22 Years Ago: David Lee Roth Reunites with Van Halen at the MTV VMAs
SEPTEMBER 3, 2018
ANTHONY CAPOBIANCO
During the 1996 MTV VMAs, a reunited Van Halen left the remainder of the awards ceremony in the dust. Earlier that year, Sammy Hagar had left Van Halen, which meant that Eddie Van Halen, Alex Van Halen and Michael Anthony were a band without a frontman that was in the middle of recording for a greatest hits album.
Considering that the album would consist of songs of Roth's days from 1974-85, Roth was contacted by Warner Bros. Records, informing him about their latest project. Shortly after, Roth contacted Eddie for the first time in many years, agreeing to put their differences aside and to reunite on this record. Rumor has it that Eddie did not inform Michael Anthony nor his brother Alex that Roth would be joining them in their studio sessions, but everything seemed to work out fine enough that they managed to lay down two new songs: "Me Wise Magic" and "Can't Get This Stuff No More."
Even though there were not any plans in place to bring Roth back into fray permanently, the four agreed that they would promote their Best Of - Volume 1 by appearing at the MTV VMA's together onstage. As expected, the reaction by the audience was enormous.
While onstage Roth addressed the fact that that moment was the first time the four of them have appeared onstage together in over a decade. Though Eddie tried his best to get the award portion out of the way, Roth took the moment to add his own commentary to their situation. "Have you noticed that things have changed a lot since the last time we were up here?" said Roth. "No really, it used to be 'I want my MTV,' and now it's like 'Give me your f**king MTV or I'll blow your head off!'"
Out front everything seemed fine, but when the reunited Van Halen got backstage, it was a completely different story. Eddie wasn't too thrilled by Roth's attention-seeking antics before and during Beck's acceptance speech (though Beck said that he wasn't bothered by it). During a post-show interview with MTV's Kurt Loder, everyone minus Roth danced around the topic of Roth's future with the band.
Short and sweet described their reunion. Though Best Of - Volume 1 went on to top the album charts, with both "Me Wise Magic" and "Can't Get This Stuff No More" released as singles, former Extreme vocalist Gary Cherone would come in to take Roth's place (an agreement that Cherone made with Van Halen before their VMA appearance).
In 2007, Roth and Van Halen would reunite and tour again. Only bassist Michael Anthony would be replaced by Van Halen's son Wolfgang, making a complete Van Halen reunion unlikely.
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