"We went platinum and Warner Brothers told us we owed them two million dollars": How Van Halen followed one of rock's greatest-ever debuts

Van Halen pose on a Hollywood rooftop, 1979.

If there was one 70s rock band that seemed machine-tooled for the dawning new decade, it was Van Halen. Frontman David Lee Roth knew it back in 1978, with the debut album Van Halen going platinum.

“There are a lot of great old songs we used to do that translate well into the 1980s sound,” he told Sounds. “This is the eighties, and this is the new sound. It’s not the sixties, and it’s not a reflection of the seventies any more. It’s hyper, it’s energy, it’s urgent. Our music is exuberant and strenuous to play, so we’re really in shape.”