johnburrows
09-07-2004, 07:08 PM
Scott Cronick (music reporter) interviewed Van Hagar right before he gave the show a crappy review of the concert in Atlantic City. Go figure, Scott Cronick is as spineless and back stabbing as Van Hagar.
September 3, 2004
The impossible is possible:
Van Halen reunites with Hagar
By SCOTT CRONICK
At The Shore, (609) 272-7017
Sammy Hagar said it would never happen. But after eight years of separation, Sammy, Michael Anthony, and Eddie and Alex Van Halen are back, touring across the country as Van Halen, one of the greatest rock bands in history.
The re-formed Van Halen - minus David Lee Roth - is performing a best-of show with Hagar singing his own hits as well as DLR tunes for the first time. The group released three new songs on a greatest hits package titled "The Best of Both Worlds," now available in stores.
With smash singles that include "Hot for the Teacher," "Panama," "Right Now," "Jump" and many others, fans are happy to see VH back, so much so that the band is selling out arenas across the country. Van Halen returns to Atlantic City when it performs on Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa's Outdoor Stage 8 p.m. Friday, Sept. 3.
Hagar and Alex Van Halen took the time to discuss the new record, the band's re-formation and the tour in two recent teleconference calls.
Eddie Van Halen returns to Atlantic City with Sammy Hagar, Michael Anthony and Alex Van Halen at Borgata on Frieday, Sept. 3.
Q: Is this a full-fledged reunion, and do you see yourselves doing another record of new material?
SH: I personally have a hard time with calling this thing a reunion. It's more like a continuation. And the reason we like to use that terminology is because I've seen so many reunions where guys are coming off some real estate job, or something, putting the guitar back on and going back out. We are four real musicians that play music with or without each other for the rest of our lives. And it just doesn't feel like it's a reunion.
AVH: I'm paraphrasing an old (quote) - some of you may have heard of it - remember John Lennon? He says, and I'm going to substitute some of my own words for it, but it basically goes something like this: "When I was young I thought we were the best group in the world, and believing that is what made us what we were, but now I've grown up. I don't believe in father figures, and I'm not looking for a guru, and I'm not searching for anything." So there is nothing to search for, there's no way to go, there's nothing. This is it. We'll probably carry on writing and making music forever.
Q: Why now? Why does it work now?
AVH: Well, I could start off by saying something philosophical, or the simple answer is that it just felt right. Sammy and I got together, and it was like we hadn't missed a beat.
We picked up right where we left off, and the moment we hit the studio and started making music, which for us is always where it always began, then that kind of solidified that that was it. You know, making music is the center of this band, and - that, and the friendship. So it was a no-brainer.
SH: Yes. It just felt like the right time. You know, once we started talking, it's like the first single, "It's About Time." I couldn't help but write those kind of lyrics for it because it was just such a feeling that was just unanimous. We just felt like, "Wow!" The time is right. I mean it's like if we had tried it maybe two years ago, it could've blown up or anything, or maybe two years from now it might be too late.
Q: Can you kind of give me a rundown of how it happened?
AVH: We touched base, and things just unfolded from there. We're old buddies, and we make music together, and the time was right. You don't question it. I think the moment you start becoming cerebral about these kind of things, then the time will pass you by. Then you'll look back and say, "Wow. We should've done it." Instead we did.
SH: I made the call to Al, but it was not in any business sense. It wasn't like, "Hey, let's get back together." I happened to be in Southern California with my family vacationing, and I was talking to somebody else, and they said, "Hey, you ever talk to those guys," and I'm going, "You know, no. You know, I'm going to give Alex a call. I've been saying this for 100 years. I'm going to give Alex a call, you know, one of these days." And then I finally did. I just called up Michael Anthony, who I had been in connection with a lot, and said, "Hey, get me Alex's phone number. I think I'm going to call him." And when I did, we talked for so long it was like, "Hey, why don't you just come on down here? You could've driven down here by now to the beach." And we hung out with our families, and it was just awesome.
It was about, "Gee, I wonder, what it'd be like running into Ed or Al?" Like if I ran into them in the street, there's two things that's going to happen: You're going to hug and kiss them and go, "I'm so great to see you again," or you're going to get in a big fight. So you don't know until you go head on, and we went head on. It was just, wow, I really miss this friendship. And then, of course, like Al said, once you start playing music, it was all over.
