Los Angeles Magazine has published an excerpt of Greg Renoff’s new book Ted Templeman: A Platinum Producer’s Life In Music. In this excerpt, Templeman discusses his first exposure to Van Halen, becoming the band’s manager, and removing David Lee Roth from the group.

“Right out of the gate I was just knocked out by (Eddie) Van Halen. It’s weird to say this, but encountering him was almost like falling head over heels in love with a girl on a first date. I was so dazzled. I had never been as impressed with a musician as I was with him that night. I’d seen Miles Davis, Dave Brubeck, Dizzy Gillespie, all of those transcendent artists, but Ed was one of the best musicians I’d ever seen live. His choice of notes—the way he approached his instrument—reminded me of saxophonist Charlie Parker. In fact, as I watched, I was thinking there are two musicians in my mind who are the absolute best of the best: Parker; jazz pianist Art Tatum; and now here’s the third game changer, Ed Van Halen. So right away I knew I wanted him on Warner Bros.

“By the time their first set ended, I was sold. I slipped out of the club and hustled back to my car. Driving home in the rain, I was so amped about what I had seen that I stopped at two different pay phones, trying to get Donn Landee, my favorite recording engineer and right-hand man in the studio. I finally got him after I got home. I said, ‘I just heard this band called Van Halen at the Starwood. We’ve got to go after these guys. You’re not going to fucking believe it when you hear them. This kid guitar player is amazing!’ I was so electrified by what I’d seen that I hardly slept a wink that night.

“At daybreak I called Warner Bros. Records chairman and CEO Mo Ostin, asking him to clear his calendar for that evening because there was an unsigned act he needed to see with me in Hollywood. He said, ‘If you’re that excited about this act, I’m there.’ By approaching Mo I was being strategic. I could have just as easily gone to Lenny Waronker, Warner’s legendary head of A&R (who’d produced Harpers Bizarre), but I knew Mo, unlike Lenny, was a heavy metal fan. Mo listened to the Who. He’d signed the Kinks and the Jimi Hendrix Experience to Reprise. So in my mind I had Mo pegged as the executive most likely to respond to Van Halen the way I had. I knew I had enough juice inside the company to get them signed. But I wanted it to happen fast, before any other labels got wind of our interest in the band. And I knew Mo could sign them on the spot if he dug them.

“That evening the two of us, along with Russ Titelman, another Warner staff producer and vice president, went to the club. We met Marshall, and the four of us watched from the balcony. Once again, Ed’s performance moved me. His sound! The low-end thump from his cabinets—it just didn’t seem like those kinds of seismic tones should be coming out of those speakers. The other thing that sticks out in my mind is that they played “You Really Got Me.” I knew that Kinks song would resonate with Mo. On this second night I thought I should pay more attention to the band’s singer. As a performer and vocalist, he underwhelmed me. His stage presence was awkward, and his singing wasn’t great. I didn’t know it at the time, but David Lee Roth had patterned himself after Jim ‘Dandy’ Mangrum of Black Oak Arkansas. Sitting there in the darkness watching Roth, I was actually a bit nervous that Mo was going to be turned off by the singer’s antics and perhaps might pass on Van Halen. Truthfully, Roth made me nervous, too. I thought, What am I going to do with this group if we sign them and the singer can’t hold up his end of the bargain? I could make the guitar player a solo artist if the worst came to pass. I found myself mulling over dumping the singer for a stronger vocalist, like Montrose’s lead singer, Sammy Hagar. I thought, hell, he might be the perfect singer for Van Halen.”

Ted Templeman: A Platinum Producer’s Life In Music takes us into the studio during the recording sessions for the biggest songs of his career, including #1 hits like “Black Water” by the Doobie Brothers and “Jump” by Van Halen. Along the way, Ted recounts the behind-the-scenes dramas that engulfed both massively successful acts, as well as the inner workings of his professional and personal relationships with some of the most talented and successful artists in rock music history, including Steven Tyler and Joe Perry of Aerosmith, Eric Clapton, Lowell George of Little Feat, Sammy Hagar, Michael McDonald, Linda Ronstadt, Carly Simon, and David Lee Roth and Edward Van Halen of Van Halen.

Ted Templeman is a Grammy-winning producer whose hitmaking work for Warner Bros. Records has generated worldwide sales approaching 100 million albums. 

Greg Renoff was born in the Bronx, grew up in New Jersey, and now lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He is the author of Van Halen Rising: How a Southern California Backyard Party Band Saved Heavy Metal. His writing has appeared in Guitar World, LA Weekly, and Vulture, and he and his work have been profiled in Salon, Maxim, and the Boston Herald.

Ted Templeman: A Platinum Producer’s Life In Music will be available on April 21st.

(Photo - Greg Renoff)