Reply To: Podcast interview on Early Days: Van Halen Rising

One of the big insights that I gained while writing Van Halen Rising was how out of step Van Halen, a heavy metal band, appeared to be with the broader trends in pop music in 1977. Despite the fact that Van Halen had just been signed by Warner Bros. Records, a look at the Billboard charts reveals that America loved soft rock bands like Fleetwood Mac and the Eagles in the late 70s. Disco, too, dominated the top of the top of the charts.(The Saturday Night Fever soundtrack sold 20 million copies worldwide in 1978 alone.) In contrast, heavy rock acts like Ted Nugent and Aerosmith now appeared as once-powerful dinosaurs destined for extinction.

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To be sure, punk and disco had come on the scene in a pretty big way by 1977, but from my experience, rock was still very much alive and well. While punk and disco became very popular, it wasn’t like rock music lovers suddenly abandoned their favorite bands or that rock concerts started to become fewer and far between. In fact, in 1978, Ted Nugent was at the peak of his success and was selling out big sheds left and right (as you can see here – scroll down to the venue listings):

theconcertdatabase.com/artists/ted-nugent?field_date_value=&page=3

I’m sure in big urban areas like LA where punk was really taking off – it would seem as though Van Halen was out of step. But once you got out of LA and NYC – punk was mostly just a novelty – and as time would tell – and as time did tell – the novelty wore off pretty quickly.

Just my 2 cent’s worth.