Exclusively Van Halen: The Wild Story Behind Diver Down! Van Halen's Most Unexpected Album. 4/14/25

🎧 Celebrating Diver Down – Released April 14, 1982! Van Halen’s Diver Down is the band’s fifth studio album, and it hit the shelves on April 14, 1982. The album spent a whopping 65 weeks on the U.S. charts and had sold over 4 million copies in the U.S. alone by 1998. The iconic album cover features the red-and-white “diver down” flag, symbolizing something hidden beneath the surface—fitting for Van Halen’s layered sound and energy. David Lee Roth once said it signified that “something was going on that’s not apparent to your eyes.” Manager Noel Monk later added a cheeky double meaning to it—“dive her down”—in his memoir Running with the Devil. The back cover shows a live photo of the band taken by Richard Aaron at the Tangerine Bowl in Orlando, on October 24, 1981, during a show opening for The Rolling Stones. 🕺 Of the 12 tracks, 5 are cover songs, with the standout being their fiery take on Roy Orbison’s (Oh) Pretty Woman. 🎙 Eddie Van Halen on how the album came together: “After the Fair Warning tour, we planned to take a break. Dave wanted to release a single—originally Dancing in the Streets. But I couldn’t vibe with it. Instead, I suggested Pretty Woman. We recorded it in a day at Sunset Sound, and it took off. Warner Bros. said, ‘You’ve got a hit—time to make an album!’ We jumped in with no rest and made Diver Down in just 12 days. It was a lot of fun.”