(DLR Crazy From the Heat)
From the very first day in the studio, I say, "Is this just two songs? Because if it is, let's not fool people, allow them to think that more is coming. Because we all know we're going to sell a lot more records if people think there's going to be a tour, so let's not lie to them.
"No, Dave, we're taking it step-bystep, little baby steps," he says,"but I'm telling you, I'm not looking for another singer."
Next day literally, all over the press, there's an announcement from Van Halen's management they're auditioning new singers, they're leading a search for a new singer.
I asked Ed, "What is this?" he replied, "Oh, the manager, he's just out of line. I'll call him."
Well, we went through a dozen episodes like that because the manager has toiled away in abject obscurity. Now he gets his fifteen seconds of real media attention.
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OCTOBER 13th, 1996
You May Be A Winner
October 13, 1996|Steve Hochman
Not that they need a distraction from all the carping between them and David Lee Roth, but the members of Van Halen and Warner Bros. Records have come up with a unique promotion for the album "Van Halen's Greatest Hits Vol. 1," due Oct. 22. Of the initial pressing, 500 CDs will be personally autographed by Eddie Van Halen, while 10,000 others will include a Van Halen "collectors" guitar pick.
Furthermore, recalling the gold candy bar of Roald Dahl's "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory," one lucky fan will find contained with the CD a grand prize certificate good for one of Eddie Van Halen's custom Wolfgang guitars, autographed by the musician. The CDs will be distributed randomly around the U.S.
No word as to whether Roth and Sammy Hagar are eligible.
Van Halen teased fans by bringing back David Lee Roth for 2 new tracks on a Greatest Hits album. The band also made an appearance to a standing ovation at the MTV VMA’s.
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10/19/1996
Greatest Hits Volume 1 - Released October 22nd, 1996
AVH: Getting back to the record, what we wanted to do was make sure this is not the end of an era, this is not mmmm…. the end of an era or a change of an era, and that’s why we've put 2 new songs on there. See? We wanted the fans to know where we're at now. This is the music we're making, it's kind of a transitional thing. You understand, this is where we're going.
(DLR) Check out Van Halen’s Greatest Hits CD. Half of them songs have somebody else singing, so they had to include a commemorative guitar pick in the packaging. How embarrassing! What are they gonna include on the next record, an apology?
No pictures. No photos. This was once the greatest visual entity. That was something that I presided over for all those early years.
So, I'm in the middle of all this. the manager is having a ball. He's had more publicity than he's had in his entire life. or ever will again. And it was their idea to do the MTV appearance. I said at the time, "Great, what a beautiful way to sell records, what a great advertisement to sell records. But you're also allowing people to labor under an illusion that we're reconvening." Still, some people think that's not lying.
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OCTOBER 23rd, 1996
MTV WEEK IN ROCK 10/23
Kurt Loder: Hi, I'm Kurt Loder with MTV News.
Although it's now official that singer Gary Cherone of the Boston pop-metal band Extreme has been hired as the new frontman for Van Halen -- replacing the recently departed Sammy Hagar -- it wasn't Cherone's demo tape that got him the job offer, apparently. In fact, guitarist Eddie Van Halen says that initially, he hadn't even wanted to audition the man.
EDDIE VAN HALEN: Ten minutes after we got here, we said, "Feel like singing?" Boom! He just works. We did four old Roth songs, four Sammy songs... Just blew... just smoked them and immediately started writing. I mean, the guy had elephant balls and could sing like an angel. It was just incredible. I'm going, "Who's the guy on this tape you sent me?" That ain't the guy who walked in. It's so funny the way things happen. I almost said, "Don't send him out." I mean, I did say that...
KL: One further Van Halen note, you'll recall that last week Eddie issued a lie detector challenge to both Sammy Hagar and David Lee Roth, to determine who was telling the truth about the band's recent hirings and firings. Well, on Thursday, Hagar, at least, will respond. Don't miss it.
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EDDIE VAN HALEN – 1996
GUITAR WORLD
EVH: Yeah, the last three months have been a full plate -- and a few desserts I didn't plan on ordering. There have been a variety of conflicts brewing between Sammy and the band since I quit drinking on October 2, 1994. Then things really came to a head when we began work on the soundtrack to the movie Twister. It got so bad that I actually started drinking again.
