Noel Monk (–2022)

I've always enjoyed Van Halen. They've never been a favourite, but I, like most others, am constantly blown away by Eddie's skill with the guitar. Having said that, never been a fan of David Lee Roth, and will always consider Van Halen 2.0 (with Sammy) as the better band.

I'd already read Red, Sammy's bio, including his time with the band, so this feels like it fills in those missing years.

Monk is a decent—not amazing, but decent—storyteller, and even if only half the stories and show more anecdotes in this book are true, it's still mindblowing that the band's still around, forty years later (though they really seem like they're on life-support at this point).

Monk gives a down-and-dirty insider's view of the band, from their signing to Warner through to the end of the 1984 tour. You hear about the full DEA (as Monk refers to it, the Drugs, Ego, and Alcohol), as well as the sex, and the dirty, behind-the-scenes deal-making and infighting and power games.

It's not a deep book, and there's not a lot of insights here, but it's fun, all the same. Sort of like your standard Van Halen album. show less

I had no idea that the guy who road managed the Sex Pistol's only North American tour went on to manage Van Halen until I started reading this book. Road manager Noel Monk wrote a book about his time with the Pistols that I loved and now he's back with one about his time spent with the mighty Van Halen and it is no where near as fun.

I always say the mark of a good rock biography is whether or not it makes you want to dig out the old records. Unfortunately, RWTD fails on that account. I am a show more huge fan of Van Halen and I expected this to be a celebration of all that made them larger than life, what I discovered instead, is that that image was created by men who were much smaller then life. Van Halen serves as a monument to all the self-absorbance and self-indulgence that went into being a member of one of the largest bands in the history of Rock.

I had no idea that they cut Michael Anthony out of publishing rights and made hime less then a full voting member. Not quite sure how you justify that and the book doesn't really try to. This book makes me reflect on what might have been if these individuals might have had a little more control of their demons. Alex Van Halen comes off particularly unsympathetic. It may be a while before I break out the VH. show less

If you are looking for a book that explains how or why Van Halen wrote their songs or goes into great detail about how they found each other, this book isn't it. It mainly focuses on their touring time until David Lee Roth leaves the band. Noel E. Monk first met Van Halen when he acted as their tour manager for their first tour promoting an EP of songs that were playing on the radio, including "Runnin' With the Devil", "Eruption", "Ice Cream Man", "You Really Got Me", and "Jamie's Cryin'" show more that would eventually become the album Van Halen with other songs added. The year was 1978. Noel will adhere that he knew the band was something special and on the cusp of making it huge.

Their band manager, Marshall Berle had been chosen for them by the record company and he was lousy. He was never there and he charged them for everything. He once put on a lavish party for them and then stuck them with the gigantic check, which also included his flight out there for him and his wife and his hotel stay. Berle also filmed the band constantly whenever he was around doing all sorts of things, including sexual acts. The breaking point between the band and Berle came when he showed these tapes to the brass and the female secretaries back at Warner recording studios.

While on the road for that tour, the guys, especially David Lee Roth, who was the de facto leader of the band and loved to deal with the business end of things spent a great deal of time talking to Noel about things he should have been discussing with his manager, but Noel helped him out and gave him the information he needed. So at the end of the tour, David came to him and said that he and the guys wanted Noel to by their manager. Noel told him that he wanted the job but that first they should go to some of the heavy hitters first and see what they could do for them since he had no experience as a band manager especially for a band that was breaking big.

They did and they still wanted Noel. However, their lawyer would insist that Noel sign a month to month contract instead of a multi-year contract which is standard in the industry. The guys were naturally gunshy after their last manager and Noel felt pressure to do it this way and figured he could always talk them into a real contract later. This would never happen. And in a way, this led to him having an ax to grind with this book because Van Halen did kinda screw him over if his version of events is to be believed. On their first tour, each was paid $175 dollars a concert even though their songs were getting great airplay and people were packing in the concert halls to see them. They were paid a bit more for the next concert tour but the album deal was lousy. Noel manages to get them out of their crappy recording contract with Warner and negotiate a much better one making them lots more money. It was also his idea to do their own merchandising which meant they would make a lot of money off of it rather than if they let someone else handle it and take a small percentage of the profits.

This book is filled with plenty of backstage antics such as trashed hotel rooms beyond the usual trashing, and one night when David went nuts trashing a room and ended up in a straightjacket because the tour manager couldn't get control of David and he happened to have one on hand. The many stunts they pulled on each other that in the beginning caused laughs but by the end of the 1984 tour was causing them to want to kill each other.

