Eddie Van Halen and “The Wild Life”
Eddie was one of those guys who did many projects outside of Van Halen, including these amazing instrumentals for a film called “The Wild Life”
1984 was a big year for Van Halen but with the success and rough schedule the band began to see the tension rising, so Eddie turned his focus to another project.
One of these projects was the feature film score for The Wild Life.
The movie’s script was penned by Cameron Crowe, then best-known for his work on Fast Times at Ridgemont High. The Wild Life would venture down a similar storyline, focusing its plot on the exploits of a group of teenage characters. Christopher Penn, Eric Stoltz, Lea Thompson and Rick Moranis were among the film’s stars.
Eddie teamed up with music producer and engineer Donn Landee to work on the project. Initially, their work load was expected to be small. “Donn and I saw the script for The Wild Life and said we’d do something for it,” the guitarist recalled during an interview with Guitar World. “We ended up doing just about the whole film.”
Eddie played all the instruments on the score, lt. “It was fun, but we were kind of under pressure because of the deadlines,” Eddie admitted. “I had to leave on tour again, so I sort of left Donn to finish the mixing and everything.”
The Wild Life hit theaters Sept. 28, 1984 and was met with a lukewarm response.
The Van Halen Encyclopedia notes that, “Sharp-eared listeners will recognize portions of early versions of ‘Right Now,’ ‘Good Enough,’ ‘Feels So Good,’ ‘A.F.U. (Naturally Wired)’ and ‘Strung Out’ interspersed throughout the film.”
More on Van Halen:
Who remembers this amazing moment from Farm Aid in 1985? Van Halen with Sammy Hagar performed and broke out into Led Zeppelin’s “Rock and Roll”
Who could forget Van Halen’s last show? Van Halen performed their last show on October 4, 2015, in Hollywood, CA., at the Hollywood Bowl.
Here is a very cool video of the show where the main soundboard was used for the audio:
