Runnin' with the Devil

by Noel Monk

  So this is what it’s like to be deloused, I thought. Welcome to the third world. We rapidly ascended to cruising altitude and went to work on drunk/meal/nap number two, during which I dreamed of ways to exact revenge on Tom for sending us on this junket.

  Eventually we landed in Johannesburg, where we were greeted by most of the WB staff. They were extremely friendly and enthusiastic; they were also, as Tom had promised, a remarkably diverse collection of people. The music business in those days was generally as white as Wonder Bread, so it was both encouraging and surprising to see such an integrated group—especially in a country that embraced apartheid. We spent five fabulous days working with Derek and his staff, promoting the hell out of Van Halen. My job was short and sweet—David handled most of the interviews and photo opportunities—so there was plenty of time for me to get to know the city, which I did, with Derek as a thoughtful and informed guide.

  The highlight of the trip, though, came on the very first night, while we were having dinner at a wonderful and boisterous restaurant. There is a nine-hour time difference between Johannesburg and Los Angeles, which meant that when we got to the restaurant, at 7:00 p.m., it would be ten o’clock in the morning in LA. This was perfect, as everyone would be in the Burbank office. I explained to Derek my simple but dastardly plan to pay back Tom Ruffino for sending us on a trip that included an attack by aliens.

  “I love it,” Derek said with a smile. “The only drawback is that I’ll probably lose my job.”

  Al and Dave were both standing nearby and listening, cocktails in hand. In his most commanding voice, Dave bellowed, “Derek, I won’t let that happen. This is a must!”

  With the plan ready, we rolled into action. Derek and I wrote the Telex and sent it to LA. It arrived in Tom’s office just as he was starting his workweek.

  His pleasant Monday morning was ruined by the following message.

  ATT: TOM

  RE: VAN HALEN

  HAVEN’T HEARD FROM THE GROUP SINCE THEY WERE TAKEN FROM THE PLANE IN NAIROBI. ASSUME YOU ARE AWARE OF THE SITUATION. UNFORTUNATELY WE CAN’T PAY THE DLRS—10,000 BAIL FROM HERE—BECAUSE OF EXCHANGE CONTROL PROBLEM. DO YOU HAVE THIS IN HAND?

  REGARDS,

  DEREK

  With that, the cherry bomb had been lit and flushed down the school toilet. All that remained was for the pipes to be blown out. Derek’s calls were directed to the raging party going on at the restaurant, where Dave, Al, and I sat at the bar and waited for the fun to begin.

  It didn’t take long.

  Within minutes after sending the telex, the phone rang behind the bar. The bartender handed the receiver to Derek. In my mind’s eye I could see Tom’s face, reddening with panic and disbelief. Derek, meanwhile, played his part perfectly, expressing amazement and exasperation that Tom had not already gotten us out of jail and done whatever he could to rectify a rapidly worsening political nightmare.

  Finally, Derek could take it no longer. He started laughing, then explained to Tom that it was all a big prank and that everyone had arrived safely in Johannesburg. Oh, and one other thing:

  “This was all Monk’s idea. So you can blame him. I just want to have a job tomorrow.”

  With that he handed me the phone. I could practically hear the roof rattling in Burbank.

  “You son of a bitch!” Tom shouted. “Where are you—really?”

  “Calm down,” I said. “We’re having dinner at a wonderful restaurant in Johannesburg.”

  Tom ranted and raved for a few more minutes, but eventually he calmed down and actually started laughing. I handed the phone to Dave, and then to Al, and finally back to Derek, who did indeed keep his job. This was a happy ending. We had gotten payback for the aliens, and kept everyone at Warner Bros. happy by continuing to expand the Van Halen universe.

