Sammy had two choices

[rothandroll1983]

ok so one day eddie fuckin van halen rings you and says "wanna front van halen...roth has left? "

this is the question sammy had to answer and he could open one of two doors

door 1 - turn down the offer continue hes lame ass solo career, fizzle out in the next 6 months, and try to score gigs on the sunset strip


door 2 - take the offer front van halen, play sold out shows, sell millions of albums but the catch is he would never fill david lee roths shoes and have that burden to carry for the rest of his career if not his life

ive thought about this a million times...

the money, the chix, the shows, the fame if i had the chance id do it


what would you do??

[FORD]

It's not about what Spammy did then. It's about what he did AFTER that.

Once again, he had two doors....

door 1) He could have said "Look, I know damn well I'm no David Lee Roth, but god damn it, those Montrose records were pretty good, and I made a record with Neal Schon last year that kinda rocked despite that pussy shit music he makes with Journey, and fuck it Eddie, I'm here to ROCK. And what we get out of this may not be Van Halen, but it will be damn good in it's own right"

Or he could have said.....

door 2) Aw damn, would you look at this, I got the biggest rock band in America backin ME up now. What should I do about that?

I know! I'll write a whole album's worth of synth pop crap and sappy assed Hallmark card lyric love songs!!


Unfortunately Sammy chose door #2

And even Monty Hall thought it sucked.

THAT is why his capri pants wearing ass is not appreciated around here!

[Soul Reaper]

3) "Sorry Eddie, the poodle on my head's caught fire and I need a doctor. Try Gary Cherone instead"

that would have been interesting....

[Jérôme Frenchise]

He rather had two options (or had a choice).
Anyway it's a pity this should be posted in Main... Just as there are matter and antimatter, there's DLR/VH and there's Spam Hagar.

[binnie]

Originally posted by FORD
i]

sappy assed Hallmark card lyric love songs!![/i]

Ha Ha!!

Hagar also thought to himself "How can I keep the energy of DLR as a frontman alive? I know, I'll copy him."

He also shadowboxed on stage. Not quite a roundhouse of split kick now is it tubbs?

[Soul Reaper]

Originally posted by binnie
Hagar also thought to himself "How can I keep the energy of DLR as a frontman alive? I know, I'll copy him."

he was too fat to jump though....

[FORD]

Originally posted by Soul Reaper
he was too fat to jump though....

But they faked it for the inner sleve of the Van Hagar live album.

Seriously.

[WOAHYEAH]

Hagar should have stuck with "his Van Halen", Montrose.

[Terry]

Never blamed Hagar for Roth leaving in 1985 in the first place. Never blamed him for taking the gig, either.

CVH imploded. Hagar was brought on as an afterthought ("it's all over but the shouting...").

In terms of the music that resulted from Hagar joining Van halen, as well as Sammy and his attitude toward the original lineup and singer, I lay that responsibility at his feet. Just because the Van Halens and Roth decided to air their dirty laundry in public didn't mean Hagar had to join in, even if Roth was slamming him in the press.

Really matters not in the end. Even if Hagar had taken the high road and not said a word about Roth ever, or inflated his own contributions to the Van Halen catalog sales in countless interviews, it's not like it would have made Van Hagar's music more palatable to me, and the music is always the bottom line. The barbs slung back and forth in the press and the neverending soap opera saga are only of interest because the music Van Halen put out after Dave left wasn't.

[POJO_Risin]

Blame spED

Forget about Sham

buy a glazed donut

high road

low road

left at the corner

right at the light...

he couldn't drive 55 because he drives a pinto...

and no matter what you do to a pinto...

it ain't gonna be no damn Corvette...

just a bad accident waiting to happen...

[Bob_R]

Sammy Hagar w/o Edward Van Halen = Billy Squier

[POJO_Risin]

Dude...

you've just tarnished Billy Squier's career...

don't do that...

[Plexi Head]

Originally posted by FORD
It's not about what Spammy did then. It's about what he did AFTER that.

HA! Exactly!!

[madraoul]

Originally posted by Plexi Head
HA! Exactly!!

Yep, it was all about the cash. Let's say I was opening a bar and needed some drones to go on a pilgramage to Mexico every year to spend their hard earned pay. Being the tone deaf ass I am, I guess I would put a long ass boring commercial about it on a VH record. Hell, Warner Bros. told me I can sing for them. I can always do the Buffett thing. No talent and he has a part of the VH stink on him? Hell, Hagar was actually kind of smart.