GW: What were some of the more nagging issues?
EVH: Well, in the last couple of years Sammy went through a lot of changes. He divorced his wife of 23 years and, possibly because of that, he stopped being a team player. He was especially irritated by the fact that I began to get involved with the lyric writing, Sammy would say, "You never complained about the lyrics before!" Well I wasn't sober before, and I wasn't even listening to the lyrics! It's not like I suddenly wanted Sammy to be my puppet or anything, but once in a while I would take issue with a specific lyric or line. For example, I always hated the words to "Wham, Bam Amsterdam," from Balance, because they were all about smoking pot-they were just Stupid. Lyrics should plant some sort of seed for thought, or at least be a little more metamorphical.
GW: So you really began to have problems with Sammy around the time you recorded Balance?
EVH: I'd say that we actually had problems on every album except for 5150. Sammy wouldn't even work with (producer) Andy Johns on For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge; he demanded to work with Ted Templeman, because Ted lets him get away with everything. Then, like I said, things got really ridiculous when we started working on the music for Twister, Alex had called up the director, Jan De Bont, to ask him how closely he wanted the lyrics of the song that became "Humans Being" to be related to the movie's context, De Bont said "Oh, please don't write about tornadoes. I don't want this to be a narrative for the movie." So we put him in contact with Sam, who called me and said, "I had agreat conversation with De Bont and everything is cool." Then - maybe two seconds after I got off the phone with Sammy -- De Bont was like, "Uh, Sammy is a little strange. I kept telling him that he shouldn't write any lyrics about tornadoes, but he still kept insisting that I fax him tornado-related technical jargon. Does Sammy just want to learn about twisters for his own personal reasons?" I said, "Beats the hell out of me." And so what does Sammy come back with? "Sky is turning black, knuckles turning white, headed for the hot zone." It was total tornado stuff! Not only did Alex tell him not to do that, but the director of the fucking movie told him, "Do not write about tornadoes." The situation with Sammy was so bad that I had to warn Bruce not to let him know that I had come up with the title and the melody, because if he found out that he would have completely turned off. Whenever I suggested something to Sammy, he would just stop talking to me."
GW: There were alot of rumors circulating that Sammy was unhappy with the band because he felt he was being forced into projects he didn't want any part of.
EVH: Sammy was dead against the Greatest Hits package because he was afraid it would lead to comparisons between him and David Lee Roth. I said "Wait a fuckin' minute, Sammy. This band has been putting out records for 20 years and never put out a greatest hits-but you already have two of them (Best of Sammy Hagar, 1992; Unboxed, 1994). It just goes to show that, in his mind, he was always a solo artist--once a solo artist, always a solo artist. He was only into being in Van Halen for the prestige of it.
GW: What was Sammy’s reaction when you started working with Glen (Ballard, producer)?
EVH: We had several band meetings with Sammy where we told him that if he wanted to continue with Van Halen, he had to stop running around doing all his solo shit and become more of a team player--and that might involve collaborating on a lyrical level. He said "No problem." We had another meeting to reiterate that after the premiere of Twister. So right after that, we began working on "Between Us Two," because we thought it had amazing potential. Sammy called Mike one Sunday afternoon and said, "I heard that Glen has some great ideas for the song. I'm really excited". Then he called me that evening to give me his fax number so I could fax over Glen's lyrics. And then suddenly, I'm in the middle of giving me the number , and he started yelling and screaming at me: "This is a fucking insult! I ain't gonna sing someone else's bullshit!"
...Next Ed's reaction...