  I DID EVERYTHING IN MY POWER to prove to the band and to Warner Bros. that I was worthy of the position of manager; I figured that whatever I might have lacked in experience, I could compensate for through tireless effort and diligence. Indeed, I had never worked so hard in my life as I did in 1979, and yet I recall that period with enormous fondness. We were traveling the world, mostly first-class, and playing sold-out venues (mostly eight thousand seats or smaller, to ensure as little deadwood as possible in the theater) in front of adoring fans. In many ways I couldn’t believe my good fortune; after so many years working in the music business, struggling to make a living with acts that had a shelf life of only a few months, I had hit the jackpot. There was no way I was going to fuck this up. If it meant working ’round the clock, without a contract, or with a thirty-day contract, then that’s what I would do.

  From New York to LA, from London to Tokyo—we played and worked as hard as we could, burning the candle at both ends for weeks and months on end. Every city, it seemed, brought a new and memorable experience. In Tokyo, for example, we were struck by the way the fans remained seated throughout the show. Apparently, some years earlier, there had been an unfortunate incident during a concert—a barrier falling and kids rushing the stage—that had resulted in serious injury to several concertgoers. As a result, an ordinance had been put in place dictating that fans remain seated throughout subsequent shows. I’m not sure how long this lasted, but it was definitely in effect when Van Halen played in 1979. It was an amazing sight—the band playing its guts out and fans screaming uncontrollably, while mostly remaining tethered to their seats. And it wasn’t like a throng of baton-wielding security officers was required to maintain this environment. The kids knew what was expected and adhered to the policy without the need for strong-arm tactics.

  The Japanese leg of the tour lasted only ten days; we returned to the States in the middle of September for a final North American leg, which ended spectacularly, with a sold-out show at the Forum in Inglewood. This was the stamp of success for the boys from Pasadena—to return home as a headliner at the biggest indoor venue in LA, and to kick ass in front of hundreds of friends and family members and record label executives. It was the perfect ending to a transformative year.

  By this time Van Halen was a legitimate superstar entity, and its members began acting, and spending, accordingly. First, we paid back everything we owed Warner Bros. from the previous year. Then the guys picked up trinkets large and small: new homes for themselves and their parents; clothes and jewelry for girlfriends; and cars . . . lots of cars. Edward got his first Porsche; David got a Mercedes. I even went to the dealership with him to close the deal. Not because I wanted to tag along, but because David asked me to help him. He’d never bought a car by himself, and he wanted to make sure it was done properly. I didn’t mind in the least, but I didn’t understand why he later insisted on emblazoning such a fine automobile with a skull and crossbones. There is no accounting for taste.

  Life was good for the guys in Van Halen, and it was about to get a whole lot better. By the time I met with Mo Ostin and David Berman, WB’s legal counsel, ostensibly to discuss the state of Van Halen and contractual details for the band’s next two albums, a rather extraordinary thing had happened: the deadline for Warner Bros. to exercise its option, and thereby extend its stranglehold on the band, had come and gone. I knew it, and so did Barry Tyreman, the band’s lawyer, but no one else did. I could barely control myself when I walked into Mo’s office. The four of us sat around a table and began chatting amiably and superficially about the hottest young band in the WB stable, and how exciting it was to be a part of it all. Shit . . . obviously they were happy. Van Halen was making everyone rich, and Mo figured he was going to have the band locked up forever in an onerous deal.

  But I had a surprise for him.

  “Mo, I have to tell you something important,” I said, trying to sound concerned and professional, rather than giddy with satisfaction.

  “What’s that, Noel?”

  “Warner dropped the option to our next album.” I paused. “And the one after that, and the one after that.”

  Mo was a powerful man, not easily shaken or intim
idated. I’m sure he thought I was completely full of shit. After all, he had David right there with him, his legal eagle, for Christ’s sake. And I’m betting he thought he had Barry in his pocket—working both sides of the street, as it were. Surely Barry would have known that the option deadline was approaching and made sure that Warner Bros. brass was alerted.

  Right?

  Wrong.

  I looked at Barry, who was staring at the table, nervously rubbing his palms together. I looked at David, who was silent and ashen-faced. And then I looked at Mo.