Q: How was it first dealing with Eddie? Did you have to work things out?
SH: No. It was so funny. After getting with Al, I think, and then Al talking to Ed first, probably said, "Hey, I talked with Sam. It was great, you know?" The next time I was talking to Al a couple of days later, I said, "You know, how's Ed doing?" We hadn't even gotten to that before. We were just laughing about all the crazy stuff we did before, you know, catching up, and then he said, "Well, give him a call." I said, "Well, give me his number," and - boom - I just called him, and it was great.
The whole point of being older is time going by, water going under the bridge, whatever it is, you kind of forget what happened or why you were mad to begin with and what all you said. All that stuff goes out the window, and when you see a person that you truly do have a deep relationship with ... I mean we were together for a long time, 11 years , and I mean we spent a lot of those 11 years together, on the road, in the studio, making videos, rehearsing, you name it ... So when you spend that much time with somebody, you really do have a deep friendship, and all of a sudden you realize after time that, "Hey, forget it."
I mean we decided rather than go to therapy like some of these other bands and dig around in the dirt, we said, "No, no. Here's what we're going to do: We're going to pretend like it never happened. We're going to like rise above it," and it's really what we did. I think we elevated, and it hasn't even come up. I mean, you know, we've done interviews together, and it hasn't even come up even within an interview thing, like, oh, well, he said this or he said that. That's done. We're this. This is right now, and we're going for it. It's great.
Q: Everything I've been reading from interviews with you guys tells me it's like a big lovefest. But I want to know of the stuff that's not the lovefest. Have there been any moments, whether in the studio or on stage, or on tour so far, where some of that old ire and bad feelings rekindled?
AVH: It's not ire, it's not, you know, any of that old feelings. I mean we can be playing out a tune and somebody will throw something at somebody else. If you really figure it out, we probably spent between a third to a half of our adult lives together. And that's a lot of time to people who don't realize.
You get to the point where you can be in a room, you can nod and a wink to one another, and you'll understand exactly what the other guy is talking about. We don't even have to verbalize it. And, yes, there's differences of opinion. There's moments when tempers flare. We're in a very pressure cooker kind of environment. There's a lot of stress and a lot of ... and we want things right.
You know, when we play, when we make music, we want to present it properly. We want it heard properly, we want it seen properly, and we want everybody who comes to see it walk away saying, "Yes, that's what I wanted to see." So there's stress, and there's things that don't quite go 100 percent right. Yes, there's tempers that flare.
SH: Yes, there's a lot of pressure. We don't bow to it. But deep inside there is stress every night to do a great show, and sometimes if you have a bad night, you know, I'll tell you, we're human.
We try to blame anything and everything on something else. And we get in the room, the four of us after a show. If one of us had a bad show, you're going to start accusing somebody. "Hey, you did that too fast," or "Hey, give me a second there." There has definitely been tension, not the kind of tension where it's like, "Hey, FU, I'm leaving." Not that kind of friction.
But definitely, we've yelled things back and forth at each other. But it's pretty much a lovefest. I mean, hey, when you walk out on stage and you've 10,000, 12,000 people with their hands in the air, on their feet for two-and-a-half hours, it's got to get you pretty damn happy.
Q: Now when you go out to 10,000, 12,000 people, how does it feel this time as opposed to when you guys left things off? I mean live together? And as far as the fans? And their reception toward you? Is there any real difference?
SH: For me it feels, the fans are more, they're happier to see us. It's like the wait, has made ... absence makes the heart grow fonder, whatever. Every song we kick off, it's like the biggest hit we ever had. The response to anything we say or ask the people to do is right there. They're so unjaded to Van, you know, they haven't really seen us in so long. I think it feels better than it ever did, from the audience.
Q: There are three new songs on the album. How old are the new songs? And how many new songs were written and recorded for this project?
AVH: We really don't keep an accurate log of when the idea came to mind, or when it actually came to fruition. Music is kind of like trying to nail Jell-O to the wall. You know, it just comes and it goes. It just happened that when the four of us got together we would play as much music, as much as Sammy could digest. And the ones that really stuck out in his head were the songs that we worked on. There's nothing more, nothing less than that. It's that simple.