EVH:...I was totally startled like , "Wait a minute, we discussed this on length on two occasions. We didn't spring this on you man." Finally I said, "Okay, forget the new lyrical treatment, but at least come down, take another pass at the performance and change a few lines." He just answered, "Yeah, well, whatever." That's when I finally put my foot down, I said, "Sammy, if you're not here at the studio by six o'clock tomorrow, don't ever bother coming back." The next day, he showed up like nothing had ever happened--like he hadn't yelled and screamed at me. Did he think I was some idiot who didn't remember what had happened the night before? I'm sober now dude. Glen and I were sitting there, working on the song, and the opening line was something like, "I want to see you/I want to know who you are"--kind of Dark Side of the Moon vibe, the premise being, "I want to touch your soul, I want to get to know you." Then Sammy decided to change it to some shit like, "I can't see your diamond ring/through your shining star." I was like, "Sam, please, Glen's got some great lyrics right here, just go with them." His only reply was, "If I thought those lyrics were better I would sing them. Besides, I have an eight o'clock plane to catch." And he just left. Glen and I were dumbfounded. Then Glen asked me, "How long has this been going on?" I said, "Longer than I'd care to mention." So anyway, that was the last straw. I called Sammy a bunch of times, and when he finally returned my call, I said, "Sam, if you want to make another record or do another tour, you've got to be a team player. Van Halen is a band--not the Sammy Hagar show, not the Eddie Van Halen, Alex Van Halen, or Michael Anthony show. We should be called Piss for all I care, but we are a band." So I went over this shit like 11 times with him, and he finally said, "Yeah, goddamnit, I'm fuckin' frustrated. I want to go back to being a solo artist." and I said "Thank you for being honest." We ended hanging up like everything was cool because it was all out in the open. He'd admitted that he wanted to do solo stuff. And I said "Well, you can't be in a band and do that, too, so see ya.." I didn't fire him. He just quit. To put it simply: Dave and Sam both suffer from L.S.D.--lead singer disease. Except Dave never lied."
GW: Speaking of David Lee Roth, how did he come back into-- and out of the picture?
EVH: Dave happened to call me around the same time Sammy quit, because Warner Bros. notified him that Greatest Hits was going to come out, and he had a few questions about the packaging and other details like that. I told him, "Dave, I really don't know yet. I'll call you mid-week and let you know." We were on the phone for about 45 minutes, and we apologized for things we had said back in high school--even junior high. It was probably one of the best conversations I've ever had with him. Especially since, as long as I've known him, we were never really friends. but band-wise, it just seemed to work. A few days later, instead of us calling David with the information on the CD. I decided to drive over to his house. I told him that the basic idea was to do a single CD that would be half of the stuff we did with him and half the stuff we did with Sammy. That was another big problem we had with Sammy, by the way: he wanted to have more of his songs on the Greatest Hits than Dave's.
GW: What was it like going to Dave's house for the first time?
EVH: We just had a great time bullshitting as friends. We hung out for about three hours and smoked some cigars. It was only about two weeks later when I realized that the only new track that we had for the Greatest Hits was "Humans Being," that I came up with the crazy idea of having Dave sing on a couple of new songs. We thought about it for a couple of days and said, "Yeah why the fuck not?" So I called up Dave and said, "Would you be interested?" And he said "Sure, I'm not doing anything." I was very clear that he was not in the band--that it was just a project. What I wanted to do was write five new songs and pick two out of those five. We had a bit of difficult time because we wrote a song for him that he didn't particularly care for. It wasn't up his alley. So we got past that and Glen Ballard and I sat down with Dave, and I okayed with him all this new material I had. Eventually we narrowed down to this pop song, "Me Wise Magic," and a shuffle, "Can't Get This Stuff No More," with a "Panama" sort of groove.
"Me Wise Magic" has a line in it, "I know what you're thinking," which Dave felt uncomfortable with. He said, "That bit sounds so angry; it's just not me. People want to hear Dave sing." But I thought it was majestic; it takes you on a roller coaster because there are so many changes. I nicknamed it "The Three Faces of Shamus," because there is that first low part, the high part, and then the chorus. All three have completely different vibes going on. At first he wasn't into that one at all. A week later, I was still playing him songs when finally he said, "What about the first one?" So, finally, he came around and realized that it wasn't as dark and angry as he originally thought. During the process, Dave and I were really becoming good friends. In my heart I really wanted to believe that he had changed a bit. We worked and we worked and he actually thanked me for hanging in there with him. It was a struggle to find anything that would inspire him and that he could connect to. Finally, we came up with the other song, and Glen suggested the title and it's premise. Dave came up with the lyrics, and it worked. Dave said, "Thanks, because anyone else would have probably thrown up their arms and said fuck it." And I said, "Well, you're a trooper, however long it takes and whatever. It's all about making it a good song. There's no time frame here; it doesn't have to be done tomorrow. I just wanted to find something you liked, and I'm glad I found one."