[Fat Wolfie]

This is what Spammy does when he has two choices

[mslack69]

I'll probably catch sh*t for this but, doesn't anyone think that even if Dave never left VH the music still would have followed down the same road? Just a thought... Bands, even if the line-ups don't change, tend to change musically with the times.. Happens all the time.. Is this even posted in the right place?

[Terry]

Originally posted by mslack69
I'll probably catch sh*t for this but, doesn't anyone think that even if Dave never left VH the music still would have followed down the same road? Just a thought... Bands, even if the line-ups don't change, tend to change musically with the times.. Happens all the time.. Is this even posted in the right place?

Think that when CVH split it was because they had reached the end of their rope with one another. Musically, dealing with each other's personalities, the whole ball of wax.

I don't think it's really a question of had Roth stayed would the music have went down the same road as what ended up becoming Van Hagar, because:

a) Dave doesn't write the same type of lyrics Hagar does
b) Dave doesn't sing the way Hagar does

I tend to think Van Halen and Roth did all they could (and perhaps SHOULD) have done together by the time the split happened, in terms of making music. Apparently CVH weren't ever really the best of friends, but seems like the band had just stopped respecting each other and what each of them brought to the band table at that point. Sure, you don't have to love someone to work with them, but it's damn near impossible without SOME degree of mutual respect.

Maybe a bit of sour grapes rationalizing is going into these beliefs, since we're never gonna know what a follow-up to 1984 by CVH in the mid 1980s would have sounded like anyway (although I'm doubting it would have sounded much like EEAS)...

[Brett]

Dave wrote plenty of cheesy shit on his own, that's where hard rock went in the mid-80's.

The music would have been similiar in many ways, obviously far different vocals.

[POJO_Risin]

anyone that can say one way or another is talking out there ass...

Van Halen's music never trailed down the road of what was going on around them.

Trendsetters don't follow trends...they make them.

I would have to say that VH's music didn't exactly follow Hard Rock patterns in the late 70's and early 80's.

Don't know why anyone would think it would of had Roth stayed...

[rustoffa]

Originally posted by Brett
Dave wrote plenty of cheesy shit on his own, that's where hard rock went in the mid-80's.

And ALAE was the end of an era. Dave was all over the map after that one. Interesting contrast to the van hagar itenerary. The cuntinental devide? Like I've said time, and time again....the inside joke keeps rolling. IMO, the pinnacle of the whole deal was VEGAS. Was the non-hard-rockin' fucker lampooning what was missing from the other non-hard-rockin' fuckheads?

Pretty fucking blatant.

The popularity of the van hagar brand manifests itself with whatever cross-section sits on one side of the cuntinental divide. I appreciate their appreciation of it. It's a cultural sieve.

The Van Halen brand name afforded the van hagar version the luxury of an identifiable brand name. I would disagree regarding the direction of the music, post-Dave. There is nothing, and I mean NOTHING in Dave's retrospectacle that resembles "Can't Stop Loving You."

IT WOULDN'T HAVE HAPPENED

Yeah, they need each other. No grater example than that legacy-fouling, vomit-inducing, shit-stain of a song.

Halleylooya!

[MAX]

Originally posted by Brett
Dave wrote plenty of cheesy shit on his own, that's where hard rock went in the mid-80's.

The music would have been similiar in many ways, obviously far different vocals.

First of all, I'm going to address this... What in the fuck is wrong with all of us, how many times can we all discuss and argue this shit, yet never find it boring? lmao

However, let's both define "cheesy shit" and how the music would've been "similar?"

Seriously cos I do see what you're saying... Well, in a way.

I've ALWAYS stated how much more I dig "Just Like Paradise" than "Jump" as a pop song. JLP "cheesy?" YES!!! Also and yet again, I've ALWAYS stated how fucking horrid "Stand Up" is.

Now, where in the fuck am I going with this? I dunno?

I guess I'll just go along with my continental divide approach/theory after the split in '85. Meaning, the Van Hagar audience finds the "Crezzi From the Heat" shit "Cheesy" whereas us Rothfans found it both fun and a part of Dave's personality. Then, let us address the post 1984 efforts from both camps.

For example, on EEAS "Goin' Crezzi" was the most "pop" song and prolly the most "cheesy." Meaning it was a bit heavy on the synth (accomapnied by a main guitar riff) and was geared towards being a video/friendly single. Yet, that track sounded much more "Van Halen" than the collective (and BEYOND lazy, IMO) route that Edward chose by writing, recording and actually releasing such BORING, generic, embarrassing songs such as "Dreams" and "Love Walks In." My goodness, those songs in and of themselves both closed the fucking door for all prior Van Halen die hards whilst opening it for the "fans" of which we refer to sheep to this day.

