Eruptions Part 1: David Lee Roth vs. Van Halen

In tribute to the late Eddie Van Halen, we’re devoting a pair of episodes to the two distinct eras of his namesake band. The first installment explores the guitar virtuoso’s relationship with the group’s original frontman, a karate kicking, spandex wearing, hyperactive rock ’n’ roll peacock named David Lee Roth. More a musical marriage of convenience than genuine friendship, the sparks between the pair both onstage and in the studio helped make Van Halen the biggest band in the world. But fame inflated their egos, and soon the bandmates were at each other’s throats. Diamond Dave loathed Eddie’s use of synthesizers on the album 1984. The global success of the record — and the pop crossover smash “Jump” — wasn’t enough to repair their creative rift, and Roth departed Van Halen in 1985 in pursuit of solo stardom and a film career. The band carried on without him, first enlisting Sammy Hagar and (briefly) Gary Cherone, before finally welcoming him back into the fold in 2007 for a series of reunion tours and a new album. Fans rejoiced, but the old tensions were never far from the surface.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Rivals as a production of I Heart Radio. Hello everyone,
and welcome to Rivals, the show about music beefs and
feuds and long simmering resentments between musicians. I'm Steve and

(00:21):
I'm Jordan's And this is the first in a two
part series we're doing in honor of the life and
artistry of Eddie van Halen, who died on October six
at the much too young age of so sad. And
we're gonna We're gonna take a look at the epic
van Halen saga and all the music and mayhem that
came from his brilliance. Uh. You know, we just did
an episode on Jimmy Hendricks a few weeks back, and

(00:43):
uh so much of what we said about Jimmy applies
to Eddie. You know, he totally redefined what it meant
to be a guitar player. He was a virtuoso who
revolutionized the instrument and added so much to the musical
vocabulary of rock and roll. What I love about Eddie
van Halen is that he was this virtuos so genius
level player. He used all of his talent to make
some of the most fun and infectious rock music of
all time. He wasn't one of these like pretentious maestros

(01:06):
making concept albums about like the human condition, or like
King Arthur and the Knights of the Roundtable or something.
He would play the sick, complicated, just amazing guitar riffs
and put them into stoner dude anthems like hot for Teacher.
You know, he was just the best. Today, we're gonna
start at the beginning and look at the David Lee
Roth years, and then next week we'll tackle the Van

(01:27):
Hagar era, and everyone's looking forward to that. I'll be honest,
you know, even though Sammy joined two years before I
was born, I still have a problem accepting him over
David Lee Roth. You know. I mean, to me, it's
not fully van handling him without Diamond Dave and his
Spandex and his hair spray and his karate kicks and
his tantrums. I mean, he he's the best. To me. Look,
I'll admit it right now. I owned fifty one fifty

(01:48):
oh you eight one two and even for Unlawful Colonel
Knowledge on cassette back in junior high. So I have
some nostalgia for the Van Hagar years, which I guess
I'm gonna have to own up to in our next episode,
but for now, yeah, us, you're right, we're talking about
prime era van Halen here, so of course we have
to delve into the David E. Roth period. You know,
the rivalry between Roth and Eddie van Halen really is

(02:11):
among the most contentious in rock history. Could I just
say right now that, like as any guitarists had to
put up with more cases of lead singer disease than
Eddie Van Halen, and he truly was a cursed individual
in this regard, and yet he was able to make
so much amazing music. Anyway, So without further ado, let's
get into this mess. It all starts, of course, with

(02:33):
the van Halen's older brother Alex and Eddie. They're born
in the Netherlands to a Dutch father and an Indonesian
mother before moving to the United States as children, and
their early years were really, really tough. Eddie would recall
that they lived in one room together for a time
after they arrived in Pasadena, and they would scour dumpsters
looking for scrap metal to sell, like really like almost
dickensiean stories of his childhood. Um, and they couldn't speak

(02:57):
English when they first got here, so Alex and he
really could only talk to each other, and it fostered
this real sense early on of sort of like us
versus the outsiders. And I think this is a dynamic
that's you know, followed through all through van Halen's that really,
you know, that was the twin access point where the
brothers and everyone else almost like a mafia family, like
everyone else has to be sort of invited in. And yeah,

(03:19):
it really that was a sense that was fostered early on,
just through the language barrier really, and one of the
few things that the van Halens brought to this country
was a piano, and my brothers started taking lessons and
that was Eddie's earliest musical experiences were playing pieces by
Bach and Mozart for his tutor. But the amazing part
was he couldn't really read music, so he would just
pick it up by ear and just play it, and

(03:40):
the teacher thought he was reading the music, but he
was just actually just just playing it because he was
that good. So early on he showed incredible talent. Now,
the story I heard is that Alex was the one
who originally started playing guitar, and I think Eddie was
playing drums, but Eddi would always sneak into, you know,
Alex's room and he would start playing his guitar, and
it became i think clear early early on that like

(04:01):
Eddie van Halen was the Eddie van Halen, that this
was like an incredible sort of natural talent Eddie had
at playing the instrument. One thing I have I got
to say that about Alex van Halen is that I
feel like he is often overlooked in the van Halen story.
Just because Eddie van Halen was this revolutionary guitar player,
people often don't take note of the fact that Alex
van Halen is really like one of the greatest drummers

(04:23):
I think in the history of hard rock and metal.
Like he's not. Yeah, he's not only mentioned with like
John Bonham and Keith Moon and all those grades, but
I really think he ought to be. I mean, you know,
there's a reason why Eddie loved to play with Alex.
It's not just that they were brothers. Alex also had
the talent to keep up with Eddie van Halen. So

(04:43):
I think when we talk about the power center of
this band, yeah, Eddie was the man, but Alex is
a very significant part of that as well. Yeah, absolutely.
I mean that talent just ran right through the family
and the van Halen's father, Yawn, was a professional musician
and he played the clarinet and saxophone, and he's playing
the clarinet part on the Eiver downtrack Big Bad Bill,
which is one of my favorite Van Halen songs because

(05:04):
it's a song most likely to be mistaken for the
antiques roadshow theme, So I have I have a soft
spot for that. That's such a weird album all over
the place. So that's that's yourn On there. And so
as as Eddie and Alex got better, they formed a
band with their dad and they played weddings and bar
mitzvahs and local events and stuff like that. So that
was a bond in the family early on. Music. But

(05:25):
the other thing that was a bond early on was drinking.
And according to the band's one time manager, Noel Monk,
and he wrote a book a couple of years back
called Running with the Devil, Young would share drinks with
his teenage boys, and to quote uh this book, he said,
I'm talking about a guy getting ship faced with his
teenage boys and hope that the camaraderie of drinking would
encourage honesty and transparency in their relationship so early on.

(05:46):
The two themes of Eddie's life are kind of established
in childhood in the family home, music and drinking to
sort of establish a connection. Yeah, you know, I don't
want to cast us versions on someone else's parenting style,
but yeah, I don't know if that was that's a
good idea to get wasted with your kid. I feel
like maybe you might be training them to become an alcoholic,
which is what happened with both Eddie and Alex. That's

(06:08):
going to be an issue throughout the history of Anne Halein.
But you know, Jan also was a very positive influence
in terms of his sons pursuing music, and it was
something that they did pretty early on in their life.
Like by the mid sixties they were playing in rock
bands and they had very sixties sounding bands. We were
talking about. One band they were in was called the
Broken Combs. Another band was called The Trojan Rubber Company,

(06:31):
very glam metal exactly, and then they were at one
point they were known as Genesis and Amazing. They were
unaware that there was a British prog rock band fronted
by Peter Gabriel, also known as Genesis, so they couldn't
keep that name, and then they changed their name to
Mammoth and they played as Mammoth. Yeah, that's a very
sort of seventies hard rock sounding name. Sounds like Mountain

(06:54):
or something like that. And so they're playing around Los
Angeles and in the music scene they end up running
into a guy named David Lee Roth. Now, David Lee
Roth was playing his own band. They were called the
Red Ball Jets because apparently, yeah, apparently David Roth would
always be chewing on red Ball candies and like, not
that David Lee Roth needs any more sugar in his
life to give him energy, but apparently the sugar would

