Runnin' with the Devil

by Noel Monk

  It was flattering enough for Van Halen simply to be a part of this event. Sabbath was Sabbath, as we already knew from months on the road as the band’s supporting act. Boston, meanwhile, was among the hottest bands in the world. The group’s eponymous debut album, released in the fall of 1976, was filled with shimmering, highly polished and radio-friendly guitar rock, and was a staple of FM playlists. Boston was one of the biggest-selling debuts in history and yielded multiple hit singles. A second album, Don’t Look Back, was released in August 1978; by the time we appeared together at Summerfest, that album had already sold 4 million copies and risen to the top of the Billboard charts. So, yeah, Boston was a juggernaut.

  Compared to Van Halen, Boston’s music was light and clean, and much more reliant on dense studio production—as live performers, they were not in the same league as Van Halen—but the band did what it did extremely well. I’ll give them that.

  Rather than being content to simply take the stage (after Hagar but before Black Sabbath and Boston) and kick ass in the usual manner, someone in the Van Halen camp decided that in order to steal the spotlight on such a big day, something else was required. I was not involved in the original discussions surrounding this event, but it is my understanding that it emanated, as usual, from the twisted and self-promotional mind of David Lee Roth, with considerable input and assistance from Marshall Berle. David has long taken credit for the idea, but as manager of the band, Marshall deserves a pat on the back for organizing the stunt and pulling it off.

  Here’s the way it went down . . .

  Van Halen was scheduled to take the stage third, following an unannounced set by Richie Lecea and then Hagar. At roughly 6:30 in the evening, as the stage was being prepared for Van Halen, a low-flying plane rumbled over the stadium. A door opened and out jumped four men, one after the other. As the parachutes opened and the sky divers descended earthward, a public address announcer breathlessly revealed their identity.

  “From out of the sky . . . Van Halen is coming into the stadium!”

  The crowd, predictably, went bonkers. The parachutists were nothing if not expert at their jobs, and they milked the moment for all it was worth, changing directions several times, delaying the fall as long as possible, and giving the appearance that they would in fact land directly on the stage itself. You half expected them to whip out their instruments on the descent and begin playing. And as they drew nearer, the parachutists pumped greater life into the hoax, giving the crowd a glimpse of the long hair hanging from beneath their helmets.

  Holy shit! It really is Van Halen!

  But of course it wasn’t.

  The boys were in fact hiding in a van just beyond the stadium gates, dressed in exactly the same outfits worn by the quartet of professional parachutists, who were by now just a few hundred feet above the stadium. At the last moment, the parachutists expertly changed their flight pattern once again, floated safely beyond the stage and the stadium, and landed in the parking lot. There, they quickly ducked into the van, from which, moments later, emerged David, Alex, Edward, and Michael. The four members of Van Halen ran onto the stage in full hospital green garb. After absorbing a monstrous standing ovation for the better part of a minute, they peeled off their parachute gear, picked up their instruments, and lit into a thunderous version of “On Fire.” Adding drama to the scene was the fact that Alex was actually in significant pain and had trouble climbing up the drum riser, thanks to a sprained ankle incurred when he tripped over a cable on his way to the stage. The mind boggles thinking about what might have happened had he actually jumped from that plane.

  While most of the crowd was appropriately duped into thinking they had witnessed Van Halen making the most awesome entrance in the annals of rock, skepticism began almost immediately backstage, among the media and other attendees who were a little less naive and a lot less inebriated. But Marshall refused to give in, instead playing the role of carny barker to the very end.

  “These boys have been practicing this jump for months,” he swore. “They were ready for it!”

  Well, someone was, anyway.

  In reality, the only “practicing” Van Halen did was making sure they knew how to unzip their outfits quickly when they got onstage. That part they executed perfectly. Once on familiar turf, they did what they always did: put on one hell of a show. With the crowd still going nuts, Van Halen left the stage sweaty and swaggering, as usual.

  Boston was up next, and you could almost imagine Eddie and Dave saying Top that, motherfuckers, as they walked off, leaving a sea of crazed fans (including many topless young ladies) in their wake. Interestingly, at one point in Boston’s set, lead guitarist and band mastermind Tom Scholz copied a guitar solo that Edward had played just a short time earlier. Was it a tip of the hat to the young virtuoso? Or was it something he did out of envy, to let the crowd know that Eddie wasn’t the only guitar wizard in the house?

  Anything you can do . . . I can do better.

  My guess would be the latter, and certainly Eddie viewed it that way. But this was the type of response that Van Halen in general, and Eddie in particular, provoked in those days. Like most artists, musicians can be shallow and insecure, and when Eddie was on his game, as he was throughout the late ’70s and early ’80s, he made most guitar players look and feel inadequate.

  There is no question that Summerfest was among the highlights of the year for Van Halen, in every way imaginable. For Marshall Berle, this was a singular success, yet it could not salvage his diminishing influence on the band. For months, Marshall had not seemed to realize that one of the most important characteristics of any manager is visibility. From the outset Marshall was a mostly spectral presence, preferring the comfort of home and office to the rigors of the road. Now, there are some managers who can make this arrangement work, either through charisma or sheer power. Marshall was neither charismatic nor powerful, but I suspect he felt that his position was secure simply because Van Halen, when Marshall was appointed as manager, was a new and unproven commodity. What were they going to do, fire him?