There's no getting around "Skyscraper" with it's production. Yes, that sounds extremely dated and VERY '80's despite the fact that it has some extremely stellar songs.

Now, in the early 90's I completely lost interest in Van Halen as a guitar player. I've listened to "F.U.C.K." only ONE TIME and that was more than enough. So, outside of the songs (then heard on the radio) or said videos, I have no knowledge. Yet, I still got a kick out of Dave's subsiquent solo releases.

At least Dave's "cheesy shit" is more unique and on his own terms (no matter what the consequences) than Van Hagar's lump of moldy, curdy crap that followed. I STILL will never forget when I heard that "Cannot Stop Loving You" song and thought to myself "Holy Fuck!!! The name of this band actually had stellar songs back in the day and influenced the fuck out of me?"

Ultimately, you take away the friction, inspiration and competitiveness that Dave and Edward had and replace it with a lazy, untalented, rock and roll neverwas and knew he'd never be "yes" man whilst Eddie's diddling around with keyboards and VIOLA!!!

Dave's pesronality has ALWAYS come through in whatever phase of music. You're either a fan or you're not. It's pretty cut and dry. Yet, you take the remaining 3/4ths of the once great band, align them with Ronald McCheese along with Edward's ode to be the second coming of Johnathon Cain/Dennis DeYoung and look what happened.

As the old Van Halen saying goes... "If it sounds good, then it is good." Well, the same rule applies here cos when it sounds like shit, it is shit.

End of story.

[Nickdfresh]

It's the way Hagar conducted things. Legend has it that he had to repeatedly be told by Ed to shut the fuck up about Roth (on stage, while on tour). Of course, this is well after the band dragged Roth through the mud with the assorted "new and improved" comments. If they had left well enough alone, and possibly altered their band name to one that was related to Van Halen, rather than the same, there would be a lot less bad blood today.

Van Halen didn't have to hire anybody in fact, so I do blame Ed and his brother the most. They could have laid low, or even just hired Hagar or a Dave knock-off, as a temporary gun. And of course, Dave no longer gets a free pass from me, he left when things were at the pinnacle of success. A very dumb thing to do. The closest Rock analogy to me in all this is Aerosmith, a band which hired two 'hired guns' for the guitar work to support Steven Tyler's habit, but never implied that they were new and improved with a permanent arrangement.

[Matt White]

"Johnathon Cain/Dennis DeYoung"


Talk aboot hitting the nail on the head......


EXACTLY


It MUST have been DAVE terrorizing Journey on that first tour....cuz EVH wanted to JOIN Journey........

[binnie]

Sammy and Roth were verbal sparring partners well before '85, so Hagar was bound to keep talking shit!

For me, it's all about the music - Hagar ruined Halen, although it was clear Ed was on the path to writing that cheesy shit anyway.

[diamondsgirl]

Originally posted by Nickdfresh
It's the way Hagar conducted things. Legend has it that he had to repeatedly be told by Ed to shut the fuck up about Roth (on stage, while on tour). Of course, this is well after the band dragged Roth through the mud with the assorted "new and improved" comments. If they had left well enough alone, and possibly altered their band name to one that was related to Van Halen, rather than the same, there would be a lot less bad blood today.

They all trash-talked Roth. They thought it was funny or whatever, calling Dave bad names and then giggling together like little girls.

[Terry]

I just plain doubt that there was much friction when Van Hagar got together to write and rehearse new songs. Hagar tends to follow the melody way more than Roth in applying vocals over the music - Van Hagar stuff - well, think Dave put it best when he said something along the lines of it sounding like everyone was slapping each other on the back, saying "Doesn't this sound GREAT?! You sound GREAT! Don't I sound GREAT?! I do? Great!".

Basically after Dave left, the competitive edge between him and Ed was no more, and Ed and Hagar were too busy kissing each others asses to really generate any sparks.

That's the essence of it: If Dave had stayed with the band it wouldn't have turned out sounding like Van Hagar simply because of the chemistry. Not a particularly original idea, but there you are.

[Bob_R]

Originally posted by diamondsgirl
They all trash-talked Roth. They thought it was funny or whatever, calling Dave bad names and then giggling together like little girls.

Sounds like many of the people that post at the Links.