Rolling Stone - Wolf & Ed

[silverfish]

Wolfgang Van Halen on His Next Album, That Eddie Van Halen Tribute, Internet Hate, and Much More

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/wolfgang-van-halen-mammoth-wvh-album-eddie-tribute-1383846/

Inside a Superfan's Secret Friendship With Eddie Van Halen

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/eddie-van-halen-secret-friendship-emails-1367678/

[ZahZoo]

There’s been a tremendous amount of confusion out there on this tribute thing.
People love to pin every decision Van Halen has ever made on Dad. But Al’s the brain. Al has been the guy forever. He’s the dude. When it comes to Van Halen, Dad just wanted to play guitar. But, you know, Al’s mentality, and it’s the mentality that Van Halen took for the entirety of its band, is that there’s nothing worth talking about unless it’s happening. So the reason that nothing has been talked about from Van Halen, the official channels, is because nothing’s happened. And I know how that will stir people up and piss them off. But that’s how the operation is run.

There in lies the core problem with Van Halen... plus why the fans get so pissed.

"Nothing worth talking about" leaves the door open for someone 2nd, 3rd or 4th hand near the band to mention something considered. Then the band clamming up and not talking about... but making fucking sure to let everyone know they aren't talking about it.

Simple truth would have solved and avoided 90% of the controversies and bullshit with this band and it's fans... Something official like... we considered doing this. We were unable to reach agreement with all the parties involved... so we decided to not do it. End of official statement. Fans go... bummer! Oh look a squirrel... off to something else.

Instead they fueled this never ending gossip, insider, speculative circus for decades and now they hate how frustrated their fan base has become..? Dipshits...

[Terry]

The Wolfgang interview I just skimmed to get through to the Van Halen stuff. I heard the Mammoth tracks that were posted here a few times a piece, just to give the stuff a fair listen. If any of it had grabbed me, I'd say so. I didn't listen to the stuff with any preconceptions. Personally, I listen to what I want and like what I want. Shit, I even like some of Rhianna's stuff. None of that Mammoth stuff gave me much of anything by way of reaction. Wasn't the worst stuff I'd ever heard, but not exceptional in any way. Probably won't even bother listening to any Mammoth stuff going forward unless it is posted here. Just doesn't do anything for me. To read Wolfgang saying that it was amazing those three tours and the one studio and one live album with Roth happened at all sort of mirrored my own take on that 2006-2015 period, where after sort of lamenting by 2015 that so little had transpired after the Mach 4 lineup having been together for nearly a decade, I thought my own take on it was wrong. That it was more amazing ANYTHING had happened AT ALL given the passage of time and personalities involved.

The second article re: Superfan was of far more interest. I think, if memory serves, that right around the point where Ed gave some interviews in...2015 (I think) really negating Mike Anthony's contributions to the band (and Sammy Hagar put out a brief clip that I saw on youtube sticking up for Mike Anthony), Ed also gave a print interview in which he stated that Dave didn't want to be friendly with him and he and Dave really had nothing in common musically because Dave mostly liked dance music. Those comments were echoed in that longtime email exchange between Eddie and the Superfan. What was surprising in the email exchange was to read Eddie totally admitting that Roth's voice by 2015 was shot along with Ed saying by the time 2015 rolled around that Dave had virtually no interaction with any of the Van Halens offstage to speak of. Seemingly, it was just a business relationship by that last tour. Even realizing these guys had hardly been lifelong buddy buddies by the time the last tour took place, the type of relationship Roth had with the Van Halens just seemed hollow and sad. Whatever. Guess that's the way it was.

[Vinnie Velvet]

Wolf apparently inherited all the insecurities of his dad unfortunately.

And he's totally contradicting himself. At first he was super pissed that there was talk of a Van Halen tribute tour.

And now he's insinuating that its Dave that is holding it up from happening.

??
Wtf.

Wolf seriously needs to just STFU about his dad's old band. They are no more.

He's a spoiled millionaire brat. Weighs 300 pounds and has a nice girlfriend. All that doesn't happen without his dad's band making it in the first place.

