EVERYBODY'S LOOKIN' FOR SOMETHIN'
SOMETHIN' TO FILL IN THE HOLES
OU812
(pronounced "Oh You Ate One Too")
is the eighth
studio album
by American
Rock Band
It was released
in 1988
and is the band's
second album
to feature
vocalist
Van Halen
began work on the album
in September 1987
and completed it
in April 1988,
one month before
its release.
Like its predecessor
5150,
OU812
hit number 1
on the Billboard
200 chart,
the second of
four consecutive #1
studio albums
for the band.
Spurred by four
Billboard Hot 100
top-40 singles
("Black and Blue", #34;
"Finish What Ya Started", #13;
"When It's Love", #5;
and
"Feels So Good", #35),
the album eventually
sold over
4 million copies.
Production
Once the 5150
tour concluded,
Eddie Van Halen
had some riffs
he had been working on
and Hagar
"had a bunch of
lyrics in notebooks
that I had been thinking
about and writing",
so they decided to work
on another album soon.
While the album acknowledges
Van Halen for writing
and performing and
Landee for recording,
there was no
production credit
because
according to Hagar,
"the band pretty much
produced the album ourselves.
And we weren't producers,
in the sense that we
went in with an idea
and told everybody
what to do
and took control. T
here just wasn't a producer."
The only cover song
on the album,
Little Feat's
"A Apolitical Blues",
was coincidentally
also done by former
Van Halen producer
Ted Templeman
and Landee,
to the point
the engineer used
the same setup
to record
Van Halen's version.
When Hagar was brought
to the studio,
Eddie showed a piano
and drums demo
he recorded with
Alex Van Halen,
which the band soon
developed into the song
"When It's Love".
Given the musical parts
were finished
quicker than the lyrics,
Hagar took some weeks off
and travelled to his
Mexican house at
Cabo San Lucas
to work on more songs.
There he found
the inspiration for
the song
"Cabo Wabo",
which borrowed
the melody of
"Make It Last",
a song Hagar composed
for his previous band
Montrose,
and whose title later
named Hagar's
nightclub in the city.
The last song to be
developed was
"Finish What Ya Started",
which Eddie
and Hagar composed
one night late
into the production.
However,
the last track to
which Hagar recorded
his vocals was
the eventual
album opener
"Mine All Mine",
as he felt unsure
about the lyrics.
The deeper
metaphysical lyrics to
"Mine All Mine"
were rewritten seven times,
with Hagar saying
"it was the first time
in my life I ever
beat myself up,
hurt myself,
punished myself,
practically threw things
through windows,
trying to write the lyrics."
Although it was
considered a joke song,
"Source of Infection"
was written about
Eddie's hospitalization
with dengue fever
during his vacation
in Australia
in April 1988,
celebrating his
seventh
wedding anniversary
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