Sammy Math 101 Sammy Math 101 I sent this rant in to Metal Sludge a couple of months back. They had raked Sebastian Bach of Skid Row over the coals for "fudging" his record sales, and I had just read the interview with Sammy Hagar, and it pissed me off greatly! Enjoy. 1/8/01 Hi Metal Sludge! I love your site, visit it regularly. You guys called Sebastian on his bullshit of selling a "gazillion" more records than he actually did, and I thought I'd fill you in on another "rocker" that recently done the same thing just to boost his own ego. Sammy Hagar recently said in an interview when asked about bashing David Lee Roth/VH: (Link to interview can be found at http://www.vhnd.com/) Sammy: "...It's a fact, number one. The Van Halen part of it is the thing I'll never escape from. Other than both being singers in the same band, we have nothing in common. Other than both having a successful reign. We sold 42 million records, they sold 28 [with Roth]. I was in the band 11 years, he was 7. So stack it up. "Right Now" and all the No. 1 records were with me. They became a teenage phenomenon with him. But people grew up. It was more like 18-30 for me. Their wife and couples came to see us. The fact that I had a career before Van Halen was more important to me. David Lee Roth didn't have a career before and so he didn't have one after." Ok little man, now lets get the numbers straight!!! These are the numbers of albums sold according to /http://www.van-halen.com/ The Official Van Halen Web site, so I'll trust their account... DLR era: Van Halen - 10.3 million Van Halen II - 5.7 million Women and Children First - 4.3 million Fair Warning - 3.4 million Diver Down - 4 million 1984 - 10 million ______________________________ Total - 37.7 million "Spammy" era: 5150 - 6.9 million OU812 - 4.4 million F.U.C.K. - 3.8 million Right Here Right Now(Live) - 2.5 million Balance - 2.9 million ______________________________ Total - 20.9 million Now we can throw the "VH Best of Vol 1" in there at 2.4 million. And let's be honest. No one bought that to hear Slappy Hagar squeel like a cat being swung around by the tail!! We bought it to hear DLR back with VH. That's a difference of 16.8 million in favor of Diamond Dave, even if you don't give him the Best of sales! I know that all rock stars exagerate the numbers some but, He said he sold 42 million!!! That's 21 million difference!!! And he said that DLR only sold 28 million w/VH. He sold 37.7 million!! And Those albums are still selling!! No one will include the Sammy-era of VH in the all time classic Rock bands of all time, but the DLR era is and always will be counted in that elite group of great bands like: Led Zepplin, Rolling Stones, Aerosmith, etc. But that's not all. There's this comment: "...I was in the band 11 years, he was 7." Lets see...Dave helped found the band in 1974. He left on 4/1/85. Now Spammy, that's 11 years. 11 years of helping to build one of the greatest Rock Bands of all time. Which you jumped into in '85 at the height of success and slowly ran into the ground with Pop ballads and every third song you wrote had to have the word "jive" or "love" in it!!! Here's one more for the bullshit files: "...David Lee Roth didn't have a career before and so he didn't have one after." He didn't have one before because he was helping to build the Van Halen machine. After...well while it was not comparable to his years with VH...He did have 3 platinum solo albums (CFTH, Eat'Em and Smile, Skyscraper) and he also sold out stadiums on WORLD tours through 1989. Now that hardly qualifies as no career!! Sammy could only sell 500 tickets to a damn outdoor amphitheater in my home town that held 5,000 on the Marching to Mars tour. That was right after he left VH, so he should have been at his most popular. Sammy will always live in DLR's shadow!! No one will ever be able to mention Sammy Hagar without thinking of David Lee Roth!! David Lee Roth left a perfectly tuned, sweet running Mercedes for Sammy to pilot in 1985...and he turned it into a damn spitting-sputtering Pinto with the hubcaps missing, and two different colored primered fenders. If all the rumors are true, and Dave is back...He and Eddie are building that Mercedes once again!!!! Thanks. To email the article you just read above to someone else {click here} .