  Well, yeah. As it turned out, that’s exactly what they did.

  Like me, the boys in Van Halen (David in particular) figured out early on that Marshall seemed lazy; he’d show up on the road only once in a while, typically in the more attractive cities, often with his wife in tow. The band always picked up the tab. These were, technically speaking, business expenses, and I suppose they might have been overlooked had Marshall consistently given the appearance of being diligent about his job. But mostly he seemed distant and disinterested, which understandably led to nagging doubts among the band members about whether Marshall was the appropriate person to guide their suddenly soaring careers (I had doubts from the first time I met him). And once the seeds of doubt are sown, there really is no turning back. David, as the de facto leader of the band, would frequently consult with me about issues that concerned him, not because we were best friends or anything, but simply because, as the road manager, I was always there. I mean . . . always. Van Halen was my life, and whatever personal issues there might have been between us (not many in the beginning), I gave the band everything I had, in terms of experience, loyalty, energy, and expertise. I never lied, never sugarcoated anything. And I sure as fuck never stole so much as a dime. It was only natural that the band’s loyalty eventually shifted away from Marshall and reattached to someone they knew and trusted.

  That person was me.

  Appearances to the contrary notwithstanding, most relationships do not end suddenly. This is true of friends, romantic partners, and business associates alike. When someone claims to be blindsided, it’s usually because they had their eyes closed. In the beginning, David and the others joked frequently about their invisible manager. Then the joking became more caustic; genuine annoyance crept into the conversation, followed, predictably, by resentment. Had Van Halen’s first album not become a hit, and if the band hadn’t broken big while out on the road, these issues might have gone unaddress
ed. But the guys, though they may have started out as dumbass stoners from Pasadena, eventually began to pick up on the vagaries of the business. Despite earning only $750 per show, they were aware of their own mushrooming popularity and the impending clout that would come with it. This led them to question the commitment of those around them. These kids were working their asses off, grinding through the most demanding and exhausting tour I had ever seen, and they hardly complained at all. They just wanted to play music, fuck, and get fucked up. In return they wanted only to know that eventually they would be appropriately compensated and that someone was looking out for their best interests.

  Although Marshall didn’t realize it at the time, the beginning of the end had come in late June of ’78, at the conclusion of a two-week tour of Japan. Then, as now, Japan was a breathtakingly expensive country in which to do business. Van Halen had toured only in the United States and Europe by this point, so the boys suffered from both culture shock and sticker shock during that visit. We’d go out to dinner and they would laugh hysterically at menus offering hundred-dollar steaks. I don’t think it was until that trip that the band began to finally understand who was paying for all of this. I tried repeatedly to explain to them that everything came out of their pockets: food, liquor, hotel rooms . . . everything. For months, though, they labored under the illusion that Warner Bros. was picking up the tab. Which they were, but the label had every right to reimburse itself out of the band’s earnings. The boys preferred not to think about this, which is pretty typical of young musicians living the rock ’n’ roll road life. Eventually, though, after enough tickets and albums have been sold, they start to ask questions, like “If our album has sold a million copies, then how come I’m only making a couple hundred bucks a week?” These are types of questions an artist is supposed to ask his manager, but if the manager is back in LA, while the artist is out on the road working . . . well, resentment can build.

  It doesn’t help when the manager shows up in Japan with his wife at the end of the tour, then invites the band and crew to a big celebratory dinner, without informing them that for this too they’d be picking up the tab. Marshall made a big deal out of showing his appreciation for the work Van Halen had put in, and for the rewards being reaped by the label. I got the impression that the dinner was his treat. There must have been between fifteen and twenty people in our party that night, and we ate and drank up a storm. Frankly, at the time, I was impressed by Marshall’s generosity; I thought perhaps I had judged him unfairly. If he was willing to dig into his wallet and pay for a party of this magnitude, then maybe he wasn’t quite as lazy or unethical as I had thought.

  The next morning, however, as we checked out of the hotel and prepared for our trip back to the states, I collected all the necessary paperwork and distributed accordingly. Among the bills was a receipt for several thousand dollars for the previous night’s dinner. I pulled it from the stack and walked over to Marshall.

  “Here you go,” I said.

  Marshall gave me a quizzical look. His hands remained by his sides.

  “What is it?” he said.

  “The dinner bill from last night.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Marshall said, feigning surprise. “Just put it with the rest of the band’s stuff. Turn it all in when you get back.”

  I was almost too stunned to speak. The son of a bitch had no intention of paying for the party; he was just putting on a show.

  “Marshall, I was under the impression that you were taking everyone out as a show of appreciation.”

  There was a long pause. Finally, Marshall said, “I did take everyone out. Now, just put the bill with the other expenses.”

  “You’re fucking kidding me,” I said.

