Edward Van Halen saw This Is Spinal Tap. He also lived it.
During a recent interview with Jeremy White, Dolby recalled a conversation with Edward when the topic of Spinal Tap came up. At the time, Edward was lending his guitar talents to a few tracks on Dolby’s then-upcoming album Astronauts & Heretics – “Eastern Bloc” and “Close But No Cigar”.
“I went up to his studio, which is in the Hollywood Hills, not far from where we lived,” said Dolby. “It was on a weekend. They were recording the [For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge] album during the week but this was like a Saturday…So we’re in the control room, right, and I played him the track [for Edward to play on] and he had, like, 12 guitars around him on a stand, right. And anywhere in the world you can break the ice with another musician by quoting from Spinal Tap, right. So we’re talking about something. He said, ‘What about like a sort of Day Tripper type thing.’ And he reaches for [a guitar and] I said, ‘Don’t touch that. It’s never been touched.’ And he goes…[looks at Dolby]. I said, ‘Did you see that film This Is Spinal Tap?’ He said, ‘Yeah, man. We went to see that and it’s like somebody followed me around with a camera and put it up on the screen and everybody fell about laughing. And I realized [that], after spending a few days with him, that every day of his life was like a scene from Spinal Tap.”
Dolby had the chance to live in Edward’s “Spinal Tap” world for a brief time. He shared some stories which included an inebriated Andy Johns [For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge producer] breaking the arm off a statue on Edward’s property, Dolby being driven around in Edward’s red, black, and white golf cart, along with being inside Edward’s tricked out studio: “They had a room with four of each of their favorite game consoles like Grand Prix Racer and things like that. The whole band could play Pacman and stuff like that. [It had] hot dog machines and popcorn machines. Like a sort of boy cave.”
Listen To “Thomas Dolby talks Eddie Van Halen! How EVH played on his Album”