Balance (Van Halen album)
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''Balance'' is the tenth studio album by American
rock Rock most often refers to: * Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids * Rock music, a genre of popular music Rock or Rocks may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wales ...
band
Van Halen Van Halen ( ) was an American rock band formed in Pasadena, California, in 1972. Credited with "restoring hard rock to the forefront of the music scene", Van Halen was known for its energetic live shows and for the virtuosity of its lead gu ...
, released on January 24, 1995, by
Warner Bros. Records Warner Records Inc. (formerly Warner Bros. Records Inc.) is an American record label. A subsidiary of the Warner Music Group, it is headquartered in Los Angeles, California. It was founded on March 19, 1958, as the recorded music division of the ...
. The album is the last of the band's four studio releases to feature
Sammy Hagar Samuel Roy Hagar (born October 13, 1947), also known as the Red Rocker, is an American singer, songwriter, and guitarist. He rose to prominence in the early 1970s with the hard rock band Montrose and subsequently launched a successful solo car ...
as the lead singer. It is also the final Van Halen album to feature bassist Michael Anthony in its entirety. ''Balance'' reached number 1 on the U.S. ''Billboard'' 200 in February 1995 and reached
Triple Platinum Music recording certification is a system of certifying that a music recording has shipped, sold, or streamed a certain number of units. The threshold quantity varies by type (such as album, single, music video) and by nation or territory (see ...
status on May 12, 2004, by selling more than three million copies in the U.S. "The Seventh Seal" was nominated for a Grammy for Best Hard Rock Performance.


Recording and production

According to Ian Christe's book, ''Everybody Wants Some: The Van Halen Saga'', ''Balance'' was released amid internal fighting between Sammy Hagar and the Van Halen brothers. The band worked eight-hour days for three months recording the album. The first song on the record, "The Seventh Seal", features mystical overtones that came, in part, from Eddie's newfound sobriety. His therapist, Sat-Kaur Khalsa, urged him to relax and imagine where he was after drinking a six-pack of beer. After smoking cigarettes, drinking beer, and playing guitar for 20 years, he tried writing songs sober and wrote three songs in one half hour period. The album then moves into Hagar's territory with "Can’t Stop Lovin’ You". This song was taken from his ex-wife's point of view, believing that she was still in love with him. The album reached number 1; their fourth consecutive number one studio album. Most of the ''Balance'' album was recorded at Eddie Van Halen's 5150 Studios, located in
Studio City Studio City is a neighborhood in the city of Los Angeles, California, in the southeast San Fernando Valley, just west of the Cahuenga Pass. It is named after the studio lot that was established in the area by film producer Mack Sennett in 1927, ...
, except for five lead vocal tracks that were recorded in Vancouver, where the album's producer Bruce Fairbairn resided. It was mixed by Mike Fraser and mastered at Sterling Sound, New York, by George Marino. Following the recording of ''Balance'' and its subsequent ''Ambulance Tour'' (the band renamed the "balance" tour to the "ambulance tour" because Eddie was having hip issues and brother Alex had to wear a neck brace), Van Halen's second incarnation broke up. Regarding this time period, in 1997, Eddie Van Halen told '' Guitar World'': "There had been a variety of conflicts brewing between manager
Ray Danniels Ray Danniels is a Canadian music executive, record producer, and talent manager. He's the founder of SRO (Standing Room Only) Management group, as well as independent record labels Moon Records and Anthem Records. He first rose to prominence ...
, Sammy, and the band since I quit drinking on October 2, 1994... It got so bad that I actually started drinking again." "The Seventh Seal" kicks off the album. Complete with chanting monks and dangling metal bells, the song unveiled a vast, open, U2-like guitar wall that propelled through the darkest terrain the band ever tackled. As a side note Eddie revealed in 2012 that "The Seventh Seal" was written before Van Halen became a band. "Amsterdam" was written about Eddie and
Alex Van Halen Alexander Arthur Van Halen (; born May 8, 1953) is an American musician, best known as the drummer and co-founder of the rock band Van Halen. The band was formed in 1972 by Alex Van Halen, his younger brother Eddie, David Lee Roth, and Mark S ...
's birthplace. Eddie is on record in ''Guitar World'' as saying, "I always hated the words to 'Wham, Bam Amsterdam', from ''Balance'', because they were all about smoking pot. They were just stupid. Lyrics should plant some sort of seed for thought, or at least be a little more metamorphical." This is another song based on an idea that predates the album's sessions as there is video of Eddie playing the
riff A riff is a repeated chord progression or refrain in music (also known as an ostinato figure in classical music); it is a pattern, or melody, often played by the rhythm section instruments or solo instrument, that forms the basis or acc ...
to "Amsterdam" at 5150 Studios in 1985 During The Balance tour show in Pensacola, Florida, Hagar stated that "Take Me Back (Déjà Vu)" was "a true story". The song itself features a then almost 20-year-old riff Eddie had previously used on a song entitled "No More Waiting", which the band played on occasion in the pre-''
Van Halen Van Halen ( ) was an American rock band formed in Pasadena, California, in 1972. Credited with "restoring hard rock to the forefront of the music scene", Van Halen was known for its energetic live shows and for the virtuosity of its lead gu ...
I'' era, making it the third known song on the album based on an older idea.