GW: So the two of you were able to put all of your past acrimony behind you?
EVH: Oh yeah, we were actually becoming friends. Before we went to the MTV Video Music awards, we all sat down--(Van Halen manager) Ray Danniels, Dave, Al, Mike and I--Because we knew we were going to get mobbed by the press. And it was actually Dave who said, "Let's tell the truth." Less to remember. And the truth it is, we did two songs for Greatest Hits, we did two videos and that's it. We could go out there and make a killing on tour with Roth, but we're not a nostalgia band, I would never just take somebody's money for playing old songs to bring back memories. Memories are memories, to be left memories. If we ever did that with Roth, we'd have to write and record a new record and then play a few of the old ones. I'm sure a lot of fans of the band would love to see it--but some things, like I said, are better left to memory.
GW: So why aren't you making a new record with David? Was there some sort of fracture?
EVH: Everything went to pieces at the MTV Video Awards. After we went out on stage to present the award to Beck, we started doing some interviews there, and I was just telling the truth--the way it is. I said, "If we do a tour we'll have to write and record--a new record." But before any of that can happen, I have hip replacement scheduled for December 16th, and that's going to put me out of commission for at least four to six months." After doing a couple of these interviews, Dave's attitude changed. I asked him what was wrong, and he said, "Well, what's with this hip thing? Would you stop mentioning the hip thing?" I said, "Okay, no problem. In the next interview I won't say a word about my hip." He turned to me and said "You motherfucker, don't ever talk to me or anybody like that again. Don't bother calling me anymore." I thought he had changed, but two minutes on stage and a half-assed standing ovation and he turned right back into the Dave I hated.
GW: Who chose the tracks for the Best of Volume 1?
EVH: Ray and Al came up with a list and I just looked at them and said, "Yeah, fuck, I don't care." Because there's a second volume ready to go. There are a ton of other songs that people get pissed about when we don't play them live.
GW: In previous interviews, you've said that you didn't want to do a greatest hits album?
EVH: I changed my mind. What's wrong with that? Valerie [Bertinelli, Edwards' wife] is always on the Internet, and for a lot people out there, their first exposure to the band was Balance. And when they find out we have 10 other albums, they're not gonna go out and buy 'em all. So why not put a package together so they can at least get a taste and a history of the band? Next year will be the 20th anniversary of the recording of our first album, so I don't see a problem with putting out a greatest hits record--not as long as the next record we make is great.
GW: What gear setup did you use on the most recent tracks?
EVH: The meat and the beef of the sound is the 5150. And I did experiement with some new stuff--I used a talk box on "Can't Get This Stuff No More," but Matt Bruck [Bruck, Van Halen's guitar tech] actually ran it for me. My mouth wasn't big enough or something because when I tried it, it just sounded like a wah-wah. I played and then we added it later with Matt doing it through a re-amp or whatever you call it. On "Me Wise Magic" I'm using the protoype Peavey withe the Steinberger tremolo.
GW: During the period when you were in vocalist hell, did you think about maybe putting together a solo album of some sort?
EVH: No, not at all. A long time ago, when Dave totally took us by surprise and just quit, we didn't audition anybody. It was Sammy and that was it. We were just plain excited to have somebody who was into singing. Actually, my plan at the time--and I wouldn't necesarily have called it a solo record because Mike and Al would have played on it--was to get Mike Rutherford [Genesis], Pete Townshend, Phil Collins, and Joe Cocker, all of whom I had talked to. I had written "Right Now" back then and I wanted Joe Cocker to sing on it. It would have been fucking great. That's what I wanted to do, write a record where I did all the music and had a different singer on each song. Logisitically, it would have been a nightmare--people on tour, contractual agreements, companies pissing and moaning--and we'd probably only be finishing it now. It would have been fun. Hopefully, in the future I'll still be able to do that.