  “It’s true, Mo. We’re free agents now.”

  Mo bristled. His face turned red.

  “Listen, Noel. You are a new manager. You don’t know what you’re talking about. Now sit the fuck back down in your seat and shut the fuck up.”

  And I sat back in my chair, and I shut up. Mo was no man to toy with.

  Still, this was an extraordinary development in the life of Van Halen, one owing to luck and timing and a degree of incompetence, and maybe just a bit of karma. All that was required for Warner to be protected, and to have Van Halen at a bargain rate forever, was for someone to place a “tickler” in the band’s file—a reminder that a crucial date was on the horizon. Maybe this never happened. Maybe somebody didn’t notice. Maybe my simple little strategy of “throwing sand in their faces” had worked. Maybe this was cosmic payback for screwing the band in the first place. Regardless, that critical day came and went without Warner Bros. exercising its option. It was a catastrophic mistake. I was now the manager of a spectacularly valuable commodity, and free to offer their services to the highest bidder.

  The next day I met with the band. We sat around and talked over beers, and I explained to them what had happened.

  “You wanted me to break the contract . . . well, I broke it.”

  There was silence. Finally, after a few moments, David laughed out loud.

  “Holy shit, Noel? You’re kidding.”

  I shook my head and smiled. “I don’t joke about that kind of money, David. And we’re talking about a lot of money.”

  “What does this mean?” Edward said, his voice and demeanor confused more than anything else.

  “It means you just bought your parents a new house, right? Well, now you can buy them a mansion. You can buy whatever the fuck you want. We will double your income.”

  By the end of the year we had a new multirecord deal with Warner Bros. Van Halen remained with the label, but at a royalty rate roughly twice as lucrative as the one it had gotten in the first contract. It’s not an exaggeration to say that with one broad stroke, which would have a ripple effect for decades, I made the band tens of millions of dollars.

  This was the greatest achievement of my professional life; it made the band members instant multimillionaires, and they legitimately appreciated it.

  At least for a while.

  10

  THE BOOTLEG WARS

  We went to jail, me and my bodyguards. More than once, in fact.

  That’s one of the things people don’t understand about being the manager of a band like Van Halen: it can be a dirty and dangerous job. I took very seriously the work of guiding and promoting and protecting my band, and that work sometimes involved dealing with folks you wouldn’t ordinarily consider to be part of the music business. But the bigger the band, the longer the tentacles; by 1980, Van Halen’s reach had far exceeded anything I anticipated when I first climbed aboard. It was complicated enough overseeing contracts and promotion and touring and recording. But those were merely the most visible and glamorous parts of the job. There were other equally important matters that needed attention, and sometimes they involved behaving in a way that might be considered thuggish.

  Such was the world in which I lived.

  Consider the lucrative but brutal merchandising arm of the business. Most bands don’t even think about this when they first start out. They’re too busy writing songs and playing whatever gigs they get, and chasing a recording deal. Van Halen was no different. In the beginning these guys had no concept of merchandising and little to no interest in educating themselves. But I knew from years in the business that merchandising had the potential to provide a significant and steady stream of revenue. I also knew that if we didn’t market our own gear, someone else would. Bootleggers had long been a scourge of the music business, creating cheap and unlicensed merchandise and selling it to fans at a ridiculous profit, without the band ever seeing a dime. As far as I was concerned, any band that failed to take matters into its own hands and vigorously protect its brand deserved to get fucked.

  I had no intention of letting Van Halen get fucked.

  “Listen, guys. We have to do merchandising,” I said. “We’re missing out on a shitload of money if we don’t.”

  Their initial response was largely apathetic. Even David, who rarely missed an opportunity to make a buck, seemed uncertain about the rewards it would reap compared to the effort involved.

  “Who would do it for us,” he asked. “I mean, this could be a real pain in the ass, right?”