Artwork

The original title of the album was ''The Seventh Seal'', for which photographer Glen Wexler created some concepts, including one with an androgynous four-year-old boy. Eventually they picked ''Balance'', which Alex explained to Wexler was about the turmoil and changes surrounding Van Halen, including the recent death of long-time manager Ed Leffler. Alex asked for something "exploring the duality of the human psyche"; Wexler then sketched some new concepts, with the band liking the one with
conjoined twin Conjoined twins – sometimes popularly referred to as Siamese twins – are twins joined ''in utero''. A very rare phenomenon, the occurrence is estimated to range from 1 in 49,000 births to 1 in 189,000 births, with a somewhat higher incidence ...
s on a
see-saw A seesaw (also known as a teeter-totter or teeterboard) is a long, narrow board supported by a single pivot point, most commonly located at the midpoint between both ends; as one end goes up, the other goes down. These are most commonly found a ...
. The androgynous boy, who actually hailed from
Denver Denver () is a consolidated city and county, the capital, and most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Its population was 715,522 at the 2020 census, a 19.22% increase since 2010. It is the 19th-most populous city in the Unit ...
but fans mistakenly considered to be Eddie's son
Wolfgang Van Halen Wolfgang William Van Halen (, born March 16, 1991) is an American musician. The son of guitarist Eddie Van Halen, he performed alongside his father as the bassist for the rock band Van Halen from 2006 to 2020. He also performed with the heavy m ...
, was then photographed in Wexler's Hollywood studio, with Wexler's daughter being the hand model that pulled his hair. The images were combined with a miniature landscape for the background using Fractal Design Painter (now called
Corel Painter Corel Painter is a raster-based digital art application created to simulate as accurately as possible the appearance and behavior of traditional media associated with drawing, painting, and printmaking. It is intended to be used in real-time by ...
). Wexler detailed that the ''Balance'' cover had a number of ironies: "the impossibility of the conjoined twins actually playing on the seesaw; the 'calm' twin actually being the aggressive one, pulling the hair of his sibling to create the appearance of an aggressive child; and having no one else to play with in a desolate post-apocalyptic setting, in which unusable playground equipment is the only object in sight." He added that the twins were “designed” to mimic the shape of the “VH” logo. An alternate cover was used for the Japanese release, citing a cultural offense to the original version. On the inside, the compact disc shows the
Leonardo da Vinci Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (15 April 14522 May 1519) was an Italian polymath of the High Renaissance who was active as a painter, Drawing, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect. While his fame initially res ...
drawing ''
Vitruvian Man The ''Vitruvian Man'' ( it, L'uomo vitruviano; ) is a drawing by the Italian Renaissance artist and scientist Leonardo da Vinci, dated to . Inspired by the writings by the ancient Roman architect Vitruvius, the drawing depicts a nude man in two s ...
'', and the back of the booklet shows an egg balanced upright on a guitar.


Release and promotion

''Balance'' was released January 24, 1995 and is the first release by a platinum-certified act on Warner Bros. since Danny Goldberg stepped in as chairman/CEO. It is also the band's first album since the loss of their longtime manager Ed Leffler, who died of thyroid cancer on October 16, 1993, before Ray Danniels took over management of the band (mostly due to Alex's personal relationship with Danniels as brother-in-law). Warner Bros. VP of merchandising and advertising Jim Wagner said that early 1995 would be the right time to release a new Van Halen album, as "It seems like we've always had success with big acts right after the first of the year". (Van Halen's own ''1984'' was released in early January 1984.) "Don't Tell Me (What Love Can Do)", the first single from ''Balance'', was released to top 40 and album rock radio on December 28, 1994. Van Halen became the first act to debut at No. 1 in 1995, as their first week sales of 295,000 units earned ''Balance'' the number one spot on the ''Billboard'' 200. The opening-week tally for Van Halen's ''Balance'' was 21% higher than that of '' For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge'', the band's previous studio album, which topped the chart with 243,000 units in the summer of 1991. Two concerts during the ''Balance'' tour were filmed and aired as a pay-per-view event at the Molson Amphitheatre in
Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the anch ...
, Ontario, Canada on August 18 and 19. There was talk of releasing a live DVD of the performances, which found the band to be at their peak during the tour. While the release of the DVD never materialized, most of the source material can be viewed on YouTube.


Track listing

The Japanese bonus track "Crossing Over" was used as the B-side to the US CD single for "Can't Stop Lovin' You".


Vinyl track listing


Personnel

Van Halen *
Sammy Hagar Samuel Roy Hagar (born October 13, 1947), also known as the Red Rocker, is an American singer, songwriter, and guitarist. He rose to prominence in the early 1970s with the hard rock band Montrose and subsequently launched a successful solo car ...
– lead vocals, guitar * Eddie Van Halen – guitar, keyboards, background vocals * Michael Anthony – bass guitar, background vocals *
Alex Van Halen Alexander Arthur Van Halen (; born May 8, 1953) is an American musician, best known as the drummer and co-founder of the rock band Van Halen. The band was formed in 1972 by Alex Van Halen, his younger brother Eddie, David Lee Roth, and Mark S ...
– drums,
percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Ex ...
Additional personnel * Steve Lukather – background vocals ("Not Enough") *The Monks of Gyuto Tantric University – chants ("The Seventh Seal") Production * Bruce Fairbairn
production Production may refer to: Economics and business * Production (economics) * Production, the act of manufacturing goods * Production, in the outline of industrial organization, the act of making products (goods and services) * Production as a stati ...
* Mike Frasermixing *Jeri Heiden – art direction *George Marino – mastering *Erwin Musper –
engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the limit ...
* Mike Plotnikoff – engineer *Randee Saint Nicholas – photography *Glen Wexler – photography (front cover)


Charts


Weekly charts


Year-end charts


Singles


Certifications


References

{{Authority control 1995 albums Van Halen albums Warner Records albums Albums produced by Bruce Fairbairn Albums recorded at Little Mountain Sound Studios