Writers: Sammy Hagar, Eddie Van Halen, Alex Van Halen, and Michael Anthony
Producers: Andy Johns, Ted Templeman, and Van Halen
Recorded: Early 1991 at 5150 in Hollywood, California
| Players: | Sammy Hagar — vocals Eddie Van Halen — guitar, keyboards, vocals Michael Anthony — bass, vocals Alex Van Halen — drums |
| Album: | For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge (Warner Bros.) |
The second single from Van Halen's ninth album, “Right Now” stalled at Number 55 on the Billboard Hot 100 but became one of the band's best-known songs due to heavy radio play, an MTV Video Music Award-winning video that employed a series of affirmations building off the song's chorus, and its use in a Pepsi commercial.
Frontman Sammy Hagar noted, “It's been used in every football game, every baseball game, every basketball game, and by Pepsi. It wasn't because we sold out — it was just because all these people wanted to use our song, which is very flattering.”
The album For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge spent three weeks at Number One on the Billboard 200 chart and has sold well over three million copies.
It was, however, the first Van Halen album during Hagar's time with the band to not feature any Top 10 singles.
Hagar says that For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge was supposed to be Van Halen's “masterpiece.” They started working on it in the summer of 1990, with the band producing the album themselves and Andy Johns engineering. But when that didn't work out, they brought in original Van Halen producer Ted Templeman for the first time since the 1984 album.
STATIONS: Please note the following line contains language your listeners may find objectionable. Hagar said that the censorship movement directed at musicians in the late '80s and early '90s inspired the album's title. The group originally wanted to call the album F***, which, not surprisingly, didn't please their label. They changed the title after boxer Ray “Boom Boom“Mancini, who was a friend of Hagar's, told him that the term was a British acronym for “For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge.” (Which actually isn't true.)