Former Great White & Guns N’ Roses manager Alan Niven discussed Van Halen on a new episode of Rock Talk with Mitch Lafon. On the show, Niven and Lafon pull out their best Eddie Trunk and discuss the rumored Van Halen stadium tour, his thoughts on a Van Halen reunion with the original lineup, his favorite incarnation of Van Halen and a name drop of everyone’s favorite rock news site. Alternative Nation transcribed the comments.

Mitch Lafon: There are a lot of rumors coming out of NAMM that David Lee Roth, Michael Anthony and the rest of the Van Halen guys will go do a stadium tour. What are your thoughts? I will start with you Alan – do you care if Van Halen comes back and do you think they come back given all this sort of ‘where there’s smoke there’s fire’ kind of stuff?

Alan Niven: Well we are aware of various moments of Van Halen history. Wasn’t there a previous moment when they were going to reform and it evaporated with incredible alacrity? Hopefully, they go through with it, they will give pleasure to a lot of people if they go out there and I hope David [Lee Roth]’s up for it but I’m a little bit in the other singer camp with Van Halen.

Lafon: Really?!

Niven: Yeah, I really love the songs they did with D.L.R. but for a vocalist, I’m with the other guy a little bit. I don’t think I ever fully recovered from the Montrose album.

Lafon: Well hold on a second, I’ve always seen you like more ‘old school’, ‘pure’…etc and when you talk about ‘purist’ in the Van Halen camp it’s all about “Oh it’s the original lineup” and I would see you as thinking that Sammy Hagar in his era was too syrupy, too top 40, you know? So you’re more of a Sammy Hagar and Van Hagar fan?

Niven: I think I might be.

Lafon: Wow, there’s a revelation that will be on Alternative Nation by the time this hits.

Both laugh.

Niven: David’s an interesting character, shall we say. There was a moment in the United Kingdom where he made an unfortunate comment to me and Slash and I just looked at him and I just thought to myself, “You’re either the dumbest intelligent person I know or the most intelligent dumbass I know.” It was after Donnington and he made a really unfortunate comment about it. You know, if they get back together, have at it because I want to see people out there, I want to see people buying tickets, I would love to see them take out somebody who deserves to be exposed to their audience.

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