(07:15):
just make him even like more hyperactive. And the reason
why the Van Halens ended up interacting with davidly Roth
is that David Lee Roth had his own p A
and they needed to rent a p A. So it
wasn't really because he was a singer or anything. They
just wanted his equipment. And after a while they realized, well,
if we just put this guy in our band, we
don't have to pay to rent this PA anymore. So
it's like, you know, get the p A and the

(07:36):
lead singer comes for free and like I think this
has happened to other rock bands. I think like Bill
Wyman for instance, Like that's how we end up in
the Rolling Stones. It was because he had a p A.
I think there's other examples of that too. So like
a common thing for drummers too, because the drummers, like
I know, something like Pete Best I think, lined up
in the Beatles for a while just because he had
a drum kit, which was like an expensive item. Yeah,

(07:56):
so like you know, just buy equipment. You know, you
don't have to be it you only any talent, save
yourself some trouble down the road. Yeah, just gonna p a.
Someone's gonna put you in your band, and like chances
are it's gonna be you know, the Rolling Stones are
Van Halen, you know you're gonna end up with one
are two of those kind of bands. So you know,
good advice for future musicians. And you know the thing
about Dave two is that you know it was really
sort of a marriage of convenience, like you said, like

(08:18):
they would say later on, I think it was a
direct quote from Eddie. You know, we weren't what you
call conventional friends. You know, it was just something that
you know it worked for us. There was so there
was never really, I think, a real camaraderie between them
on a personal level. And their backgrounds were so so different.
I mean, you know, I mentioned the van Halen's living
in one room and looking for scrap metal and dumpsters.
Dave's background was his father was this wealthy eye surgeon

(08:41):
who basically bankrolled his son's ambitions to be a rock star,
which is why he had this incredible p A. And
you know, he couldn't really at least that era, and
some people Sammy Hagar fans maybe would say, you know,
you couldn't ever really sing that well. But he was
just such a master in the whole art of like
fake it till you make it. I mean, just like
look at his outfits. Uh, And it was clear that,

(09:01):
you know, joining up with the van Halen brothers worked
for both of them. You know, it was just something
that worked. And I don't think that they have a
really we're friends. Yeah, you know, obviously I was listening
to a lot of Van Halen music getting ready for
these episodes, and it occurred to me that, like what
David Lee Roth is doing on those records, it's not
so much singing. It's almost like a kind of combination

(09:21):
of like talking and rapping. Yeah, he doesn't have the
sort of conventional voice like in the way that Sammy
Hagard did. For instance, Sammy Hagard is like the epitome
of like the journeyman rock singer of the seventies and eighties,
whereas David Lee Roth he couldn't really sing. But it's
like it was kind of better than being a singer
because what he brought was totally unique and like it
could not be replicated by anybody. I never really maybe

(09:42):
this is a common observation, but I never realized how
much he sounded like Animal from the Muppets until re
listening to a lot of other stuff for a while.
They're right exactly, it's a lot of just like scatting
and like in bullshitting essentially, and it but it totally works.
What's fascinating to me about like Van Halen's early days
is that it was David Lee Roth's idea to change

(10:04):
their name from Mammoth to van Halen. And at one
point it's like van Halen is like a cool sounding name,
like it is a name like Santana for instance, where yeah,
you can name your band after the last name of
the guitar player because it's just a cool sounding last name. Like,
if we were in a band, probably aren't going to
call it Hyden or run Top, you know, not really
one of those are cool sounding names. But van Halen

(10:24):
was definitely cool. But what that ended up doing, perhaps inadvertently,
is that it seems like it permanently put the power
center of the band with Eddie and Alex because obviously
you can't have a band called van Halen without any
of the van Halen's, So that us versus them mentality
that you were talking about earlier, it's just sort of
reiterated with the band name. It's like, Okay, you're either

(10:46):
a van Halen or you're not. And David lee Roth
clearly it was not a van Halen. I got to
give a shout out to this great book I read
a few years ago called van Halen Rising. It's by
a guy named Greg Renoff, and it covers van Halen's
career right up until the point before they recorded their
first album, So it is as the title suggests, it's
about their rise to prominence, and as much as it

(11:08):
is a story about van Halen, it's really like about
southern California in the mid seventies, and like one thing
that that part of the country had going that a
lot of places didn't is this thriving backyard party scene.
Like you would go to someone's house and it wouldn't
just be like a dozen people at a barbecue. It
would be like hundreds of kids at these parties. And

(11:28):
they would book bands and Van Halen ended up being
one of the most popular bands on this circuit. So
along with playing rock clubs, they're playing these backyard parties.
And David le Roth would talk about this later about
how he felt that Van Halen was able to be
successful because in Southern California they had to play for
so many different kinds of audiences. One night they've been
to be playing for surfer dudes. The next night it

(11:49):
might be for like hard drinking working men in the valley.
The next night it might be for a predominantly Mexican audience,
you know, And he just felt like, yeah, we're a
hard rock band, so you know, they would play Aerosmith
covers and zz Top covers, but then they would also
do like Stevie Wonder covers, and they would do case
in the Sunshine Band and stuff exactly. So it was
melding all these different influences still under a hard rock banner,

(12:11):
but they were much more eclectic than a lot of
hard rock bands at that time. What a cool way
to come up to Like, I know, we have like
house shows and stuff now, but like having a backyard party,
like you know, like Can't Hardly Wait style or like
Dazed and Confused or something like going to like a
cager with your friends and the backyard band Halen's playing.
They're like, come on, I know, it's exactly That's why
I love that book. It's like the real life version

(12:32):
of Fast Times at Ridgemond High. Like when you read
that book, it's like it's such a cool vibe and
just imagine, yeah, like being in that kind of scene
with Van Halen innineteen seventy five. It just sounds totally awesome.
So they're playing these backyard parties and they're they're really
like drumming up buzz by going to like local high
schools and passing out flyers and stuff to come see
their band. Like they really having like a cool grassroots

(12:53):
campaign going. And they get a residency at a club
and the Sun's got strip called Ghazaries, which is like
a legendary club in l A. And they eventually link
up with bassist Michael Anthony, who's playing in a support
act called Snake. I guess I think David Lee Roth's
p A system died one night on stage and they
had the borrow like their opening acts, and it happened
to be Snake and Michael Anthony, and that was how

(13:14):
how he got into the band. So it's interesting how
David Lee Roth got into the band because he was
renting him a p A. Michael Anthony got into the
band because he just let them use this PM like that.
Just that speaks so much about how Michael Anthony is
just one of the nicest guys and he doesn't deserve
what's coming. Or it speaks to how the Van Hillin
Brothers just love PA's, you know. It's like, if you
have a PA, the Van Hillin Brothers are like, we're

(13:37):
there any even if you are just sort of like
adjacent to a p A, you can be in our band.
So it's uh six and Gene Simmons catches one of
their shows and I heard a rumor that it was
with an idol to recruit Eddie and to Kiss. I
don't know how true that is, but that would be
an interesting tangent in an alternate universe rock history if

(13:57):
Eddie one up and Kiss. But Jean is so impressed
with the group and he uh he goes and records
a demo with them, brings it to Kiss management to
try to get people excited. They're not excited. I think
the quote was they don't stand the chance. That's what
they said about Van Halen. Jean wanted to try to
help them by asking them to change their names to
the Daddy Long Legs, which is decent band name. Not

(14:18):
as good as Van Halen, definitely not as good as
Um as Mammoth, but it's very specific to like nineteen
seventy six, I feel like that band name. So eventually
Warner Brothers record producer Ted Templeman cut another one of
their shows and signed them to a contract. Uh. They
released a revamped version of The Kinks He Really Got Me,
which got some national tension, but this was nothing compared

(14:40):
to the release of their self titled debut in February
seventy eight, which almost immediately I think, went platinum and
just established them as a huge Force. I mean, the
album went on the cell like twelve million copies. I mean,
what can you say about one of the truly one
of the best rock debuts in his absolute atomic punk
little Dreamer eruption of course, I mean, good lord, Yeah,