[Terry]

There in lies the core problem with Van Halen... plus why the fans get so pissed.

"Nothing worth talking about" leaves the door open for someone 2nd, 3rd or 4th hand near the band to mention something considered. Then the band clamming up and not talking about... but making fucking sure to let everyone know they aren't talking about it.

Simple truth would have solved and avoided 90% of the controversies and bullshit with this band and it's fans... Something official like... we considered doing this. We were unable to reach agreement with all the parties involved... so we decided to not do it. End of official statement. Fans go... bummer! Oh look a squirrel... off to something else.

Instead they fueled this never ending gossip, insider, speculative circus for decades and now they hate how frustrated their fan base has become..? Dipshits...

Well, I will say at least Wolfgang has some sense of awareness as to how the years of silence were maddening for the fans.

After Cherone left, 'Van Halen' ceased to even be a functional band in the traditional sense for me. Whenever they actually did do something publicly post-2000, more and more it took on the aspect of a temporary business arrangement. A professional rock band obviously is, in part, a business arrangement. After ADKOT was released, though, THAT was the final...what? The final removal of the last yearning I had that Roth returning in 2006 would at least end up inspiring the band on the creative front. That the band had regrouped with Roth for as long as they had by that point and had 3 + years between the end of the 2008 leg of the first reunion tour and the release of ADKOT...and to have so much of the album comprised of reworked old demos...whatever the reasons for that ADKOT approach were, it was clear that Van Halen Mach 4 was dead creatively. To toss out a live album in such a slapdash manner subsequent to ADKOT ('hey, here's a live recording of a recent show nobody asked for...there you go!') just nailed the point home in that Van Halen had nothing new to say.

[Terry]

There in lies the core problem with Van Halen... plus why the fans get so pissed.

"Nothing worth talking about" leaves the door open for someone 2nd, 3rd or 4th hand near the band to mention something considered. Then the band clamming up and not talking about... but making fucking sure to let everyone know they aren't talking about it.

Simple truth would have solved and avoided 90% of the controversies and bullshit with this band and it's fans... Something official like... we considered doing this. We were unable to reach agreement with all the parties involved... so we decided to not do it. End of official statement. Fans go... bummer! Oh look a squirrel... off to something else.

Instead they fueled this never ending gossip, insider, speculative circus for decades and now they hate how frustrated their fan base has become..? Dipshits...

That's why when all that 2018 full-on CVH reunion talk started heating up, I couldn't even get the least bit excited about it. A combination of thinking a 2019 CVH reunion was at least 10 (if not 20) years too late to be worth hearing and all the years post-1999 speculating in the wake of Van Halen's silence what could be going on behind the scenes vs. what the band actually ended up doing the last 20 years of their existence.

I knew in 2018 that there wasn't going to be a CVH reunion in 2019, and not because I knew anything about Eddie's health.

[Terry]

Wolf apparently inherited all the insecurities of his dad unfortunately.

And he's totally contradicting himself. At first he was super pissed that there was talk of a Van Halen tribute tour.

And now he's insinuating that its Dave that is holding it up from happening.

??
Wtf.

Wolf seriously needs to just STFU about his dad's old band. They are no more.

He's a spoiled millionaire brat. Weighs 300 pounds and has a nice girlfriend. All that doesn't happen without his dad's band making it in the first place.

Well, a lot of these children of famous musicians who end up becoming musicians themselves...it might be understandable that they could to a degree take it for granted the only reason they get attention from the industry is because of their last names, particularly if they're born after their famous parent has already become famous. I mean, it's the only life they have ever known.

If you look at the total of the Rolling Stone interview, more than half of it doesn't directly concern itself with Van Halen. Realistically, Wolfgang (much like Ziggy Marley, Julian Lennon, Sean Lennon, Zakk Starkey, etc.) is going to be asked about his father and Van Halen for the rest of his professional life. Maybe even more frequently than the other kids of famous musicians I mentioned because Wolfgang's first professional musical endeavor was playing bass in his father's band.

