Around the time Van Halen's "Women and Children First" album was released, frontman David Lee Roth was apparently taking the term "frontman" literally. It was Dave's vision that the cover art would feature him – and only him – and he conspired to have Warner Brothers hire a legendary photographer do the photo shoot.
That event almost busted up the band.
Greg Renoff, author of the upcoming book Van Halen Rising: How a Southern California Backyard Party Band Saved Heavy Metal, tells Cuepoint that the shoot with legendary photographer Helmut Newton backfired immediately. To begin with, Eddie and Alex Van Halen didn't know who Newton was. And when they showed up late for the shoot, it was clear that the photographer had been charmed by Roth and considered the rest of the band to be insignificant. They found Roth wrapped in chains as an enamored Newton posed him in multiple shots. Afterwards, a few photos taken of Eddie, Alex and Michael Anthony seemed like an afterthought and the expression on Eddie's face told the tale of his displeasure with the situation.
In the end, the drama came down to a compromise between the Van Halens and David Lee Roth. Warner Brothers would hire photographer Norman Seeff to do the cover shot of the band – together – and a Helmut Newton poster of Roth in chains would be included inside the first one million copies of the album.
The full story is a compelling read. You can check it out and see the few photos that were released from the Helmut Newton shoot at medium.com's cuepoint.
-Spencer