Michael Anthony on Trunk Podcast

[smorgdonkey]

I don't see any point in reading Hagar's book when I know half the stuff you can check is just made up bullshit.

So when you get to a bit that you don't already know like something behind closed doors how do you work out if it's true? Do you assume 50% bullshit? 75%? Anything that makes him look bad is true and vice versa?

What's the point? What insight would you get from, lets face it, a pretty dumb guy ? Plus Van Hagar was a shitty boring MOR band with one or two rock songs per album with annoying singing. You would be better reading the singer of Loverboy's autobiography if there is such a thing.

Reading Sammy's book would be like reading the autobiography of a pretty unpleasant compulsive liar with no self awareness who won the lottery.

I don't see Sam as being a compulsive liar - I see Ed as being the compulsive liar.

Sam is all the other things but Ed is the liar. The incidents with Roth and Mike prove that...and the other shit Ed said over the years (truckloads of it).

[DLR Bridge]

I don't see Sam as being a compulsive liar - I see Ed as being the compulsive liar.

Sam is all the other things but Ed is the liar. The incidents with Roth and Mike prove that...and the other shit Ed said over the years (truckloads of it).

A fair assessment. Sammy's an exaggerator of epic proportions. Many of the the tales he's told seem to be generated from actual events. For example, he's convinced he was as big of a rock act as VH prior to joining them. He knows there's zero impact in proclaiming he was barely in their shadows through the late 70's and early 80's, so he throws his line of shit to the wall to see if it sticks. It stuck pretty well for a fair amount of people at the VHND board.

[Seshmeister]

I don't see Sam as being a compulsive liar - I see Ed as being the compulsive liar.

Sam is all the other things but Ed is the liar. The incidents with Roth and Mike prove that...and the other shit Ed said over the years (truckloads of it).

I'll borrow a post from vhnd about the book.

http://www.vhnd.com/2011/03/20/red-m...-reviews-only/

I'm a longtime fan of both VH singers and eras and longtime commenter at VHND. I've been really looking forward to reading this and I was planning on finishing the book before posting anything, but I just to to page 90 and I simply can not believe what I just read! In one unbelievable paragraph, Sammy Hagar says, and I quote:

"The tour for VOA was my most successful. I sold out arenas everywhere, two, three, or four nights some places, one of the top grossing tours in 1984--right up there with Van Halen., who broke at the same time with "Jump" and all that. I remember getting an award in Portland, Oregon. I sold out two nights and got the Show of the year. Van Halen was runner-up. We were neck-and-neck on the road. My album was 1.6 million, but they ended up selling 10 million records."

I've read that 5 times. That is the biggest pile of bullshit I've ever read relating to Van Halen in my life! And I just read all the VHND comments and I can't believe people aren't addressing this. I'm numbering the lies, below.

1) "VAN HALEN "BROKE" WITH JUMP IN 1984"??? God, how he belittles their earlier success! I was under the impression that they broke in 1978, when they exploded with their earth-shattering debut, rewriting the rules for rock music and sold 2 million copies right out of the gate! Ed was winning every guitar player award in site. In only their first year, VH far eclipsed everything that Montrose & Hagar ever did. Everyone was talking about VH in '78, and NO ONE was talking about Hagar.

2) "I SOLD OUT ARENAS EVERYWHERE, TWO, THREE, FOUR NIGHTS IN SOME PLACES, ONE OF THE TOP GROSSING TOURS IN 1984--RIGHT UP THERE WITH VAN HALEN".

Wow. My jaw hit the floor when I read that one. With this statement, Hagar completely abandons any mindset that the "truth" is sacred. He is SHAMELESSLY rewriting history here. VAN HALEN was the juggernaut that was selling out multiple arenas, not him! I know this for a fact because I worked at Electric Factory in Philly in the '80's - we were a huge concert promoter back then. Hagar COULDN'T EVEN PLAY most cities on the east coast because he simply wasn't popular over there. Hagar could sell out arenas in the midwest and in California, and that's it, for the most part. His VOA tour was his biggest tour yet, but he played ONE night in each city except for places where he was big, like St. Louis and Dallas, where he played two nights. He was playing ONE night in virtually every city (not 2-4), and overall, he played smaller venues than where VH was booked, and sold far less tickets in those venues. The VH tour was a 100% sell-out virtually everywhere, and on the other hand, Hagar had plenty of cities where he could only sell 30%-50% of the tickets, even after "I can't drive 55".

3) "WE WERE NECK AND NECK ON THE ROAD?" On what planet?? In 1984, Van Halen was through the stratosphere - their tour absolutely dwarfed other rock bands,and certainly Sammy Hagar's. Anyone who was alive during the '80's knows that Van Halen was infinitely more popular than Hagar. Perhaps Hagar was the only person on the planet who didn't see it that way.

4) "I remember getting an award in Portland, Oregon. I sold out two nights and got the Show of the year." Again, from my years working in concert promotion, I have here Sammy's 1982 tour dates. He played ONE night in Portland, Oregon, on 3/19/82, at the Memorial Coliseum. The dates before and after were both in Washington. No other Portland dates.

After I read that paragraph, I started marking up the book, circling parts that were lies. I found a few more:

5) PAGE 54: "...the first Montrose album sold over 4 million records over the years." Why would he say that when anyone can simply go to RIAA or other sites and see that the first Montrose album has sold 1 million copies, not "over 4 million." Incredible.