There were also plenty of girls backstage and plenty of doctors giving the boys' penicillin shots for STDs. However, during the first tour when they were doing a leg of the tour in England with Black Sabbath, nearly the entire audience was male so there were few groupies to have sex with and they guys went without a lot, which made David unbearable to be around. When they sold more records and became more popular the better class of girls came backstage.

Also, the biggest thing about Van Halen was the drinking and the drugs. Edward and Alex were alcoholics and Edward would become addicted to cocaine. Alex was what you would call a functional alcoholic. He might not remember what he played the night before but he never made a mistake in his playing of the drums. Likewise, Edward's playing was not affected by his abuses but he wasn't functional as Alex. He was pretty much out of it. David knew not to get totally wasted before a concert, though he did on a least one occasion and it was a disaster with him slurring his words and not being able to jump about on stage like he usually does. This was a double disaster as it was the US Festival and it was being filmed. But for the most part, you could count on Van Halen giving you a kickass concert that was worth more than the cost of your ticket, according to Noel.

The person who doesn't get talked about much in this book is the bass player, Michael Anthony, but when he is the author makes a point to put down his playing but says that he sings better than David Lee Roth, only he lacks the front man abilities. Michael is a sweet guy who is dating his high school sweetheart, so he doesn't really get into the groupies. He drinks, but he seems to have a control over it. But his niceness is his downfall as the band will attack him knowing he won't fight back. The one I feel who really get cheated, betrayed, and loses out here in this book is not Noel, but Michael Anthony.

One point that is made about this band often is that they are like children, mostly unruly children. At the beginning of the book, they are innocent of the ways of the music world and the world at large. Months before his wedding to Valerie Bertinelli, Edward gets hit with a paternity suit and Noel needs to find out if there's any truth to it. Ed is freaking out that he might have gotten this woman pregnant because he did spend time with her. But the only sexual acts performed were blow jobs and Ed wants to know if he could have gotten her pregnant. He really has no idea.

This was an interesting book, though I don't know how much of it to believe. The reason it is only coming out now is that Noel sued them after he was fired and part of the deal was that he not write anything about the band for a certain period of time. I guess that time has finally passed. At the same time, some of this stuff is pretty easy to believe knowing what you know about the band. David Lee Roth is an egomaniac and some of the vanity stuff about him is pretty easy to believe. But you do have to keep in mind that Noel has an agenda and a biased point of view. It did make for some interesting reading though. show less

“Runnin’ With the Devil” by Noel Monk and Joe Layden is a pretty good rock band biography.

Monk was Van Halen’s road manager for their first few tours, coinciding with the release of their first couple of albums, before the band promoted him to their overall manager, with an equal share in the band. By the time he joined their first tour they’d already had a few years experience playing together at parties, receptions, small clubs, and smaller gatherings around Southern California, show more but no experience with a national or international tour.

He spent nearly 24/7 with them at the start, managing every aspect of their tours, which is how they came to trust him enough to eventually manage the band, from their third album up through their mega hit album “1984”. So, writing the book Monk knew what went on with the band behind the scenes and in their personal lives.

Monk doesn’t cover much about the creativity or meanings behind any of their songs of music, he covers a lot more of their tour antics, personal issues and business aspects. He’s quite clear early on that he stayed away from any of the music creativity, that wasn’t his area at all, and hardly spent any time with the band during any of their studio time.

Near the beginning of the story, when the band was younger and hungrier he writes more about their backstage antics, the parties, the girls and what-not. He writes about using threats and sometimes force to keep merchandise pirates from undercutting the band’s genuine merchandise.

But from the point in their lives where Monk got married through the end, he writes a lot less about the fun antics, less about the sex going on, and a lot more about the band members drug and alcohol problems.

He mentions that for their first few albums the band kept asking him, as their manager, to get more time to write and record albums instead of just going on the road, then taking two to four weeks to record, then going on the road again. And how he kept giving in to the record company to interrupt that time for tours here and there.

But then once he managed to give them a year off for “1984” it nearly ended the band. The personal and artistic differences between music virtuoso, Eddie Van Halen, and lyrics-writer and frontman David Lee Roth had too much time to drive a wedge between them.

I wasn’t a Van Halen fan at all during the time period covered by the book, in fact I loathed their music terribly, being part of the soundtrack of being picked on at school, and being a stuck up snob for much heavier, much less popular metal. I didn’t come to appreciate their music till much later in life. But now, reading about the band in that time period I can match up their progress as a band with the videos I saw on MTV and what songs were playing at the time in classrooms and what-not…. It brings back some memories. show less