(15:01):
that album is like the greatest hits album. It's their debut.
But like you know, every song, like pretty much every
song on that record has been played the death on
FM radio. I gotta say I'm personally a big fan
of ice Cream Man. I just want to say that now,
which maybe we'll see me siding more with Roth in
this episode because I'm into this whole like almost like
vaudevillian thing. Oh yeah, I love ice Cream Man as well.
And in a way, like you can look at that

(15:22):
song as like the perfect synthesis of Roth and Van Halen,
where it starts out and Roth is doing his like
you know, like scat singing, you know, stick, and then
it just totally rocks at the end, like Eddie just
burst into the song and takes it off, and it's like, oh,
this is what was so great about Van Halen. You
know that they could start in this goofy place but

(15:43):
also make it feel real and authentic. At the same time.
And I think that like what set Van Halen apart,
like really from the beginning of their career and certainly
during the Roth years, is that they were the first
metal band that I think non metal heads could love.
You know. There was just something so like friendly and
like inviting about them. Like you think about that song
Running with the Devil, Like if Black Sabbath did a

(16:04):
song called Running with the Devil, it would actually be
about running with the devil, like it would be about evil.
It would be foreboding, like you would have nightmares after
hearing that song, Whereas when Van Halen does it, it's
like we're doing it metaphorically. You know, we're raising hell
in a fun way. You know, we're gonna blow the
doors off a Friday night, you know, like let's party,
let's have a good time, let's all get together, you know.
And I know David Lee Roth, He's often talked about

(16:25):
how he felt that Van Hellen was a band for everybody,
you know, that they weren't snobs in any way. They
welcomed everyone into their tent. And I think Eddie Van Halen,
certainly at the beginning, I think he was on the
same page with that, you know, I think he also
wanted van Halen. They had that kind of broad appeal.
But I think as the years went on, it does
seem like there was like a musical split between Roth

(16:45):
and Eddie in terms of where they were going to
go musically. I think David Lee Roth was very much
a guy who put a premium on poppiness and dance ability,
whereas Eddie Van Halen, again, he's this extremely talented guitar player.
You know, he wants to start doing maybe some more
sophisticated music, stuff that's a little more complicated, and he
really felt stifled. One thing that I think is interesting

(17:05):
about early van Halen is that there was this battle
long before they're you know, they're that huge album would
jump on it. There was this battle between davidly Roth
and ed evan Halen about synthesizers because like Eddie Van
Halen actually, like he would talk about how he wrote
a lot of his guitar parts on piano and then
you know, transcribe them to guitar, and he was insane.
It's crazy that he did that, but like, you know,

(17:26):
he loved piano. He wanted to play SyncE like fairly
early on in the band and David Lee Roth would
always veto it, and yet at the same time, davidly
Roth was also the pop guy. I just wonder, like
what the thinking was there. It's very interesting. Yeah, it's strange.
I mean it's not as simple as like you get
like a Beach Boys thing with with Brian Wilson wanting
to make these kind of deep, dark orchestral like mood pieces.

(17:47):
And then you've got Mike Love being like no, no, no,
like let's get people dance. We're a party band. Like
it's not that simple at all with this. I mean,
it's crazy how we'll get this later on, Like you know,
they didn't like Jump. It's like Eddie's like, hey, I'm
trying to make you the best most poppy, accessible dance
track I can. Like how like I'm not making something
that's like hard to grasp here. If anything, it's it's

(18:08):
more simple than what we were doing. Yeah, they're that
dynamic is really interesting to me. I mean, I think
the other thing that's going on here, I mean maybe
at heart it isn't even so much about poppumists versus sophistication.
It's really just like a power struggle, like who's going
to be in control of the band and really around
you know, I guess like nine eight or so, it
really seems like, you know, the lead singer, disease syndrome

(18:29):
is really kicking in with David Lee Roth. Yeah. I
mean there was a story I think it was in
greg Ryannoff's book about the Women and Children First Cover,
and David Lee Roth wanted to hire the legendary fashion
photographer Helmett Newton to do these like glamorous cover shots,
and I guess he and Helmet hit it off. I
think they were at like a pool, like the Beverly
Hills Hotel or something like glamorous pool and they met

(18:50):
and Helmet said, you're my new favorite blonde. He was
really taken by Roth. So they end up having a
photography session at David Lee Roth's house with with Helmet
and helmets, just getting all these close up shots of Dave.
And there's a really famous shot. I think one of
the only shots that actually was published from that session
is David shirtless with his hands chained above his head

(19:11):
and this like strange christ like pose by like a cyclone.
Fans that's fine arts art, and the other band members
are like, we're a band, Like, first of all, we're
paying way too much money to this guy. I mean,
this is way out of our art budget to hire
this like, you know, legendary fashion photographer. And also he's
just purely focusing on Dave and somebody outtakes. You see

(19:32):
from the session that day, you look at Eddie and
Alex and they look just iraate. They look miserable. I
mean it's obvious that like this photographer really thinks that
Dave is the guy and everyone else is expendable. So
there's a huge fight about this, and the brothers really think,
you know, this is Dave's effort to try to hijack
the band's image for this new album just to serve

(19:53):
his own artistic So those photographs were, uh were junked basically,
and the recent compromise by hiring the photographer Norman Sieff,
who I guess has a talent for making fractured bands
look like friends and uh, and he succeeded really admirably
on the cover of the album. I mean, you look,
I mean it looks like you know, the flag raising
and elu Jima or something. They're all like all all

(20:14):
banded together. It's a great cover. Yeah, right, Yeah, it's
an awesome cover, and then inside is the poster of
Roth with his you know, christ and chains pose as
like a special gift for fans, and I thought that
was like a really perfect metaphor for the band at
this time. You know, there's like a deceptive shot that
presents on the cover, that presents Van Halen as this
unified group, but then lurking on the inside is this

(20:36):
outrageous solo glamour shot of Diamond Dave. I feel like
that's sort of like that really sets up what's succumb
all right hand. We'll be right back with more rivals.
So if you have your rock and roll bingo card

(20:57):
and you're charting, when bands start to go wrong, I
feel like arguments over album covers is like a serious
red flag. You know, that would be like at the
center of the big No card. But of course in
Van Halen, these differences are also starting to manifest themselves musically,
and I think you can really see that on the
next to Van Halen records, the one after Women and
Children first is Fair Warning comes out, and I think

(21:20):
it's fair to say that Fair Warning is like the
Van Halen Officionado's favorite Van Halen album, you know, like
this is the one where there are hits on it,
like Unchained is on that record, and so this is
love but unlike you know, like the first couple of
Van Halen records, like there's not a lot of radio
standards on Fair Warning. It's more about just this sort
of dark and dirty, intense rock music. Really, like I

(21:42):
think the darkest music van Halen made during the David
Lee Roth era, you know, thinking of songs like Center
Swing and like dirty movies and of course like Mean Street,
the leadoff track, which is like I think one of
the greatest van Halen songs, and I think a Fair
Warning as being like a total Eddie van Halen record.
It just feels like it has his fingerprint. It is
all over it, wonderful guitar parts on it. It seems like,

(22:03):
again it's more about the music, not about the image.
David Lee Roth isn't like scatting as much on that record,
you know, he's not doing the stick as much. I mean,
obviously Unchained has some of that. I guess the poppulier
moments that people remember have that. But it's really like
it's almost like social commentary on that album, which you
don't associate with David Lee Roth era van Halen, but

(22:23):
there's a real serious to fair warning that I think
again it feels more in line with Eddie van Halen.
And then you have diver Down. The next record comes
out two and that record is proceeded by a single.
It's a cover of Pretty Women, the Roy Orbison song.
And again this is harkening back to the early days
of Van Halen when they really broke themselves by doing
hard rock covers of sixties songs. You know, you really

(22:46):
got me, of course from the first record being the
most obvious example, and Diver Down ends up being this
record that's like half covers and like half originals. You know,
we we we mentioned that song Big Bad Bill, which
is almost like a novelty number or Van Haalen, and
it seems very much like a David Lee roth type record.
And I know, like Eddie and Alex have both gone