SH: It was kind of like when I first walked in, Ed and Al had been in the studio for a couple of years, and they had a lot of ideas floating around with no lyrics. Because of the time limit, as soon as we got together we said let's go out on tour, which is what we like to do more than anything.
I just picked on the ones that instantly sang to me, ones I felt like I could come up with some good lyrics for, and the ones that just were, I don't know in a way it sounds like they took the easy road, the ones that just presented themselves. And I just said, "Oh, I know what to sing to this. And hey, I've got lyrics, boom!" Otherwise we'd still be in there sorting through music. There's enough music for 100 years to write songs in that studio, laying around on the floor sometimes.
But these three songs - we had four, and the fourth one never got completed - got done in time to go out on tour. And I mean barely. You know, we were just still in the studio mixing and rehearsing at night, and mastering, and being on tour. It was pretty intense, so these three were the ones that came natural to us.
Q: You've been doing this for a long time, and you're a lot older, obviously, but how is it different touring now? And your audiences are older, how are the audiences different now just because of the age thing?
AVH: I think loving music transcends age. When you leave this planet, you leave as a feeling. You don't leave as an Encyclopedia Britannica, a bunch of facts. We're living human beings, and we do the things that give us some kind of an emotional high, and making music is that thing. And I think the common thread between the band and the audience is how they relate to the music.
Some people quantify that as remembering when they were younger, and some look at it differently. To me, music is music. If you get in there for an evening and you can take your mind off whatever is ailing you that day, then we have done our job and music has done it's job.
SH: The age group and the fact that we are older and all that, there's two ways where you have a peak in this business we're in of music, playing music and rock and roll. Number one is when you first make it and you first get out there and there's that intensity and that thing, what you've always dreamed of, and you're playing out your dream.
But then to have to still be around, 20 years, 25 years later, and have the warmth and the depth of those people coming with you all of that time, most of them, and growing up with you, and doing it on a whole another level, and having it still be intense and almost like the beginning, only different, it's kind of like bookends. To have that ... to almost become in the legendary status on top of, you're double lucky.
I feel like one of the most blessed, fortunate people on this planet, to have experienced this long, and to have it be as intense as it is right now for us, it's very special. And in a way for me it's better than it was in the very beginning because there's more soul. And when you play those songs, and you see people crying and stuff, I know it sounds crazy. But man, come on, that touches you, man. I never get too old to enjoy that feeling. You know, it's wonderful, it's a lovefest.
Q: That lovefest keeps coming up:
SH: Well, it's really coming from the audience more than from the band. Hell, if we didn't have that audience we'd be fighting, fist fighting by now probably. When the audience gives it up, so it's like it feels fantastic, man.
Q: Sammy, what was it like coming back to VH?
SH: Straight up, the first time we, we didn't think about nothing. I didn't even want to join this band the first time until I came down. You know, I had no intention, and I thought, "Hey, you know, Eddie Van Halen calls you up and says, come on in and jam. You go jam, right?" So I go jam. It was so fantastic I never left, for 11 years. The last year was terrible.
Everybody changed. You know, 10 years of being together, hell, if somebody ain't changing they've got a problem. You know, we all change, we are all growing up, you know, I got remarried, got a new kid. I mean it was like, yikes, you know. Went separate ways.
Seven years, eight years later, however long it's been, got back together. It was a little stranger because we had grown eight years farther apart in a way, but there was a whole other meaning, which was the music. It's like after eight years of not seeing, you know, Alex and Ed, I realized I really loved these people, and this is like somebody I spent a lot of time and did some great things with. And I preferred to put all differences aside, we all did, and say, "Let's make music together, again, let's go out and do this, you know, and let's see how it feels."
And it felt, it just felt good. I mean it feels fine, it's different, yes, it's totally different, I'll tell you right up, it's totally different. But we're a lot older and more mature. And I think we put all of our differences aside. We went for the enlightenment instead of the therapy. And so far it's working.
Q: How do you feel singing David's (Lee Roth) tunes?
