"The best frontman I ever saw. Nobody else came close"

[Nitro Express]

Sammy is still around because he always understood marketing. When I graduated from business school Proctor and Gambel were interviewing. One of my friends hired on with them and he got the Prell Shampoo account. No kidding. PG’s philosophy was you always could sell a product if the marketing was good enough.

Sammy Hagar was the Prell of rock and roll but he understood how to market himself. He was smart enough to know he needed Van Halen to survive and he saw the potential of creating a Cabo Wabo brand. Sam is damn good at selling sub par products.

[Nitro Express]

Sammy Hagar never misses an opportunity. He’s like the worst virus in the world. He keeps latching onto healthy cells and nothing can kill that guy.

[Rikk]

Sammy Hagar never misses an opportunity. He’s like the worst virus in the world. He keeps latching onto healthy cells and nothing can kill that guy.

This.

He's like the alien being in John Carpenter's THE THING...

...or the pod creatures in INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS.

The bastard walked into a situation that was already created for him. Dave did all the work, getting the name out there (ok, Eddie too...but he didn't promote the band the way Dave did)...and then Sammy walked in and reaped the benefits.

And if Sammy were humble about it and said nothing but good things about Dave, I wouldn't really blame him. Dave DID quit.

But it's the fact that Sammy was happy to badmouth Dave at every opportunity he could (and continues to do so to this day).

I don't hate every single note the band did without Dave...it's just a pale imitation of the original.

BUT...I hate Sammy as a person. He's a disgusting leech who walked into the band and then went out of his way to destroy Dave publicly. FUCKING PISSES ME OFF!! (Fuck, I wish it weren't early afternoon and I wish I still drank.)

[Vinnie Velvet]

Monk was a useless con man and drug dealer, his presence would of done nothing.

I agree a real manager means the band survives or does what Dave thought was agreed do his movie/soundtrack, Edward do that material he wanted that Dave hated and start the VH machine again in 88. To do that required a referee. Monk however would not of helped at all. The man was truly human garbage

Exactly.

Look at the Stones and even Queen who were on the verge of their own band breakups. Freddie was wanting to do more stuff on his own as did Roger Taylor. And both of them did. Even Brian May did his Starfleet thing (ironically with Ed involved).

But they didn't dissolve. Queen stayed intact.

Jagger - same thing. He did his solo thing. But the Stones came back not too long afterward.

Dave does CFTH and the band loses their shit over an EP. Dave wants to do a movie and the band breaks up. Just stupid and comical.

CVH with a real manager would never let them fall apart so easily.

[Rikk]

Exactly.

Look at the Stones and even Queen who were on the verge of their own band breakups. Freddie was wanting to do more stuff on his own as did Roger Taylor. And both of them did. Even Brian May did his Starfleet thing (ironically with Ed involved).

But they didn't dissolve. Queen stayed intact.

Jagger - same thing. He did his solo thing. But the Stones came back not too long afterward.

Dave does CFTH and the band loses their shit over an EP. Dave wants to do a movie and the band breaks up. Just stupid and comical.

CVH with a real manager would never let them fall apart so easily.

Of course, they had NO manager. They'd fired Monk. But, you're right. If they'd had an Irving Azoff then, he would have manipulated the situation there to get Dave to stay and get the band to be patient.

The only person who was trying to do the right thing at that time was Ted. When Eddie asked him to produce 5150, he said no.

And he admits in his book...it's NOT that he was busy producing Dave's album. It was that he could not see Van Halen without Dave...and he didn't want any part of Van Halen without Dave.

By the time Dave asked him, VH were deep into recording with Sammy and he thought, "Fuck it. I'll work with Dave."

He says in his book that Eddie later asked him to sequence the tracks on 5150...and no matter what one thinks of the tracks on the album, it IS sequenced right (Ted was good at shit like that).

He did come back to salvage F.U.C.K. and record vocals...but fucked if I could tell. I still think that is the worst Van Halen album ever made. It's worse than VH 3.

[Rikk]

There's a story that Eddie got really mad at Sammy around 1990 and wanted Dave to come back. (Eddie even did a radio interview in, I think, Australia in 1990 and admitted on the air that Sammy was gone and Dave was coming back.)

Every time Dave reached out to the camp in those years, Ed Leffler put the kibosh on the whole thing.

Ed Leffler was protecting his interests as Sammy's friend.

Fucking shit.

[Never was]

After 88 came and went Edward spoke floated it via Dave's dad Nathan. It did not go anywhere and faded away. It was viewed more as the brothers had some issue w Sam on the OU812 tour. It was not till a few years later Edward literally saw Dave across the street in NYC he flagged him down and they spoke. I actually saw Dave that day after and he told the story somewhat speechless and said he called Ed fat. Everyone laughed and to be honest since he changed topic so fast was not sure in the moment if he was joking. Fast forward to 07 and Ed finally told the story in promotion for the tour. He was laughing and said Dave was in shock and called him fat, lol. So apparently the old man was not telling a story and the 2 of them really did randomly just bump into each other in midtown sidewalk by accident. That is just weird AF but happen.

Leffler had VH business running as a machine at that point so he was also protecting his own work. He did a lot to clean up their business and yes benefitting Dave too. I'm sure he had bias to the guy who brought him to the dance - Sam - but he did an awful lot of good for VH business wise.

[Terry]

Think a lot of it just had to do with the band members themselves come the mid-1980's all approaching 30 years old.

They'd been pushing toward success for ten years. Lot of hard work in addition to hard living. Takes a toll.

Could have been nothing more than Roth and the Van Halens wanting to call more of the shots themselves and not feel constantly under the thumb of a record contract or a management contract pushing them to put out a new album and tour every year. Were that the case, a strong manager wouldn't have made the difference in terms of keeping the band together if the Van Halens wanted control. Dave and the Van Halens had simply reached the limits of their patience with each other or their tolerance of one another.

Yeah, maybe a year or two off would have been beneficial. Maybe a year or two off would just have been forestalling the inevitable. I mean, they took an eleven-year break and THAT didn't exactly pan out too well.

It sucked when Roth left. As to if Roth split or the Van Halens pushed him out and exactly what the chronology of the sequence of events was...I mean, regardless of how and why it went down, it sucked just the same. Because it felt like there was still creative juice left in the tank.

But maybe it just felt that way.