I wouldn't argue for a moment that the kid wasn't born on third base, but that's no fault of his own. I don't have any use for his music, but in terms of celebrity children acting spoiled Wolfgang doesn't seem especially egregious.

[Vinnie Velvet]

Wolf is also a mommy's boy.

Probably believes everything Val says.

[twonabomber]

What was surprising in the email exchange was to read Eddie totally admitting that Roth's voice by 2015 was shot along with Ed saying by the time 2015 rolled around that Dave had virtually no interaction with any of the Van Halens offstage to speak of. Seemingly, it was just a business relationship by that last tour.

It was common knowledge that there was no offstage interaction. We knew Dave had his own bus.

If offstage includes pre-show, we knew Dave didn't do many soundchecks.

Wolf is also a mommy's boy.

Probably believes everything Val says.

If you believe that Val was checking the newsgroups and forums, then that makes sense.

[Terry]

It was common knowledge that there was no offstage interaction. We knew Dave had his own bus.

If offstage includes pre-show, we knew Dave didn't do many soundchecks.

I can't remember now if I was aware then of what was going on offstage in 2015.

I suppose it wasn't THAT surprising in retrospect.

[chuckjitsu]

Any surprise that there's drama with this band even though there is no band and Ed's been dead almost two years? This has the typical "It's Dave's fault!" stench to it. Ed made his bed with Dave back in '07 and kept making it all the way to 2015, so his bitching to super fan rings hollow to me. It's not like Dave wasn't a known quantity. Ed didn't like Dave or like hanging around with him for pretty much the entirety of the band so why is he complaining about Dave never being around when they weren't touring? I don't know. It almost seems like Ed was resentful on some level that his musical lot in life was tied to Dave from '07 on and he was stuck with a guy who he didn't particularly like and who couldn't sing, according to him. I personally think Dave got lazy after the 07-08 tour as he sang his ass off on that tour. Yeah, 8 years of smoking and what not didn't help from 07-15, but I don't think Dave did the prep work in '12 and '15 that he did in '07. We've talked about that here before in that Dave's vocal choices, like the random pitchy yelps, were things he could control but chose not to. I think he could've been effective if he'd done the prep work and just stayed within himself.

I don't see Dave ever sharing the stage with the likes of Hagar or Cherone as I believe he sees/saw them as interlopers just holding his beer until he returned to the fold. Hell, he wouldn't even share the stage in '02 with Hagar when neither of them were even in Van Halen! Just seems like a recurring pattern of blaming Dave while sweeping Ed's (and Al's) culpability under the rug.

[Seshmeister]

I read the 'superfan' thing when it first came out and i think it was probably truthful but it was Ed's truth, what he thought or what he chose to think. The fact the guy was a Hagar fan immediately tempered it and that's probably why it wasn't even posted here.

Just because it's what Ed thought that doesn't make it completely accurate. Ed just wasn't that sophisticated a guy and spent most of his life at least a little drunk. The account shows that he still never got the fact that if your singer is taking his influences from elsewhere then when you mimic an ACDC riff and he writes a different melody over it than they would that's what makes you different and special. Also even if Roth hated hard rock it didn't stop him from spending pretty much all of the rest of his career creating it.

He also conveniently misses out that Roth carried his drunken ass and miming child son through the first reunion tour.

[Terry]

Any surprise that there's drama with this band even though there is no band and Ed's been dead almost two years? This has the typical "It's Dave's fault!" stench to it. Ed made his bed with Dave back in '07 and kept making it all the way to 2015, so his bitching to super fan rings hollow to me. It's not like Dave wasn't a known quantity. Ed didn't like Dave or like hanging around with him for pretty much the entirety of the band so why is he complaining about Dave never being around when they weren't touring? I don't know. It almost seems like Ed was resentful on some level that his musical lot in life was tied to Dave from '07 on and he was stuck with a guy who he didn't particularly like and who couldn't sing, according to him. I personally think Dave got lazy after the 07-08 tour as he sang his ass off on that tour. Yeah, 8 years of smoking and what not didn't help from 07-15, but I don't think Dave did the prep work in '12 and '15 that he did in '07. We've talked about that here before in that Dave's vocal choices, like the random pitchy yelps, were things he could control but chose not to. I think he could've been effective if he'd done the prep work and just stayed within himself.