(23:08):
on record in subsequent years as saying that like Diver
Down was not a record they really liked. And I
would say that for me, it's like easily the weakest
of the David E. Roth era records. It's still a
lot of fun and I appreciate the humor of it,
but I think you can see they're pretty clearly that
like Eddie van Haalen saw the band in a certain
kind of way that was really starting to clash with
the way David Lee Roth saw it. Yeah, I mean,

(23:29):
I don't think that album they really even wanted to
do it because they've just gotten off the Fair Warning
tour and they were tired and they wanted to take
a break, and they put out the Royal Orbison coverage
just is sort of like a stop gap because Ted
Templeman loved doing those covers. That was mostly him pushing that.
I think early on that it was an easy way
to get a hit. Was that just you know, rock
up an old standard that was a hit, and then
when the song did so well, the label was like, Okay,

(23:49):
you gotta put an album out around this. This is
too good to miss. So then you get I always
thought of this as kind of like being like their
version of New Orders Brotherhood. You had half of it
that were these covers at Eddie just thought was musically vapid.
He didn't really get much out of it, And then
you had a couple of originals that he wrote that
he felt good about. And I think that the song
that really crystallizes these two sides is Dancing in the Street.

(24:12):
The cover of the Martha and the Vandela's song and
the synthrift from it is taken from a totally separate
song that Eddie was working on, and I guess ted
and David Lee Roth heard it and so wait, that
would actually work really good under this cover. So you
get this, like, you know, this song that was really
going to be almost like a Peter Gabriel type song
that Eddie was working on being put underneath this you know,
rocked up motown version and it worked, but it was

(24:36):
definitely you can see the fault lines between them musically.
I think on that almost more than anything else they've done. Yeah,
I wonder like, is there going to be like a
box set of like just music that Eddie van Halen
was working on at this time that never saw the
light of day. I know that he's, like he talked
about in his life about how he didn't want to
put out this more experimental music that he was making
because he was basically just afraid of being judged for

(24:57):
stepping outside of his lane. And I'm really fascinated by like,
what would Eddie van Halens Peter Gabriel like song that
he wrote in one sound like? You know this, this
is like a whole other side to him. I think
that we never got to see. Oh totally, yeah, I
mean it'll be interesting if there's like, you know, a
Salinger like uh issue of all sorts of stuff that
he had stored away for years, that would be incredible.

(25:19):
But back in Eddie one Eddy two, they go on
a tour to promote Diver Down. They're really getting on
each other's nerves at this point. I mean, they really
haven't had much time to relax of the last three
or four years. And Dave would say, you know, there's
always tension with me and Edward, but then again, there's
always tension between me and the freaking bus driver. But
Dave at this point was becoming really less and less
satisfied with his role in the band is basically, you know,

(25:40):
like a performing monkey test, which just sort of delivering
Eddie's musical messages. And he was also really resentful at
this point of Eddie's sort of higher media profile because
at this point he married Valerie Burton Elly and suddenly
all the headlines were about you know, the rock star
who married America's sweetheart, and so Dave felt even more
sidelined by this. I mean he was also not guy
who was really all that fond of the whole marriage

(26:01):
idea anyway, So he started to really act out. And
this shows up probably most prominently and most famously at
the US Festival in nineteen eighty three and the band
got I still find this amazing. They got one point
five million dollars for seventy five minutes. That's incredible. I
mean that's in dollars too, So you know what would

(26:22):
that be now? Would they'd be like three million, maybe
even like four millions? Oh yeah, I mean it just
speaks to how huge Van Human were. And this is
before Jump comes out too, so like they were already
just a huge band, and you know most bands for
getting that kind of money, would you know, maybe get
a little nervous beforehand and really practice a little extra
and really try to give it there all. Dave shows

(26:43):
up kind of staggering, drunk, I would say, and he's like,
I can't remember the words to the songs in front
of three or fifty thou people, and he's like roaring
at and this is where he really does his like
Animal from the Muppets voice. He's like roaring at the crowd.
He has some like like he's yelling at a guy
in the front row, Hey, man, don't be squirting water me.
I'm gonna fuck your girlfriend. Pal. I'm really good. There's

(27:05):
some choice moments on YouTube of him in the middle
of that show and like a roadie brings him a
bottle of Jack Daniels on stage and it's did you
drop like a busy bussy bop at the end of that,
I'm just trying to think of how we can make
that more. David Lee Roth like, yeah, it's incredible. I mean,
for any other band, this would have been like a
pr disaster, but you know, for Van Halen, it's perfect.

(27:26):
They are the ultimate party band and the crowd loves it.
But Eddie doesn't love it. He's a perfectionist and he's
really pissed. And I guess they go backstage to talk
about an encore and there's this huge fight back there
about Dave's condition at the time, So that was that
was a major red flag that they were heading for
heading for disaster. Yeah, you know, I think you know
we're gonna talk about this more in our van Hagar episode.

(27:48):
But you know, people talk about the changes in Van
Halen and they really ascribe it to the lead singers,
and I think people overlooked how Eddie van Halen himself
was changing at this time. And I think that he
was tiring a little bit of being perceived as again
like this dumb party band, you know, because again he
is a genius. He's a musical virtuos and he wants
to spread his wings, and I think he was really

(28:10):
starting to feel confined by the image that the band
had because David Lee Roth was the front man, and
you really start to see I think this developed around
the time of four, which ends up being one of
the biggest albums of Van Halen's careers. Of course, it's
the album that has jumped on it Panamas on that
record Hot for Teacher, and it's a crucial album van

(28:30):
Halen's history, not only because it really put them on
the same I think strata as like Michael Jackson and
Bruce Springsteen. I mean they really were like the hard
rock version of that in the mainstream. But also this
was around the time that like Eddie built his own
studio called and he really started like making music on
his own and a lot of music, and sometimes he'd

(28:51):
have Alex come over and they would jam pretty regularly.
But that us versus them dynamic that we that we've
been talking about in this episode, I think it really
gets asturbated here because now you know he has the
ability to really just make records on his own and
maybe have David Lee Roth come in at the end.
And it really flares up. And we've talked about this already,
but like the controversy over Jump, how David the Roth

(29:13):
didn't like Jump, had Templeman didn't like Jump, and it
had to do with this synthesizer part. And Eddie Van
Halen was at the point now where he's like, Okay,
you're not going to tell me what to do anymore,
Like I have held back on my ambitions long enough,
but I'm gonna put it on this song. I think
it really works and it becomes his power struggle between
him and Roth and and Eddie just at one point says, look,

(29:34):
if I want to play a tuba or Bavarian cheese
whistle on a Van Halen record, I'll do it. And
it really kind of becomes like a line in the
sand between him and Roth that is uh, gonna end
up like wrecking this lineup. I love how when Roth's
biography calls the music from this period morose. Yeah yeah,
what is that like Panama's morose? Hot for teachers morose?

