. So there's plenty more to talk about to talk about and we can we can end it here if you'd like and Yes, I think we should for the sake. Yes. I know it's been it's been quite a long time. It's no, this is good This is what people like and they they want out of these episodes is the deep deep deep dive Yeah, so there's still lots to talk about so Um, we will end here though for the sake of time in part one and then curtain I'll record part two and we'll we'll have that out soon after this The week after you guys Watch this. Um, so curt anything you want to plug as we kind of wrap up this episode and Tell people where to find you or anything cool. I mean, it just you know, it's the same old You know, I mean i'm i'm on facebook. I'm on the usual places. I think in instagram although I don't use those I don't use those as much as you know, as most people would I I probably should be better at that but I guess i'm an old dude and I don't really, you know You know, that's all right Wfl curt you can find them around at wfl curt and uh, and again I want to say thank you to alex for being a big inspiration and and you know and and recognize this tech John douglas reporting a lot of work in the um Of the book that's called legends you can pick it up from modern drummer and it's got a lot of cool info in it Yeah, that's great This is a good primer and then people can go further and if they want to learn more about it's history And it's biography and all that stuff then i'm sure there's tons more info Yeah, and alex also alex just got inducted into the modern drummer hall of fame. So i'd like to say congratulations for that as well Yeah, yeah, yeah huge congrats to alex faniola. I mean it seems like such a cool guy. Um, so Okay, well, thank you to everyone for listening and sticking with us and per usual drop Comments about things that you like and if you saw them live and what concert you saw and your favorite kit Favorite album, uh things we may have missed and things that you know, you think oh, I think it's this instead or His early symbols, um stuff like that. So if people know more about like specifics You know with the symbols and all that feel free to you know, it's just fun to get a conversation There's just so many pieces and parts to all of this. It's unbelievable. Kurt. Thanks for being here man We'll get part two recorded and i'm excited to learn more about uh, you know his later kits as well But this is we've covered the iconic Beginning of alex faniola. So, uh, thank you kurt. All right. Well, thanks again for having me. I really appreciate it