  Yes—it could be a pain in the ass, which is why most bands simply engaged the services of a third-party manufacturer to handle all of its licensing and merchandising. At the time, Bill Graham, promoter extraordinaire, was the titan of this end of the business, having expanded his empire through a company called Winterland (named after Graham’s famous Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco), which handled merchandising for many of the biggest bands in the world. I knew Bill, of course, from my days at the Fillmore East, and could easily have contracted with Winterland to oversee merchandising for Van Halen. That would have been the simplest and most expedient route to take.

  It also would have produced the least in revenue, as Winterland, like most merchandisers, took the lion’s share of profit. And rightfully so, given that it was laying out the cash for manufacturing and distribution, and for selling the wares at concerts and through the various other outlets (mail-order, record stores, etc.). All Van Halen had to do was sign a contract with Winterland, let the professionals do their job, and sit back and collect the royalties.

  But that’s what they were: royalties. As with a record album, Van Halen would get merely a portion of the profit, usually less than twenty-five cents on the dollar, while Winterland would get the rest. There was nothing wrong with this arrangement; it worked just fine for most bands, and it would have worked for Van Halen. No fuss, no muss. Extra money in the coffers without having to do any heavy lifting. But I saw it differently.

  “We’re going to do it ourselves,” I told the guys.

  David laughed. “What the fuck do you know about merchandising?”

  I smiled. “More than you think.”

  This was true. In fact, I had grown up in New York City’s Garment District. My father had worked in the garment business as a manufacturer’s representative, and I had spent time tagging along with him as a kid. I knew all about cutting garments and I knew the basics of sales and distribution. While most musicians, and their managers, looked at merchandising as a mysterious and painstaking process that was best left to someone else, I considered it an untapped vein of gold. The way I saw it, kids wanted Van Halen posters, T-shirts, baseball caps, and other memorabilia. They were going to find this stuff one way or another, and they were going to blow great wads of allowance money or income from summer jobs on it. Why should we give the majority of that revenue stream to someone else?

  “Guys, this is not rocket science,” I said. “I know how to do this, and we are missing a golden opportunity if we don’t take advantage of it. We come up with a design, manufacture them, and then we own them outright and sell them ourselves.”

  In that meeting, looks of disbelief and irritation gave way slowly to acceptance and then enthusiasm, until finally we all were in agreement: Van Halen would be responsible for its own merchandising. Very few bands in those days handled their own merchandising; it simply wasn’t worth the headache. But I knew that if Van Halen
’s current trajectory continued, there was a substantial amount of money to be made through merchandising, and I’d be a part owner. It seemed foolish not to take a chance. We each threw $50,000 into the business as seed money, something we did every year to carry us through the first few months, and then split the proceeds equally.

  The company was called PMC Manufacturing and was headquartered in Chatsworth, California, in the San Fernando Valley. While it was a bit of a hassle to get the project up and running—not to mention figuring out logistics of manufacturing, distribution, policing our venues, and chasing away bootleggers—it was well worth the effort. Instead of getting twenty-five cents on the dollar, our profit was fifty cents on the dollar. To say that this added up to big bucks would be an understatement; we’re talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars changing hands every week at Van Halen concerts. By 1981 I had a semi making a round-trip run to Los Angeles every month to pick up more than a million dollars in merchandise. By ’82 we were grossing a quarter of a million dollars every night in merchandise.

  Every . . . single . . . night.

  Half of that was pure profit, and it was all cash, too. Not because we were trying to hide anything from the IRS, but simply because virtually no one involved in the merchandise business could be trusted with a check. It was a high-stakes, high-risk game, and cash was the only reliable currency. So, if we did a weekend series of shows—Friday, Saturday, Sunday—I’d often leave with as much as three-quarters of a million dollars in cash by Monday morning. I had a shitty thirty-day contract, but I was probably making more money than any manager in the business, thanks to a merchandising venture that was effectively doubling our income.