(29:57):
Like it makes those they're not making a letter Cohen
record here? Yeah, David says his famous line from this
is like, you know, you're a guitar here and nobody
wants to see you playing keyboards. But yeah, I mean,
it's just it's hard to deny just how catchy that
song is. It's it's amazing now to really think that
they would have a problem with him. It's like I
was saying earlier. I mean, it's not like they were

(30:17):
going to alienate anybody. I don't think, although you know,
it's funny now you look back and you always hear
about how like Eddie's gamble paid off, But like, was
there blowback at the time from some of the more
like you know, headbanging fans that really heard the synth
and so what the hell is this crap? I mean,
did they lose a lot of fans from that? I
don't know if they lost a lot of fans. I
think it's hard to tell, because I'm sure there were
people that were piste off that they put a synthesizer

(30:40):
on a song. And I know, like from talking with
like serious fan haling heads that like they tend to
put like the first record or fair Warning, and I
think Jump has a lot to do with it. So
they might have lost some fans, but like it's a
total wash because they gained I'm sure millions more fans
because they love that song. And I think it goes
back again to what I was saying before with that

(31:00):
like Van Halen was a band for everybody. They were
not a band just from metal heads, and I think
Jump ended up being the ultimate manifestation of that. But
it also in a way leads to the destruction because
they put out this record that's a huge hit, sponsor
of multiple hits, but it's the beginning of the end
for this lineup of the band. Yeah, I mean, they're
as big as they ever are. And Dave goes to
the press I think at the end of four, the

(31:22):
year four, and he goes on MTVS liner notes and
he says, and he's incredible, He's the king of the metaphor.
I have to say rock bands are like dogs that
chase cars. They make a lot of noise and get
a lot of attention, but they don't last too long.
So we'll see what happens. Uh, you know. And at
this point the van Halen brothers are looking at Dave

(31:43):
of like a time bomb, like what is he gonna do?
What's he gonna say? Like he's going out there and
saying all this stuff. He gives an interview to Billboard
around the same time in early five uh, and the
headline is van Halen's roth, Maybe It's over, and it
has this really kind of haunting quote from day if.
He says, since my very first days with the band
eleven years ago, I've always had the feeling that one

(32:05):
day I would wake up in a cold hotel, all
the rooms would be empty, and I would be stuck
by a phone with a busy signal. From the first day,
nothing has changed. It's brutal. That is cold. That is cold.
And it's interesting to me that he was making overtures
to the press already that man Helen might be ending,
and only because he was feeling that way. And look,

(32:26):
if you listen to our show, you will notice that
there's a pattern where someone in a band who's unhappy
makes overtures to the press saying that, hey, I think
the band is over, but only saying that because they
themselves feel that way and they haven't consulted the other
people in the band. And we all know how that
turns out, don't we know? It always turns out the
same way. The guy who was going to the press
saying this stuff always ends up out of the band,

(32:48):
and the band continues and ends up having usually even
greater success than they had when that person was in
the band. Well, there's going to the press is bad.
But then when you have a band meeting to talk
about the future, that's talking about the future of the band,
discussion is just that's the end right there, I mean,
And that's what happens. Soon after all these interviews went
to press and the spring of eightie five, Eddie and

(33:10):
Dave meet up to talk about what to do next. Uh.
Eddie is just tired at this point. I mean he
was tired back in the diver Down era. I mean,
he want, he's just years and years of these grueling
world tours and he's thinking, you know, maybe we could
just promote, you know, to the next tour. I would
be sort of a more scaled down affair. Dave's thinking,
you know, this is gonna be a rip off for fans,
so they're at an impast with what to do next. Meanwhile,

(33:31):
davidle Roth is getting ready to put out his first
solo record. It's an EP called Crazy from the Heat.
Now this ends up being a huge hit. It spawns
off covers of California girls and just to Jiggilow, ain't
got nobody and to me, like Crazy from the Heat
in a way, you could look at it as like
an ideal solo project from the lead singer of a band.
I mean, like no band likes it when their lead

(33:52):
singer puts out solo material, because the idea is that, like, well,
if they just do what we do as a band,
the public will just go to the lead singer and
will undermine what we do in our sort of commercial viability.
But like what David lee Roth did, Crazy from the
Heat is like diametrically opposed to Van Halen. I mean
there's I dont think there's even a guitar on that EP.
It's all these very kind of show busy, sticky covers

(34:15):
that I think are actually like pretty charming. I love
his version of just Jigglow. I actually think there's like
some genuine pathos at the end of that song, Like
that is kind of like a meta commentary on like
his own persona. You know, this like kind of slutty
male singer who is you know, I'm sure he didn't
feel this way at the time, but like he was
a few years away from having his downfall essentially, and

(34:37):
like I feel like that song is almost like, you know,
preciant in that regard. But um, I mean this ep
ends up like being another sort of like wrench and
being thrown into the mess of Van Halen because like
davidly Roth also wants to make a movie called Crazy
from the Heat, And there was actually like a period
like where major studios were very interested in this. Of course,
van Halen was a huge band, and davidly Roth just

(34:59):
has stars in his eyes. He's like, you know what,
I care more about this movie than the band. Maybe
I'll come back to the band when I'm done making
the movie. But like who knows, right, I mean, it's
the Helmet Newton thing all over again. Like he wants
to be front and the center, and you know, in
a lot of ways, who can blame him. And he
goes to Eddie and says, you know, I really want
to do this movie. Will you do the soundtrack for me?
And he's like, no, I'm not gonna do. I'm tired.

(35:21):
I also want to do our band stuff. I'm not
going to do the soundtrack be your crazy movie. Absolutely not.
The band is called van Halen, like, it's not called
David Lee Roth, Like, who do you think you're talking to?
And that really was sort of what did it? I
guess Dave said, you know, I can't work with you
guys anymore. I want to do my movie. When I'm done,
we'll get back together. And uh. I think they both

(35:41):
kind of knew what that meant. I guess there were
there was a hug and some tears and uh and
they parted and uh and that was really it for
for Roth and van Halen and which and you know what,
after all that, the movie fell through, which I always
think is is sort of the biggest tragedy of all this.
We never got to see it. I think there's some
controversy in respect about like whether Roth was fired or

(36:02):
whether he quit, because like the van Halen brother said
that David Lee Roth walked out on the band, whereas
Roth has suggested that he was fired, and really, I mean,
like we don't know for sure. I tend to believe
that he left. I think that David Lee Roth felt
that he was the biggest star in Van Halen and
that the band would not be able to succeed without him, um,

(36:23):
which you know, isn't that much of a stretch. I
think in eighty six, if you were to imagine Van
Halen without David Lee Roth at the front, it just
would have seen inconceivable. Even though there were other bands,
you know, like Genesis or A. C. D C. You know,
that had great success after hiring a new lead singer,
It just it did seem like David Lee Roth was
so endemic to the success of Van Halen. So I

(36:45):
believe that he probably thought, Okay, I'm killing this band
by walking out, and I'll just go and do it
myself and I'll be a huge star, right. Although it's funny,
I think there's the same thing with Sammy two years
later about the debate about whether or not he said
that he was fired, and they said that he walked
out too. So that's that's interesting. That ends up replaying
itself two years later. Yeah, there's a real like it's
again lead singer disease just running rampant in the van

(37:07):
Halen camp. So they keep quiet about this for a while,
maybe just to see if you know, Dave would ever
you know, come back. Uh So for a couple of
months they end up keeping quiet about any any you know,
major changes in van Halen until June six, and uh,
Eddie's talking in the press again now and he overall,
Eddie has been very quiet in the press, I would

(37:29):
say about you know, his feelings towards David. David's definitely
like the you know, the quote machine here, but he's
talking about tensions, about how there were times when it
was so stressful in van Halen that he even considered quitting.
But they finally make the big announcement in mid August
in a Rolling Stone interview where Eddie says, you know,
the band is, you know, it is over. Dave left
to be a movie star, and fairly quickly Sammy Hagar

(37:55):
ends up in the band. I think, like, wasn't his
first performance with van Halen just like a few months later, Yeah,
it was, like I think it was in September eighties
six at farm Aide, which is an interesting place to
imagine that, Like Van Hagar makes their debut at farm Maide. Yeah,
and look, we'll get into that more next week about
how he ended up in the band, and like, because
there were other lead singers that they had approached at
that time, it could have been someone else other than

(38:16):
Sammy Hagar, but yeah, Big turned into Van Hagar. And
I meanwhile, David Lee Roth is shaking his spandex behind
on his own and for a while I think he
was pretty successful. Yeah. I mean, he's got two really
good albums in the late eighties, Eat Him and Smile
and The Skyscraper, and there are a lot like his EPM,
and they're blending rock and roll with this really kind
of eccentric mix of lounge and jazz. I mean, he

(38:36):
covers That's Life and the the garage rock staple Tobacco
Road that the Nashville teens did in the sixties, and
I love that side of him. I just gotta say,
even that little like soft shoe bit in the Hot
for Teacher video, when like he's out front under the
disco ball and like a suit, Like, I just I
like when he's trying to be like Sammy Davis Jr.
I always really enjoy that side of him. So yeah,