SH: Anyone that can't stand out there and sing a song like "Panama" and have fun sinhing it, you're not a rock 'n' roll singer, as far as I'm concerned. Some of these songs are really great and fit right in with me. The whole problem is the vocal range. My range is a whole different range than Dave's. And when I sing some of those songs, they're too low for me. And to change them is kind of sacrilege, you don't want to go out and make them totally your own. So, you know, you kind of stay traditional. It's a little bit difficult, but some of the songs are too low for me, and I have no power in that range.
Just like, can you imagine Dave trying to sing
September 3, 2004
The impossible is possible:
Van Halen reunites with Hagar
By SCOTT CRONICK
At The Shore, (609) 272-7017
Sammy Hagar said it would never happen. But after eight years of separation, Sammy, Michael Anthony, and Eddie and Alex Van Halen are back, touring across the country as Van Halen, one of the greatest rock bands in history.
The re-formed Van Halen - minus David Lee Roth - is performing a best-of show with Hagar singing his own hits as well as DLR tunes for the first time. The group released three new songs on a greatest hits package titled "The Best of Both Worlds," now available in stores.
With smash singles that include "Hot for the Teacher," "Panama," "Right Now," "Jump" and many others, fans are happy to see VH back, so much so that the band is selling out arenas across the country. Van Halen returns to Atlantic City when it performs on Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa's Outdoor Stage 8 p.m. Friday, Sept. 3.
Hagar and Alex Van Halen took the time to discuss the new record, the band's re-formation and the tour in two recent teleconference calls.
Eddie Van Halen returns to Atlantic City with Sammy Hagar, Michael Anthony and Alex Van Halen at Borgata on Frieday, Sept. 3.
Q: Is this a full-fledged reunion, and do you see yourselves doing another record of new material?
SH: I personally have a hard time with calling this thing a reunion. It's more like a continuation. And the reason we like to use that terminology is because I've seen so many reunions where guys are coming off some real estate job, or something, putting the guitar back on and going back out. We are four real musicians that play music with or without each other for the rest of our lives. And it just doesn't feel like it's a reunion.
AVH: I'm paraphrasing an old (quote) - some of you may have heard of it - remember John Lennon? He says, and I'm going to substitute some of my own words for it, but it basically goes something like this: "When I was young I thought we were the best group in the world, and believing that is what made us what we were, but now I've grown up. I don't believe in father figures, and I'm not looking for a guru, and I'm not searching for anything." So there is nothing to search for, there's no way to go, there's nothing. This is it. We'll probably carry on writing and making music forever.
Q: Why now? Why does it work now?
AVH: Well, I could start off by saying something philosophical, or the simple answer is that it just felt right. Sammy and I got together, and it was like we hadn't missed a beat.
We picked up right where we left off, and the moment we hit the studio and started making music, which for us is always where it always began, then that kind of solidified that that was it. You know, making music is the center of this band, and - that, and the friendship. So it was a no-brainer.
SH: Yes. It just felt like the right time. You know, once we started talking, it's like the first single, "It's About Time." I couldn't help but write those kind of lyrics for it because it was just such a feeling that was just unanimous. We just felt like, "Wow!" The time is right. I mean it's like if we had tried it maybe two years ago, it could've blown up or anything, or maybe two years from now it might be too late.
Q: Can you kind of give me a rundown of how it happened?
AVH: We touched base, and things just unfolded from there. We're old buddies, and we make music together, and the time was right. You don't question it. I think the moment you start becoming cerebral about these kind of things, then the time will pass you by. Then you'll look back and say, "Wow. We should've done it." Instead we did.
SH: I made the call to Al, but it was not in any business sense. It wasn't like, "Hey, let's get back together." I happened to be in Southern California with my family vacationing, and I was talking to somebody else, and they said, "Hey, you ever talk to those guys," and I'm going, "You know, no. You know, I'm going to give Alex a call. I've been saying this for 100 years. I'm going to give Alex a call, you know, one of these days." And then I finally did. I just called up Michael Anthony, who I had been in connection with a lot, and said, "Hey, get me Alex's phone number. I think I'm going to call him." And when I did, we talked for so long it was like, "Hey, why don't you just come on down here? You could've driven down here by now to the beach." And we hung out with our families, and it was just awesome.