6) PAGE 58: Talking about his ex-wife: "I had to lie so much and I'm not a liar."

7) PAGE 78: "I sold out the Oakland Coliseum that Fourth of July" [1980]. After I read that I thought there is no way. So I did one minute of research, and it turns out that Hagar had some help selling it out... he fails to mention that he was on the bill with 4 other bands, three of which were hugely popular at the time: Blue Oyster Cult, REO Speedwagen, Triumph, and Randy Hanson. But of course Hagar totally implies that he sold it out by himself.

8 ) PAGE 80: In 1982: "We went out on tour, headlining arenas, double nights in a lot of places." From my years working in concert promotion, I have the list of Sammy's 1982 tour dates, and there was only ONE city listed where he played twice: San Francisco. Again, he is lying through his fake teeth.

9) Page 121: €The record [Sammy's solo album "I Never Said Goodbye"] went platinum immediately.€

As of today, 4/26/11, it has only been certified Gold status w/ the RIAA.

10) Page 122: “We [VH in 1986] were selling out four nights in arenas anywhere.” Although the 5150 tour was a smashing success, and they occasionally would sell 2, 3 or even 4 nights in certain cities, the band played ONE night vast majority of cities. Also, the 5150 tour wasn’t as big as the 1984 tour, which had the band playing one additional night in several cities than they were on the 5150 tour.

11) Page 173: œThe fans went against Roth. He died a quick death as a solo artist.€� [When he went solo in 1985]

I would say that most current VH fans are under the impression that Hagar’s solo career has been more successful than Roth’s. However, if you want to measure the success with ALBUM SALES, Roth’s solo career has actually been more successful than Hagar’s! Roth’s first 3 albums went Platinum (Crazy From The Heat in ’85, Eat ‘EM And Smile in ’86, and Skyscraper in ’87). Hagar, however, never had could match that success – he never had 3 consecutive Platinum solo albums… just 3 consecutive GOLD albums, and then later in 1987 released another one that only went gold, with the help of Eddie playing bass. Hagar’s solo career simply was never as big as Roth’s was in the ’80?s. Roth was consistently platinum, while Hagar was consistently gold.

12) Page 222: When Irving Azoff told Hagar that the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame wanted to induct Van Halen, but only the Roth-version of the band, Hagar says, €"I went nuts on Irving. I was in the band longer than Roth. He was in Van Halen seven years. I was with them eleven years. I sold more records than he did. How could they do that to me?€"

He is wrong on both counts. Roth was in VH for 12 years (’74-’85) and VH sold twice as many albums with Roth than with Hagar. (See RIAA.com).

13) Page 234: Sammy says that, before he joined VH, “I was selling out multiple arenas, had five platinum albums in a row on Geffen, and I was ripe to join Van Halen when they asked…”

I already went over the “multiple arenas” bull. As for “5 platinum albums in a row on Geffen”? He had only 3 Geffen albums, and none were platinum:

1981 Standing Hampton “ Gold as of 1985.

1982 Three Lock Box – Gold to this day.

1984 V.O.A. Gold as of mid-1985.

Those are all the major lies that I can detect, just as a fan. I can€™t even imagine how many more lies are in the book that the fans would have no way of detecting.

Hagar wants all the fans to think that he was hugely successful BEFORE he joined VH, as if joining them wasn’t necessarily the thing that catapulted his career. In countless interviews, he states that his solo albums were going platinum before VH.

This is all a lie. In reality, NONE of his solo albums went platinum by the time he joined VH in mid 1985. Sure, as of 2011, 3 of his albums have gone platinum (Montrose, Standing Hampton, and V.O.A.). But Hampton didn’t go platinum ’till 1992, V.O.A. didn’t go platinum until Nov. ’85, and Montrose didn’t until many years later, either.

[DLR Bridge]

Precisely. I remember that post.

That lying-ass exaggerator.

[Nitro Express]

I saw Sammy on his VOA tour. One of his banners got stolen and he was saying he would never play the town again unless he got his banner back. I don't think he got it back and I don't think the town cared if he ever came back. Sam was getting plenty of air play at the time but I think Night Ranger was a bigger act. Sam was just kind of out there and the only reason he is even remembered now is he replaced Roth and Van Halen. It's the controversy why Sam is remembered. His songs are long forgotten and anything he did in Van Halen is long forgotten. Van Halen will be remembered for Jump, Panama, and Hot For Teacher and all the other Roth era stuff.

It's like The Jefferson Airplane is in the history books. They are remembered for "White Rabbit". Nobody remembers Jefferson Starship. Sammy was the guy who wrote "We built this city" type crap with Van Halen. Yeah it got air play but it's best left in the past.

[vandeleur]

sammy is such a liar , in the right light and enough beer on board i swear i dont believe him when he says he was even in Van Halen

[smorgdonkey]

I'll borrow a post from vhnd about the book.

http://www.vhnd.com/2011/03/20/red-m...-reviews-only/

Ok...I recant my statement.

Sam and Ed are BOTH compulsive liars, and now I am not interested in reading the 'book'.

Sammy was the guy who wrote "We built this city" type crap with Van Halen. Yeah it got air play but it's best left in the past.

...and that is very true.