(38:57):
he had that side, But then he also did have
this on those records where he was trying to kind
of replicate Van Halen. And it's prime like he hired
Steve I to be his guitar player, who was like
a younger version of Eddie Van Halen. On Basse, he
hired this guy named Billy Shean who was known as
the Eddie Van Halen of bass. And there was actually
like a period in the early eighties like where Eddie

(39:19):
Van Halen thought about like getting rid of Michael Anthony
and putting Billy Sheen in the band, uh, just because
he thought like, oh, this is a guy that can
really keep up with me. So it did seem like
David Lee Roth was trying to build a new version
of Van Halen essentially. And when you hear songs like
just like Paradise and Yankee Rose, you know, like the
big singles from those albums, they are really infectious and fun,

(39:40):
and again, like I enjoy those albums. But one thing
I think that's clear, like when you watch the videos
for those records, is that David Lee Roth was getting
old pretty quickly, you know what I mean, Like like
there was a certain period of time like where he
could get away again with like we're in the Spandex
doing the karate moves, like jumping off of the drum,
rise are doing all those Davidly Roth antics. But like,

(40:02):
once you get into your thirties and you're starting to
approach forty, you can't pull that off as much anymore,
Not saying that he couldn't physically pull it off, but
just you start to look a little ridiculous. And of
course the music scene was starting to change as well,
of course, like in the late eighties that was the
prime of like Poison and Winger and Warrant and all
of these bands that were trying to be Van Halen.

(40:22):
But you know, pretty soon we're gonna get into the
nineties and like that glam rock stuff is not going
to work at all. And I think, you know, we'll
talk about this more next week, but I think when
we talk about the van Hagar era, you know, as
much as people malign that era, and and again I
don't think it's as good as the David Lee Roth eres,
but I think in a way, like Roth left van

(40:42):
Halen at exactly the right time, because I really don't
know how Van Halen would have evolved with David Lee
Roth as the lead singer in the late eighties going
into the nineties. I feel like with him at the lead,
they would have inevitably become an anachronism, just because again,
like he was so much of his time and place
that I don't know, like like what does a mature

(41:04):
davidly Roth look like? You know, Like what does like
an elder statesman David Lee Roth look like at the
head of van Halen? Like It's just hard for me
to conceive it. And van Halen he didn't want maybe
David Lee Roth to leave, but by putting Sammy Hagar in,
they were able to become a different kind of band,
more of like an adult contemporary band in a way
that I think suited who they were as they were

(41:26):
getting older and also their audience, you know, their audience
was also getting older. Uh So it was like a
forced evolution. But in a lot of uys, I think
it makes sense. Yeah, it was an excuse to have
a fresh slate as as the music scene was changing
so much. I mean it was it gave him an
excuse not to make that like, oh my god, we're
gonna make our adult contemporary album now. I was like, well,
we have to change our sound anyway. We have this
new guy in there, so let's make those necessary adjustments

(41:49):
and press on. And yeah, like you said, I think
that Sammy, for how maligned his his tenure in the
band was. I think you know, he served not only
as a replacement, but it was a way forward which
worked out. I mean, we'll this more next week and
means four number one albums. I mean, he definitely was successful.
I think one mistake that Sammy Hagar made and I'll
delve more into this next week, but he didn't like

(42:09):
singing David Lee Roth songs. He was very sort of
like wary of like delving into the early records. And
I think in a way that was a mistake because
it created this sense of longing for that era. I
think people would have had anyway. But it's like, even
if you loved Van Hagar, like you couldn't go to
their show and here ain't talking about love or unchained.

(42:30):
And I think over time it just created this sense
of anticipation for like Van Halen getting back together with
David Lee Roth, which you could see pretty much as
soon as Sammy Hagar gets kicked out of the band
like he leaves in nineties six and already people are
like Wedn's David the Roth coming back, right, It seems like,
I mean from the stories that Sammy's told, as soon
as Sammy takes a walk either on the phone to

(42:50):
Dave and it comes about and I really kind of like,
you know, in a way that one wouldn't expect. They
have the greatest Hits compilation due out and uh, and
they want to make some new songs for it. So
Eddie calls up Dave and wants to know if he
wants to to make some new music for it. So
they meet up at studios apparently without warning Alex and

(43:10):
Michael Anthony that that time and Dave was due to
show back up, which I love. Look who I ran
into rite. Yeah, Yeah, He's just gonna come by and
sing some tracks and they have two new songs. Can't
get this stuff no more? And me wise magic Uh fine.
I mean I think most fans are thinking that this
was basically a dry run for a full fledged, like

(43:31):
real reunion. I mean, those songs, what do you think
of those songs? I think of him as like kind
of like the Beatles, like free as a Bird, real
love type, like Okay, it's it's there here. If me
Wise Magic tapped me on the shoulder and said my
name is the Wise Magic, I would still not know
what it was. I do not remember those songs remotely
me Wise Magic. Maybe one of the worst song titles,

(43:52):
maybe the worst song title in the Van Halen canon.
But yeah, you're right, it was like it didn't really
matter what those songs were. It was they were taking
as signifiers that, like David Lee, Roth was going to
be back into the fold, right, and that's something bigger
and better was coming. But unfortunately, before that could happen,
there was the v M. As we love the VMAs
on the show, we really do. Yes, yes, oh my god,

(44:13):
this one. Van Halen plus Roth are on stage. Uh,
they're presenting an award to Beck I believe, and before
they do so, Roth gets in front of the mic
and he's definitely going off script. You can see Eddie
and Alex looking at each other with just pure fear
in their eyes, and Dave says, we have an announcement
to make. We have to address a subject here. This

(44:33):
is the first time we've actually stood on stage together
and over a decade, and he's just like really just
like rilling the crowd up and he Alex like, no, no,
stuff is novel. We're here to do please, We're here
to just give this nice guy back his award, and
they give him his moon Man Trophy and Dave's just
in the background and he's given his acceptance speech, just
like grinning dementedly and dancing around and uh, really embarrasses

(44:56):
the band. Yeah. You know, look, if you haven't seen
this clip, you gotta go on YouTube and see this clip.
David Lee Roth looks like a poodle that has just
ingested entire case of like surge soda. You know, he's
just hopping up and down. He's going nuts, and you
can just see, like in real time, Eddie Van Helen
being just so annoyed with David Lee Roth to the

(45:18):
point of like genuine anger, and that really spills over
backstage because you know they're they're talking to the press
and uh, you know, David the Roth is like in
his element because he's like been in the wilderness for
like a decade, like while Van Helen has gone on
and just hold millions of records, davidly Ross's career has
phone apart, you know, and he's like, you know, playing
like backwater casinos essentially at this point. So he's just

(45:39):
thrilled that he's like back on MTV. He's a star again.
And Eddie van Halen, you know, starts talking about his
hip because he was having hip issues at the time
and you know, thinking about getting surgery, and David Roth
basically says, no one wants to hear about your fucking hip.
This is my moment. And Eddie van Halen is like
cool for like a little bit, but again he's thinking,
wait a second, like I'm Eddie van Halen, like this

(46:01):
is my band. I'm the genius here. And he says
to davidly Roth at one point, he's like, look, if
you ever speak to me like that again, you better
be wearing a cup that this quote, you know. And
it's like not totally clear like if like, let's say
this doesn't happen, like would have would davidly Roth had
have joined Van Halen, Like if they had like a

(46:22):
smoother rollout at the v M. A's like, I'm not
totally clear on that. I don't know if they just
did that for publicity or if this was something that
kind of blew up because davidly Roth was like such
a jackass on this show. But soon after the awards,
van Halen announces that their third lead singer is going
to be Gary sharone of the band Extreme and look.
Moment of silence for Gary Sharon, by the way, who

(46:44):
by all accounts is like a really nice guy. Eddie
van Halen has talked about how like when they were
writing songs together for the album that ended up being
Van Halen three, he was like, Oh, this guy's like
my brother, Like I love this guy, Like he's such
a nice guy. But I think really like to no
fault of his own, Like it's the height of hubris
to think that you could bring in a third guy

