Watch Bill Hader explain his many Van Halen-related phone bits
On The Best Show's 24-hour stream, Bill Hader revealed that he, John Mulaney, and Fred Armisen had a text thread roleplaying as the Van Halen brothers
Aux News Van Halen
One of the great things about Documentary Now! is its specificity. Viewers know that when Documentary Now! parodies Werner Herzog or Agnes Varda, creators Bill Hader, Fred Armisen, and writer John Mulaney won’t miss. Unsurprisingly, that commitment to hyper-specific references extends to text messages between Hader, Mulaney, and Armisen.
Last week, Bill Hader appeared on hour 17 of The Best Show’s 24-hour live stream, wherein—god love him—host Tom Scharpling spent an entire day fielding calls on The Best Show. During their delightfully loopy, sleep-deprived chat, Scharpling steered the conversation toward the Van Halen brothers at the behest of Best Show regular and Superchunk drummer Jon Wurster. Turns out, not only does Hader do a great Eddie and Alex Van Halen complaining about former singer David Lee Roth at the 1996 MTV VMAs, but also he revealed that he had a text chain with Fred Armisen and John Mulaney where they roleplay as the Van Halen brothers getting into a fender bender.
“John Mulaney, Fred Armisen, and I had a text chain as the Van Halen brothers rear-ending somebody,” he tells Scharpling. “They had a press conference about the rear-ending, and nobody cared about it, but they assumed it was going to be a thing. They would be up at the [podium], and no one was asking questions, but Eddie Van Halen was going, ‘One at a time! One at a time!’”
Apparently, Hader has a whole Van Halen chunk that the world is just learning about. Elsewhere in the interview, the Barry star talks about calling Wurster and Fucked Up singer Damien Abraham in character as the Van Halen brothers. As with his Documentary Now! work, this is an impression based on a very specific interview that was, at one point, a fixture of VH-1 rock ’n’ roll feud shows but is now lost to the sands of time. We did uncover part of it, though, including the part where Eddie says, “His work ethic sucked.” However, the search for Hader’s favorite part, Eddie and Alex repeatedly saying, “He was very disrespectful to Beck,” continues.
Thankfully for Scharpling, The Best Show’s 24-hour stream ended on September 13, but the team over there is breaking the whole thing up into bite-size morsels. Scharpling interviews Nathan Fielder, Samantha Bee, Tony Shalhoub, Bob Odenkirk, Marc Maron, Sarah Squirm, Tim Heidecker, and more. He even got a call from CSNY’s Graham Nash (as played by Matt Berry).
Full interviews can be found on The Best Show’s podcast feed, with video of the stream available on Patreon.
14 Comments
Actually, Bill would be a great choice to play Diamond Dave.How’s he look in a spandex leotard through which you can confirm his Jewishness?
Brendon Small as his singing voice, of course:
That interview was insanely awkward. Alex looked like he was dressed up for a date, and Eddie looked like he was dressed as Alex’s mom. And then when they start talking that’s the exact energy they had….
That’s my recollection of every Van Halen bros interview I’ve seen.
Why is the AVClub publishing ads for podcasts? Shouldn’t these be noted as promotional content?
I definitely remember the “he was very disrespectful to Beck” line from way back when I watched all that stuff, so it’s gotta be out there somewhere.
Has any band managed to run their careers into the ground worse than Van Halen? In 1996, they could have coasted with Hagar for another two decades, just playing arenas and putting out albums people politely ignored. Instead, it was a lead singer carousel and a series of poorly-received tours.As an experiment, I listened to classic rock radio on a two-day cross-country road trip, so lots and lots of stations. I didn’t hear a Van Halen song once. Maybe they play “Jump” on one of those Jack-FM type stations.
Maybe Guns N’ Roses but you kinda knew that they were going to have to implode at some point. Sammy leaving seemed to just come out of nowhere at the time and they never recovered. I did a deep dive on their (Dave only) catalogue after Eddie died. I hadn’t sat down and listened to their stuff in, I dunno, maybe a couple decades at that point. I forgot how many of their songs I just FUCKING LOVE. And yeah, it’s really weird how they aren’t up there in the classic rock radio pantheon with Zepp, AC/DC and the Stones being played regularly.
X Japan could have been this. To say that the band has a tumultuous history is an understatement. A slew of problems including infighting, rampant alcoholism and drug use, injuries (drummer Yoshiki nearly broke his neck at a concert in ‘95, and has had to have multiple neck surgeries ever since) and mental breakdowns culminated in the band breaking up in 1997. In between ‘97 and their reunion in 2007 they lost their very popular lead guitarist hide, who committed an alleged suicide by hanging (some contest that it might have been an accident due to intoxication) and their vocalist Toshi got sucked into a cult for a little over a decade (thankfully he was able to get out of it, but it has left him with PTSD that he still struggles with to this day). Even when they reunited they still had issues. Their former bassist Taji seemed ready to rejoin the band after a decade of hardship, only to get into an altercation in 2011 that lead to him being arrested and put in a cell overnight, in which he was found dead the next day of an alleged suicide (that some people think was a homicide) and in 2016 rhythm guitarist Pata almost died of issues related to alcoholism. However, the surviving members of the band did amazing world tours in the 2010’s, have overcome a lot of their past issues, and are still going strong to this day.
Not to disparage your very scientific survey, but the local classic rock station I leave on pretty much all day (yay, working from home) generally plays a Van Halen song or two per hour. This hour’s selection was “I’ll Wait.” Earlier in the evening we had a mini-run of Sammy songs and then “Drop Dead Legs.” And neither of our anecdotes gives any real indication of how much radio play they actually receive these days. Somehow, though, I doubt they’re slipping into obscurity.At least not more than any other “old person music.” Sigh…
I would be interested to know what part of the country you’re in. My survey started in central Texas, went north through the Great Plains, and then east through the Rust Belt. My intuition is that Van Halen still gets played a lot on the West Coast. Kind of like how Offspring, Bad Religion, etc. are still in semi-heavy rotation on Southern California alt-rock stations, but not as much anywhere else.
East Coast, actually. NY/Canada border. So, small local market, but international audience; every station on both sides of the border here advertises as “We’re a two-nation station!” in the most chipper tone imaginable. So in addition to the usual classic rock standards, we get a higher than average percentage of CanCon. Still lots of room for Van Halen, though.
Actually, now that I
think about it, they play a fair amount of Offspring, too. Four or five
songs are in semi-regular rotation, that I remember. No Bad Religion,
though. Bad Company, Bad English, but no Bad Religion. Not in their bailiwick.
Matt Berry’s Graham Nash is fascinating. Most impressionists are focused on finding the distinctive elements of their target’s voice, but it felt like Berry was having to focus more on extinguishing the distinctive elements of his own voice.