“It isn’t attractive”: Jerry Garcia’s cutting critique of Van Halen
Catching people at their lowest will likely bring out some of their most honest musings. For Jerry Garcia, this occurred during the 1980s, when things looked pretty bleak for the Grateful Dead star. While some concede that the delusional realm of drug use may manipulate the waves of authenticity, Garcia demonstrated the one thing that came to define his character: dedication to music.
After being introduced to heroin at a brothel in 1974, Garcia embarked on a lifelong reliance on the drug that would contribute to his tragic death in 1995. Throughout the 1970s and the first half of the 1980s, Garcia’s addiction propelled to new heights, culminating in an intervention orchestrated by the band in January 1985. That year, he began his much-needed journey to abstinence.
Despite being in the crux of one of the most challenging chapters in his life, Garcia’s ability to discuss music and sonic preferences remained as sharp as ever. During an interview with Frets, Garcia explained, “My appeal is just music,” before delving into various aspects of acoustic guitars, musical notes, books, and other musical artists. During his most cynical moments, it’s clear the musician appreciated the poignancy of rawness and honesty.
During the handful of years prior to Garcia’s Frets interview, the landscape was filled with an influx of new artists working hard to break the mould. Eddie Van Halen, for instance, had already experienced a number of successes with Women and Children First and 1984. The latter, in particular, depicted a turning point for Van Halen, which saw the melding together of two fundamentally different musical styles: Van Halen’s fusion of keyboard-heavy songs and the band’s familiar heavy rock sound.
While some say that Van Halen’s introduction of the synthesiser effectively salvaged their success, others, like Garcia, didn’t particularly appreciate the sounds they had constructed as a key part of their sonic identity. According to the Grateful Dead guitarist, Van Halen’s music wasn’t “played with enough deliberateness” because it lacked “a certain rhythmic elegance that I like music to have”.
Although some of it is the “kind of music which I understand on one level,” its evident lack of syncopation “isn’t attractive to me” because “the notes aren’t saying much. They’re like little clusters”. Although there’s nothing to suggest the pair ever crossed paths during their respective tenures, it’s likely that Garcia’s dislike for the band was solely rooted in sound.
While Garcia enjoyed a fluid, open approach to musical creation, Van Halen stormed the rock arena with a ferocious flurry of notes, which evidently didn’t do much for the Grateful Dead musician. However, while the pair might have shared some of the same interests when it came to dynamics and speed, their separate tastes and approaches when it came to musical creation couldn’t have been further apart.