(47:05):
and the public is going to accept that. It's pretty
amazing that they were able to put Sammy Hagar in
and have so much success, But like pulling that again, Yeah,
you're putting in a third guy, you know. I think
Genesis tried that too, Like when Phil Collins left, they
put in a third guy. They made one record and
then they were done. You know, It's like you can't
do that three times. You can't pull the hat trick
with three lead singers. So yeah, they put out Van

(47:28):
Halen three, and of course that record flew into a
black hole, never to be heard from again. I don't
know if I've ever actually heard that album from beginning
to end, Like, it doesn't really even register as like
a real Van Halen record. It just seems like something
that supposedly happened twenty two years ago. And then everyone
involved decided we're not gonna acknow, just ever again, walk
away and you know, just live our lives believing that

(47:52):
Van Halen three doesn't actually exist. I sat down and
listened to it for for this show, and you know,
I always viewed it as sort of like Garrisharon, a
sort of the rig Alais and b of Van Halen.
George Elizabi was the guy who played Bond once and
then never again, and everyone you know, ships on him.
But you actually sit down and watch that Bond movie
on Her Majesty's Secret Service. It's not bad van Halen three,

(48:12):
not as bad as I expected, not as bad as
its reputation makes it out to be. We're gonna play
it again, no, but uh, you know it's it's it's
better than I would have thought. Apparently, he claimed that
he had been asked to join Van Helen before Dave
was back for the Nine Greatest Hits set, so I
guess that was something that was like pre arranged for.
Dave is even in the picture too, which is which

(48:34):
is interesting that according to him at least, that they
wouldn't just go back with Dave full time. They already
were like, Okay, well we need a third guy. Absolutely,
we definitely can't have Dave back in full time. And
I know David Roth was really upset about that. He
felt like he was stabbed in the back. So you
know Van Halen with Gary Sharon, Davidlye Roth is upset.
Sammy Hagar is also upset. And we'll get into that

(48:55):
more next week, of course. So several years down the road,
these guys decide that they're going to do a tour together,
and like, we don't have a ton of time to
get into that, but like it's so hilarious to me
because I think they looked at it from very different perspectives.
I think Sammy Hagar, who by all accounts is like
a very easy going guy, seems like people seems awesome.
Yeah they Yeah, he's you know, he's want of flip

(49:15):
flops and drinking tequila all day. You know, like how
can you get bad at Sammy Hagar? Whereas David le
Roth is more maybe like a standoff there's almost like
a loaner type like on this tour, I think Sammy
thought like, oh, we're gonna do duets together. We're gonna
like kind of meld these two eras of Van Halen
and people are gonna have a great time. And davidlye
Roth was like much more sort of stand offish and
like wouldn't even get on stage with Sammy Hagar. He

(49:36):
thought it was like a WWF fan. He thought that
they were competing with their sets as opposed to like, no,
we're doing a cod tour here, which yeah, and I
mean that whole tour. I mean, it's just hilarious to me.
Hagar even said it was purely just the quote was
it was just to piss off Eddie and Alex and
get the Van Halen fans worked up, I mean, which
is amazing makes it all so much better exactly. Although

(49:58):
like that, I think the tour did pretty well, like
they were playing like amphitheaters, and again, it just speaks
to like how desperate people were for Van Halen music
at this time, because really after Van Halen three, like
Eddie van Halen went into this like hibernation period where
based on like various accounts, like he was just like
taking like polls from like wine bottles all day for
like three or four years, like that was his life.

(50:19):
So this was sort of the best thing that fans had.
Great for fans, not great for Sammy and Dave together.
Uh they ended up basically hating each other by the
end of the tour, and I think Sammy said something like,
you know, I don't like to really say that I
ever regret anything, but came pretty damn close on that tour.
So uh so that was probably the end of the
of a Sammy Dave tour that will ever have again.

(50:42):
And you know, the the dysfunction and Vanhalen, it just continues,
like they had that reunion with Sammy Hagar in two
thousand four that went off the rails, and you know,
we'll get into that more later on. And then they
end up getting adducted into the Rock and Hall of
Fame in two thousand seven, normally a great honor for
a band, but it ends up really just shutting a
spotlight on how messed up things are in van Halen
at this point, right. I mean, it's sort of almost

(51:02):
expect nothing less from if Van Halen's been be inducted
in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, you kind
of expected to be a ship show. Eddie and Alex
don't come, they say in the beginning. I think Eddie
was going through treatment at that time for alcoholism, so
I think that was the reason that they said they
weren't going to come. Uh, Dave was going to perform
with the Big Velvet Revolver and they couldn't agree in
a song choice, so he ended up walking like a

(51:23):
couple of days before. So the only two people who
actually were there to receive the induction from Van Halen,
we're Sam Hagar and Michael Anthony. This is in two
thousand and seven at the time, when neither of them
were actually in the band at that time, which I
just think it's very fitting. Yeah, you know Michael Anthony thing.
I think we're gonna talk more about Michael Anthony next week.
I mean, that is such a sad story to me

(51:45):
because we've really talked about Michael Anthony so far. Because
He's never had a fight with anybody. Like there's no
rivalry that Michael Anthony has ever been involved in, at
least where it was two sided. I mean, like as
far as I could tell, Like the Van Halen brothers
for whatever reason, they hate Michael Anthony or they came
to hate him, and I don't understand why. He just
seems like the most easy going guy in the world.
You know, Sammy has his tequila, Michael Anthony has his

(52:08):
like whiskey and like hot sauce. You know, like that's
his big thing, you know, whiskey, hot sauce. Guy. How
can he mad at him? But when Manhalen to do
their reunion tour in two seven and they end up
bringing David ly Roth in the fold, Michael Anthony isn't
there because Eddie wants to use his son Wolfgang to
play bass. And it's hilarious to me because Wolfgang is
the one who had the idea to invite David Lee

(52:29):
Roth into the band, and like Eddie actually made Wolfgang
call him, which is like Wolfgang was he was like
maybe like thirteen fourteen years old at the time. Yeah,
he was a kid. He was so nervous that he
scripted out the call like beforehand, like he was asking
someone on a date or something like, Hi, Dave, my
name's Wolfgang by in Halen. I'm a new band bass

(52:49):
player in Van Halen. We've been jamming lately. We're wondering
if he wanted to come and then jam and maybe
go on tour give me a call. Like it's like Eddie,
I don't know if he was just like sitting by
the phone and like if you thought this was hilarious
or you just thought like I'm gonna throw my kid
in the deep end of the pool. But like David
Lee Roth, you know, maybe because he was tried by
Wolfgang or because he really had nothing else better to do,
he ends up accepting the invitation. They go on this

(53:11):
reunion tour. They put out a record, the first record
with David the Roth and Van Halen since uh, it's
called Different Kind of Truth That comes out in actually
like a pretty good record. There's a lot of songs
on there that I think derived from like that mid
seventies like songwriting batch that they did, like they produced
all these demos. A lot of the songs ended up

(53:32):
on the first fan Halen record. Some of the songs
ended up on like subsequent Van Halen records. I think
like that's on Top of the World, that's on Foreign
Lawful Cornel Knowledge. Uh, the Sammy Hagar record, Um, I
think that also derives from that time, or at least
it derives from like like the Roth there. But at
any rate, they reunite with David the Roth. But again,
like it's not like, oh, we're best pals with David

(53:53):
the Roth. It's just like it wasn't at the beginning
of the band. It's very much a marriage of convenience.
They bring him back in because they know that's what
the fans want, and it works. Like they go on
these multiple tours and they do extremely well with davidly Roth. Right,
they do one and Eddie gives an interview to Billboard
where he says, you know, Dave has no interest in
being my friend. Uh and and he teases him for

(54:14):
basically still acting like he's twenty year old davidly Roth,
coloring his hair and jumping around on stage. You know,
you're we're gonna sixties, act like you're sixty. Uh So, yeah,
like you said, they were never really uh simpatico, but
but they had a last gig together. It was almost
five years, almost to the day before Eddie died. It
was a hometown gig and in Hollywood. They kind of

(54:36):
made amends on stage, which was sweet. I think Dave
had some nice things to say about him, the best
years of my life, the high points of my life.
We're all on stage with you. Uh So that was
a nice way for fans to sort of remember the
two of them. Yeah, it's a nice moment. You you
never know like how genuine those moments are. Uh you know,
is there some like sort of thereatricality going on with that?

