Having been discovered playing in a tiny Hollywood club by Gene Simmons of Kiss, Van Halen scored a Top 20 album right out of the box with their 1978 debut. The double whammy factor of one flamboyant vocalist and one astounding guitarist was making them a major live attraction but, already, tensions simmered beneath the surface.
The outrageously lippy David Lee Roth revelled in high-profile pop excess, walking and talking a lifestyle that the sensitive virtuoso axeman Eddie Van Halen often considered shallow and insubstantial. Despite their initial success, as 1979 began, the band was living some way from the lap of luxury, and the fragile kinship was already beginning to fragment.