  Marshall stiffened. He leaned in closer. “No, I’m not kidding. Just put it with everything else. Okay?”

  What could I say? He was the manager, and I was merely the road manager. I complied, but in that moment Marshall’s reputation was solidified in my eyes as an utter piece of shit. And before long the guys in the band would view him the same way. On the trip home, David asked offhandedly how much Marshall had spent on our celebratory dinner. There was something in the way he asked the question that indicated suspicion. I think David wanted to believe that Marshall had done something nice, but he was by now becoming wise to the ways of the industry. Skepticism was always a healthy attitude. And I wasn’t about to lie.

  “Actually, David, I should probably be thanking you for that dinner.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Marshall billed everything back to the band.”

  David’s head jerked back. His face went crimson.

  “How big a bill are we talking about?”

  I shrugged. “His total bill, including travel, came to almost ten thousand dollars.”

  David’s eyes narrowed. I had never seen him quite so angry.

  “That motherfucker. How could he do that?”

  “Perfectly legal,” I said.

  David scoffed. “Yeah, but still . . .”

  I nodded.

  David sat there quietly for a while longer before finally ending the conversation with, “What a pile of garbage.”

  THE FAUX PARACHUTING STUNT a few months later offset some of the contempt the band felt toward Marshall, and demonstrated that he was, when engaged, capable of creatively marketing his band (this event stood in sharp contrast to an earlier, unsuccessful attempt at merchandising in which the band overpaid for several thousand flimsily constructed painters caps that we wound up giving away). But in terms of poor judgment, nothing surpassed Marshall’s almost incomprehensible decision to share with a select audience road movies of Van Halen at its best.

  Or worst.

  Depending on your moral compass and how easily offended you might be.

  Marshall’s modus operandi was to ingratiate himself with the band through an assortment of juvenile tactics, including bad jokes and stupid card tricks. When he was on the road, he was not so much inclined to join in the partying, but he enjoyed chronicling the proceedings with a handheld 8-millimeter video camera. The boys, with typical naïveté, found it all harmless and even a bit flattering: Hey, the manager is filming me while I’m having sex with two girls at once! I found the voyeuristic behavior thoroughly unprofessional, and deeply weird, as well. But since Marshall wasn’t around all that often and the band didn’t seem to mind, I let it go. Sometimes, though, I found myself wondering what he’d done with all those hours of videotape, and what might happen if they fell into the wrong hands.

  I don’t mean to imply that Marshall filmed only the sexual exploits of the band; that would not be true. When he was on the road, he filmed practically everything—from meaningless conversations backstage to impromptu comedy sketches in hotel rooms and on buses. And he did shoot a lot of amateur pornography featuring the members of Van Halen, most notably David Lee Roth, who was the featured performer in probably 75 percent of the X-rated films. Some of these were surprisingly well done. Peter Angelus was a lighting man, of course, and often he would help out with production so the scene would be expertly lit. I remember one scene in which Peter stood off to the side, holding a hotel lamp, providing not just proper lighting but narrative accompaniment as an eager girl performed oral sex on David.

  “See, girls, this is how it’s done,” Peter said, before providing the (ahem) blow-by-blow.

  I was not present when this incident occurred, but I did see the videotape afterward, because Marshall put all the footage together and had it transferred from 8-millimeter into VHS format. Again, I did not know what to make of this behavior. If a member of the band or crew wanted to assemble such a package, I suppose it was fine. But for the manager to do it? Aside from raising questions about Marshall’s judgment, it provoked legitimate concern about his suitability for the job. In my view, a manager should do his best to avoid getting down in the gutter with his band. He’s supposed to make sure they rise from the gutter unscathed. I’m not sure Marshall unde
rstood this. He shot several hours of video footage, not just a couple minutes. He cataloged the results, tagging each with a descriptive term (often “X-rated” or “Funny”). I honestly don’t know what he was thinking, or if he was thinking at all, because he should have realized that the emergence of these videos could make him look bad and would make the band look bad. There was nothing to be gained.

  So what on earth could have compelled Marshall to hold a private screening of some of the video footage for an audience of secretaries and staff (almost entirely female) in the Warner Bros. offices in Burbank? I can only surmise that it was an attempt to portray himself as some sort of auteur, a chronicler of the high times and hard work that go into making a successful rock band. Unfortunately, embedded among the harmless high jinks and concert footage was a significant amount of explicit sexual content. Far from being impressed by these scenes, the Warner secretaries were predictably and understandably horrified. I mean, talk about not reading the temperature of a room. What in God’s name was Marshall thinking?

  This was exactly the question posed to me by both Carl Scott and the guys in the band, all of whom responded with a mix of anger and bewilderment when they found out about the private screening.

  “He’s going to ruin their careers,” Carl said. “What is he doing?”

  I had no answer, nor did I understand why one was expected of me.

  In the eyes of the band, Marshall never recovered from that incident. Unbeknownst to me, David spent a good portion of the latter stages of the tour contemplating the dismissal of the band’s manager, and discussing with the other guys exactly how it would go down and who should replace Marshall.