It was about, "Gee, I wonder, what it'd be like running into Ed or Al?" Like if I ran into them in the street, there's two things that's going to happen: You're going to hug and kiss them and go, "I'm so great to see you again," or you're going to get in a big fight. So you don't know until you go head on, and we went head on. It was just, wow, I really miss this friendship. And then, of course, like Al said, once you start playing music, it was all over.
Q: How was it first dealing with Eddie? Did you have to work things out?
SH: No. It was so funny. After getting with Al, I think, and then Al talking to Ed first, probably said, "Hey, I talked with Sam. It was great, you know?" The next time I was talking to Al a couple of days later, I said, "You know, how's Ed doing?" We hadn't even gotten to that before. We were just laughing about all the crazy stuff we did before, you know, catching up, and then he said, "Well, give him a call." I said, "Well, give me his number," and - boom - I just called him, and it was great.
The whole point of being older is time going by, water going under the bridge, whatever it is, you kind of forget what happened or why you were mad to begin with and what all you said. All that stuff goes out the window, and when you see a person that you truly do have a deep relationship with ... I mean we were together for a long time, 11 years , and I mean we spent a lot of those 11 years together, on the road, in the studio, making videos, rehearsing, you name it ... So when you spend that much time with somebody, you really do have a deep friendship, and all of a sudden you realize after time that, "Hey, forget it."
I mean we decided rather than go to therapy like some of these other bands and dig around in the dirt, we said, "No, no. Here's what we're going to do: We're going to pretend like it never happened. We're going to like rise above it," and it's really what we did. I think we elevated, and it hasn't even come up. I mean, you know, we've done interviews together, and it hasn't even come up even within an interview thing, like, oh, well, he said this or he said that. That's done. We're this. This is right now, and we're going for it. It's great.
Q: Everything I've been reading from interviews with you guys tells me it's like a big lovefest. But I want to know of the stuff that's not the lovefest. Have there been any moments, whether in the studio or on stage, or on tour so far, where some of that old ire and bad feelings rekindled?
AVH: It's not ire, it's not, you know, any of that old feelings. I mean we can be playing out a tune and somebody will throw something at somebody else. If you really figure it out, we probably spent between a third to a half of our adult lives together. And that's a lot of time to people who don't realize.
You get to the point where you can be in a room, you can nod and a wink to one another, and you'll understand exactly what the other guy is talking about. We don't even have to verbalize it. And, yes, there's differences of opinion. There's moments when tempers flare. We're in a very pressure cooker kind of environment. There's a lot of stress and a lot of ... and we want things right.
You know, when we play, when we make music, we want to present it properly. We want it heard properly, we want it seen properly, and we want everybody who comes to see it walk away saying, "Yes, that's what I wanted to see." So there's stress, and there's things that don't quite go 100 percent right. Yes, there's tempers that flare.
SH: Yes, there's a lot of pressure. We don't bow to it. But deep inside there is stress every night to do a great show, and sometimes if you have a bad night, you know, I'll tell you, we're human.
We try to blame anything and everything on something else. And we get in the room, the four of us after a show. If one of us had a bad show, you're going to start accusing somebody. "Hey, you did that too fast," or "Hey, give me a second there." There has definitely been tension, not the kind of tension where it's like, "Hey, FU, I'm leaving." Not that kind of friction.
But definitely, we've yelled things back and forth at each other. But it's pretty much a lovefest. I mean, hey, when you walk out on stage and you've 10,000, 12,000 people with their hands in the air, on their feet for two-and-a-half hours, it's got to get you pretty damn happy.
Q: Now when you go out to 10,000, 12,000 people, how does it feel this time as opposed to when you guys left things off? I mean live together? And as far as the fans? And their reception toward you? Is there any real difference?
SH: For me it feels, the fans are more, they're happier to see us. It's like the wait, has made ... absence makes the heart grow fonder, whatever. Every song we kick off, it's like the biggest hit we ever had. The response to anything we say or ask the people to do is right there. They're so unjaded to Van, you know, they haven't really seen us in so long. I think it feels better than it ever did, from the audience.
Q: There are three new songs on the album. How old are the new songs? And how many new songs were written and recorded for this project?