GW: Looking at the Best of Volume I, which provides sort of a capsule view of what Van Halen has done, makes me thing: Did you have any sense 20 years ago of the volume of music you would create?
EVH: Believe it or not, since I've gotten sober I don't think I've done shit. I don't think I've done anything. I feel like I'm just starting.
GW: You say you feel like you've just begun, but the truth is, Van Halen is one of the few guitar-driven rock bands to still exist here in the Nineties. Most of the other bands who were around and thriving in the Eighties are gone.
EVH: Let's just call us a rock and roll band. We just are what we are. I don't how to explain it, we survived punk the first time around, we survived disco and grunge and rap and whatever. We're a rock and roll band and we just do what we do.
GW: Do you have any opinions about the other guitar-driven groups out there--Metallica, maybe, or Soundgarden or any others?
EVH: I don't really listen to people. I like singers. I like Peter Gabriel, I love Chris Cornell, I like Tori Amos, the guy from Bush. I thought Kurt Cobain was fucking incredible. And Billy Corgan I like.
GW: When you did that cover story with Corgan [Guitar World, April 1996], did you feel a connection with him?
EVH: Oh yeah, because he's probably one of the few citizens of the alternative nation, or whatever you want to call it, that admits Van Halen was an influence. Everyone else says Kiss. I mean, give me a fuckin' break. If they play guitar, they must have heard Van Halen somewhere down the line. I just don't see Kiss being a guitar-inspiring type of thing. I mean, I'm not putting Kiss down at all, I love Gene [Simmons], he helped us out in the beginning and without him we probably wouldn't be where we are. But to say Ace Frehley was the reason you picked up guitar?
GW: Do you worry at all about what your audience will think about the changes in the band, primarily the addition of Gary Cherone?
EVH: No, because you cannot please everyone all the time. No matter who sings, someone is not gonna like it. I'm sick and tired of being controlled, and I don't want to control. I just have so much music and I want to put it out. Gary's very talented, and we work very, very well together. We'll let the Greatest Hits run it's course and then we'll put out the new shit. I don't care. If it touches one person, then it's great. I don't care if it sells millions, I don't care if it sells a tenth of the records we've sold. It's not about sales-- it's for the love of music.
Interview © 1996 Guitar World Magazine
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SLAWTERHOUSE - The company that did Roth's website creates the Great Rock and Roll Swindle Website - Boycott Van Halen's Latest Blunder
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OCTOBER 25th, 1996
'Best Of' Questions
Many of you have been asking some interesting questions about the new CD. I still haven't received my copy yet (because I live in Australia) so I can't answer the questions as I haven't seen the disc or read the booklet. The questions being asked are:
1. Why isn't Mike given a writers credit for Jump and Panama?
2. Why has Runnin' With The Devil been re-mixed/re-arranged?
3. Who is the person in the background of the photo?
4. Who is Sat-Kaur Khalsa?
5. When is the 'Best Of' video being released?
6. Is that the Steinberger guitar I can hear on Me Wise Magic?
Answers:
1. Apparently it was a simple printing mistake.
2. An alternative arrangement was accidently included on the master tape instead of the original. Later copies of BOV1 contain the correct version.
3. Stine Schyberg, Art Director for Best Of Volume 1. (Stine is Alex's girlfriend.)
4. Sat-Kaur Khalsa is Edward Van Halen's therapist. (Sat-Kaur is female.)
5. Tuesday October 29 in the U.S.A. Other countries add a week to the CD release date.
6. Not quite! It's actually the new Peavey Wolfgang Jnr guitar, equipped with a trans-trem - the whammy bar used on Steinberger guitars.
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EVH SPEAKS
And Eddie bashing has become all the rage on the Van Halen page on the Internet.
Ask the garrulous guitarist, and he acknowledges that the negative feedback hurts. "Sure, it does," Van Halen says. "But I'd like for some of these people to get a life. This is not international espionage. This is a rock 'n' roll band we're talking about here. Somebody posted, `We made 'em, we're gonna break 'em.' Well, they can boycott us all they want, but unless someone chops my fingers off, it's not gonna stop me from making music, it's not gonna break me."