I don't see Dave ever sharing the stage with the likes of Hagar or Cherone as I believe he sees/saw them as interlopers just holding his beer until he returned to the fold. Hell, he wouldn't even share the stage in '02 with Hagar when neither of them were even in Van Halen! Just seems like a recurring pattern of blaming Dave while sweeping Ed's (and Al's) culpability under the rug.

I kinda got that same feeling during the 2006-2015 period...that the Van Halens had by then basically resigned themselves to giving the people what they wanted, which was Dave back onstage with the band. After Cherone and after the reunion tour with Hagar, there really was nobody else left the band COULD go with if they wanted to tour and perform in front of sizable crowds. Hand in hand with giving the people what they wanted was playing setlists of virtually nothing but CVH material. The band ended up being what Eddie and Alex had infamously resisted in 1996, which was a nostalgia band.

I never thought the 2019 'Kitchen Sink' tour would happen because Dave basically approached the band with the notion that the time he spent in it was the only time that mattered. In that spirit, he wasn't going to share vocal duties with Hagar or Cherone.

[Terry]

I read the 'superfan' thing when it first came out and i think it was probably truthful but it was Ed's truth, what he thought or what he chose to think. The fact the guy was a Hagar fan immediately tempered it and that's probably why it wasn't even posted here.

Just because it's what Ed thought that doesn't make it completely accurate. Ed just wasn't that sophisticated a guy and spent most of his life at least a little drunk. The account shows that he still never got the fact that if your singer is taking his influences from elsewhere then when you mimic an ACDC riff and he writes a different melody over it than they would that's what makes you different and special. Also even if Roth hated hard rock it didn't stop him from spending pretty much all of the rest of his career creating it.

He also conveniently misses out that Roth carried his drunken ass and miming child son through the first reunion tour.

Yeah, it was all Ed's perception of it, to be sure. Only one perspective obviously isn't the entire story.

It was kinda saddening in the later years when Ed became so publicly dismissive of what Mike Anthony had brought to the table, and kinda saddening to hear that attitude had been there going way back when. Ed was sort of dismissive to what Dave had brought to the party too. [Ed] kinda came across at times as feeling that the band made it in spite of Roth, or that Ed could never quite understand why so many fans held what Roth brought to the band in seemingly higher regard than Eddie did.

And, yeah, Dave DID carry that fucking band through that first reunion tour. Nobody should make any mistake about that. Carried 'em through that first reunion tour more ably than I thought [Roth] was capable of in the years running up to it, if I'm being frank about it.

[Nitro Express]

Yeah, it was all Ed's perception of it, to be sure. Only one perspective obviously isn't the entire story.

It was kinda saddening in the later years when Ed became so publicly dismissive of what Mike Anthony had brought to the table, and kinda saddening to hear that attitude had been there going way back when. Ed was sort of dismissive to what Dave had brought to the party too. [Ed] kinda came across at times as feeling that the band made it in spite of Roth, or that Ed could never quite understand why so many fans held what Roth brought to the band in seemingly higher regard than Eddie did.

And, yeah, Dave DID carry that fucking band through that first reunion tour. Nobody should make any mistake about that. Carried 'em through that first reunion tour more ably than I thought [Roth] was capable of in the years running up to it, if I'm being frank about it.

I think Eddie would have quit the band early on if his brother wasn’t in it. Ed wanted to quit Van Halen in the early 80’s and Alex said it’s working, let’s stick with it. It’s pretty clear Ed’s relationship with Dave was a business one. There was no real friendship there.

Mike was always viewed as expendable by the Van Halen’s. If your last name isn’t Van Halen you are not part of the family and nepotism seems to be a big factor in the band’s dynamic.