(54:57):
I mean because again, like we're union tours, I don't
always have that little like okay, we're actually friends now,
I think, especially in this case, like no one's going
to really believe. But again, yeah, that's okay. Again, did
you see that to her at all? I never saw
them with David Lee Roth, No, I've heard good things.
I mean I heard it was like a pretty fun show.
But yeah, like you said, they played that show in

(55:18):
October and ends up being the last show that they
played together. And four years later, David le Roth doesn't
interview where he basically says that Van Halen has done
and like they're never gonna tour again. I wondered to
what degree he knew about Eddie van Halen's illness, Like
if it was already clear that you know, Eddie was
in a bad way and he wasn't probably gonna be
able to perform again. I'm guessing he said something about

(55:41):
how like Eddie's got his own story to tell, it's
not mine to tell it. So I'm guessing that there
that he must have known something there that he didn't
really want to get into. That's my guests at least.
And then, of course Eddie van Halen he passed away
in October, and Dave's reaction is like low key but respectful.
You know, he posts some photos of them on his
social media account and he says, what a long, great

(56:03):
trip it's been, so not overly effusive, but you know,
he's not saying anything disrespectful at the end, at least,
it's not pretending either, you know, like it is what
it is. That that's the perfect thing I think he
could he said at that moment, given that relationship, we're
gonna take a quick break to get a word from
our sponsor before we get to more rivals. All right,

(56:30):
we've now reached a part of the episode where we
talked about the pro side for each side of the rivalry.
Let's talk about David Lye Roth first. That look, Diamond Dave.
He's one of the most unique front men ever in
rock history. Like we said before, he's not really a singer.
He's like more of a personality. But like I think
he's a lot smarter than he gets credit for. Like
I would liken him to someone like Freddie Mercury, who
also had this like sort of knowing, winking sense of

(56:52):
his own ridiculousness. Like when you watch David the Roth
on stage, he always feels like he's in on his
own choke, you know. Whereas Sam Hagar, which we'll get into,
I don't think ever had that, Like there's no irony
at all to Sammy Hagar. Uh. There's this great quote
that David Lee Roth has where he said I wanted
to be the art project, not just where one, you know,
And I think there is sort of a performance artist

(57:15):
aspect to his career that adds like a layer on
top of just like the fun party band image. Um,
but yeah, his sense of humor combined with Eddie Van
Halen's peerless technique. It really was the magic combination of
this band. And I think it's like why people love
this line up so much. It just gave van Halen
that perfect combination of chops and fun that makes van

(57:35):
Halen van Halen. Yeah. I mean watching those videos for
like Panama Hapa Teacher Jump, I mean I get the
same feeling that I get when I watched like the
scenes of like the Beatles running and Hard Days Night,
where it's just they look like they're having the of
their lives, like they can't believe this is happening. It's
it's you know, they're just so joyful and exuberant. But
also the sense of inclusivity. It's like, yeah, come on, like,

(57:56):
come and join the fun. And that's and and Dave
really sums that up. I mean, I know that he
has this reputation I think Rolling Stone called at one
point like the most obnoxious singer in human history, and
achievement notable in the face of long tradition and heavy competition,
But you're right, he just he puts the fun in
Van Halen. And and also to like, I thought that
him covering California Girls was a really interesting, uh choice

(58:18):
for him. Because I always saw him as sort of
like carrying on the California myth that the Beach Boys
kind of started this sort of like fun in the
sun party thing. I always felt like he carried it
through to the eighties, and I felt like by doing that,
he kind of like owned that mantle of like the
California party guy. And he's most of his lyrics. I
think he was responsible for most of the lyrics in
the band. Um really, I think are it definitely something

(58:42):
that I think he was responsible for And uh, you
know that is it's the fun Like I said, it's
just really like that sensibility comes from him, I think.
And uh, yeah, no, he's one of those remarkable front men. Yeah.
I mean your comparison to the Beach Boys, I think
is very apt because I know, as someone myself growing
up in the Midwest, you listen to Van Halen and
you're like, you feel so much fomo listening to that band,

(59:04):
Like why couldn't I have lived in southern California in
the late seventies and early eighties. It just seems like
such a fun place to be in. Like Van Halen's
music just personifies that. Going over the pro Eddie van
Halen side. I mean, look, we're gonna have lots of
nice things to say about Eddie van Halen and both
of these episodes, but in the context specifically of his
relationship with David the Roth, I think again, you have

(59:25):
to give him props for keeping his band together after
Roth left, you know, Like I know that, like Eddie
Van Halen and Alex van Halen, they would both get
annoyed when people would define the band by the lead singers,
you know, and split it up into different eras, because
as far as they were concerned, there was only one
van Halen, you know. And it is interesting if you
think about van Halen, I think, and I think this

(59:45):
is the proper way to look at them as a
vehicle for Eddie van Halen, not for the lead singers.
And it's like, yeah, people come and go, but it's
my music. I'm the one writing it. I'm the general
of this band. And the fact that he was able
to carry on with Sammy Hagar just totally reiterates that.
And look, we we've seen other examples of this in
rock history of bands losing an iconic frontman and still
carrying on, but few have been as successful as Van Healen.

(01:00:08):
And as much as some people don't like the Van
Hagar era and we're gonna get into this next week,
that's still like a really popular era of the band.
And I think that there are some attributes of that
period that the Roth era doesn't have, even though I
think David the Roth is better overall. But again, it
must be reiterated that this was Eddie Van Healen's band,
and I think he proved it after Roth left. Oh yeah,
I mean a lesser creative force would have totally buckled

(01:00:30):
after losing the guy who was you know, in all
practical senses his musical partners on stage and and in
some cases in a lesser extent in the studio. And
I think it's interesting that I guess there was an
early period right after Dave left where I guess someone
of the label suggested maybe having like a revolving door
of different vocalists, which is an insane idea and I'm
really glad they didn't do that, but I think that

(01:00:51):
speaks to the idea of no, this is a project
based around Eddie's music and not through any you know,
not through any charismatic frontman. And you know, in addition,
to just genius genius level musicianship, incredible composer and arranger.
I mean, yeah, he was the vision for that. So
if we look at these two guys together, I think
we've already hit upon this. But this is the key

(01:01:13):
partnership and maybe the greatest American hard rock band ever.
I mean, it's hard for me to think of a
better hard rock band from America than Van Halen. And
it's all due to the elements that both of these
guys were able to bring to the table. David the
roth showmanship in sense of humor and Eddie Van Halen's
ability to write great music in his incredible guitar playing.
I think it was too far in one direction. If

(01:01:35):
it was too sticky van Halen would have worked. If
it was too like serious, sort of like a muso
type band, I don't think it would have worked either.
These two guys, even though they didn't like each other,
they were they had an incredible chemistry artistically. I mean,
you have the virtuoso and the entertainer and the rock
star on the rock musician. It wouldn't have been Van
Hallen without either one of them. Yes, well, actually it

(01:01:55):
would be because we have another lead singer coming up
next week name Sammy Hagar in a band called Van Hagar,
and I'm very excited to talk about that. But you know,
for now, I could say, if we look at the
relationship between David the Roth and man Helen, you ain't
talking about love in this dynamic. There it is, There
it is. I was waiting for my favorite part of
the episode of Folks, Steven's incredible song Puns that I

(01:02:18):
choose to believe that you're coming up with them off
the dom right now pretty much? I mean, would you
say that you jumped for joy when you heard that?
I'm sorry, all right, I gotta quit wal on my head.
Thank you all for listening to this episode of Rivals.
We will be back with more beefs and feuds and
long swimming resentments next week. Rivals is a production of

(01:02:39):
I Heart Radio. The executive producers are Shawn Titone and
Noel Brown. The supervising producers are Taylor Chicoin and Tristan McNeil.
The producers Joel hat Stand, I'm Jordan run Talk, and
I'm Stephen Hyden. If you like what you heard, please
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