The controversy occurs at a time when Van Halen says he feels more in touch with his art and his ax than ever before. He has already written more than 20 songs for the next Van Halen album, which he hopes will be recorded with lead singer No. 3 -- former Extreme vocalist Gary Cherone -- by next spring, and says that his newfound sobriety has kicked his songwriting into a higher gear. "Alcohol blocked what the man upstairs was trying to give me," he says. "Now I go to what (wife) Valerie (Bertinelli) and I call `the room' all the time, the place I go to when I create, and there's so much music coming out of me now, it's exciting."
But Eddie Van Halen says he never intended to invite Roth back into the band. The singer, whose post-Van Halen solo career has been a bust, says he was led to believe otherwise. "That's absolutely insane," Van Halen says. "He even contradicted himself four days after the MTV Awards by going on the Howard Stern show and saying he wasn't in the band. I mean, we exhumed this guy from Vegas and gave him another shot, and I think wishful thinking just took over."
But Van Halen says the thrill of having Roth as full-time collaborator has long since passed. "People's memories of what we were are more vital than the reality of it. I know. I have the videos of us performing live, and Dave's barely singing. Mike and I were doing harmonies underneath him, and Dave's grunting. We sucked. And 12 years of smoking dope and living in his own bubble didn't improve his abilities as a singer."
Hagar, a journeyman rocker best known for such beer-guzzling anthems as "I Can't Drive 55," was tapped as the next Van Halen singer, and he initially fit in with the band much better than his predecessor. In a 1991 interview, Eddie Van Halen described his relationship with Hagar as "like a brother." And Hager would return the compliment by introducing the guitarist on stage as "My best friend in the whole world, my hero, my idol. . . . "
But Van Halen says that, like Roth, Hagar soon began to see himself as being bigger than the band. "This guy was a `B' act, but he thinks that without him we would've gone down the toilet," Van Halen says. "When I got sober, I listened to some of the lyrics he wrote like `Wham, bam, Amsterdam' and `1-900-S-P-A-N-K' and I just thought, `What were we thinking?' "
Enter Cherone -- "a normal guy, a guy who's in it for the music, like me, Mike and my brother," Van Halen says. "There's no room for ego in this band. It has always been a collaboration."
Whatever personality conflicts have dogged the band were often subsumed by the music, as the 17-track greatest hits makes clear. For Eddie Van Halen, each song is like a revealing snapshot in a 19-year progression from party-hearty brats to arena-rock veterans. But experience doesn't diminish the trepidation he feels every time he enters the studio -- and he likes it that way. "It's a carrot dangling in front of your face, and I hope I never get it, because that's when it's over."
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NOVEMBER 1st, 1996
Van Halen Debut At #1
Warner Bros Records report that over 233,000 copies of the new Van Halen album were sold in its first week of release in the U.S.A., making it the third Van Halen album in a row to debut at Number 1. Second and third place on the chart were new releases from Westside Connection and Journey whose albums sold around 145,000 copies each. The 1995 release Balance sold 295,000 copies in it's first week when it also debuted at Number 1.
Me Wise Magic is also Number 1 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock Tracks chart for the third week in a row!
Reuters/Yahoo - 31 October 1996
Billboard Top 200 Album Chart
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NOVEMBER 7th, 1996
Best Of Falls To Number 3
As expected, Best Of Volume 1 by Van Halen was today displaced at Number 1 on the Billboard Album Chart by the latest release from the Beatles. The third and final installment in the Anthology series sold 237,000 copies in its first week of release. Each previous album in the Anthology set debuted at Number 1 and went on to achieve platinum status. Van Halen's Best Of Volume 1 came in third, with estimated sales of 130,000.
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Roth is Interviewed by Kurt Loder - Kurt had this to say:
[B](KURT LODER) That November, Dave turned up for an interview at the MTV studios. He was a little … I don’t want to say nuts, but certainly mercurial. Or maybe just cagey. All we really wanted to know about was the state of his relationship with Van Halen — would there ever be a reunion? Roth was more interested in talking about gurus and therapists and childhood sugar problems. Great. Well, entertaining, at least.
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