AVH: We really don't keep an accurate log of when the idea came to mind, or when it actually came to fruition. Music is kind of like trying to nail Jell-O to the wall. You know, it just comes and it goes. It just happened that when the four of us got together we would play as much music, as much as Sammy could digest. And the ones that really stuck out in his head were the songs that we worked on. There's nothing more, nothing less than that. It's that simple.
SH: It was kind of like when I first walked in, Ed and Al had been in the studio for a couple of years, and they had a lot of ideas floating around with no lyrics. Because of the time limit, as soon as we got together we said let's go out on tour, which is what we like to do more than anything.
I just picked on the ones that instantly sang to me, ones I felt like I could come up with some good lyrics for, and the ones that just were, I don't know in a way it sounds like they took the easy road, the ones that just presented themselves. And I just said, "Oh, I know what to sing to this. And hey, I've got lyrics, boom!" Otherwise we'd still be in there sorting through music. There's enough music for 100 years to write songs in that studio, laying around on the floor sometimes.
But these three songs - we had four, and the fourth one never got completed - got done in time to go out on tour. And I mean barely. You know, we were just still in the studio mixing and rehearsing at night, and mastering, and being on tour. It was pretty intense, so these three were the ones that came natural to us.
Q: You've been doing this for a long time, and you're a lot older, obviously, but how is it different touring now? And your audiences are older, how are the audiences different now just because of the age thing?
AVH: I think loving music transcends age. When you leave this planet, you leave as a feeling. You don't leave as an Encyclopedia Britannica, a bunch of facts. We're living human beings, and we do the things that give us some kind of an emotional high, and making music is that thing. And I think the common thread between the band and the audience is how they relate to the music.
Some people quantify that as remembering when they were younger, and some look at it differently. To me, music is music. If you get in there for an evening and you can take your mind off whatever is ailing you that day, then we have done our job and music has done it's job.
SH: The age group and the fact that we are older and all that, there's two ways where you have a peak in this business we're in of music, playing music and rock and roll. Number one is when you first make it and you first get out there and there's that intensity and that thing, what you've always dreamed of, and you're playing out your dream.
But then to have to still be around, 20 years, 25 years later, and have the warmth and the depth of those people coming with you all of that time, most of them, and growing up with you, and doing it on a whole another level, and having it still be intense and almost like the beginning, only different, it's kind of like bookends. To have that ... to almost become in the legendary status on top of, you're double lucky.
I feel like one of the most blessed, fortunate people on this planet, to have experienced this long, and to have it be as intense as it is right now for us, it's very special. And in a way for me it's better than it was in the very beginning because there's more soul. And when you play those songs, and you see people crying and stuff, I know it sounds crazy. But man, come on, that touches you, man. I never get too old to enjoy that feeling. You know, it's wonderful, it's a lovefest.
Q: That lovefest keeps coming up:
SH: Well, it's really coming from the audience more than from the band. Hell, if we didn't have that audience we'd be fighting, fist fighting by now probably. When the audience gives it up, so it's like it feels fantastic, man.
Q: Sammy, what was it like coming back to VH?
SH: Straight up, the first time we, we didn't think about nothing. I didn't even want to join this band the first time until I came down. You know, I had no intention, and I thought, "Hey, you know, Eddie Van Halen calls you up and says, come on in and jam. You go jam, right?" So I go jam. It was so fantastic I never left, for 11 years. The last year was terrible.
Everybody changed. You know, 10 years of being together, hell, if somebody ain't changing they've got a problem. You know, we all change, we are all growing up, you know, I got remarried, got a new kid. I mean it was like, yikes, you know. Went separate ways.
Seven years, eight years later, however long it's been, got back together. It was a little stranger because we had grown eight years farther apart in a way, but there was a whole other meaning, which was the music. It's like after eight years of not seeing, you know, Alex and Ed, I realized I really loved these people, and this is like somebody I spent a lot of time and did some great things with. And I preferred to put all differences aside, we all did, and say, "Let's make music together, again, let's go out and do this, you know, and let's see how it feels."
And it felt, it just felt good. I mean it feels fine, it's different, yes, it's totally different, I'll tell you right up, it's totally different. But we're a lot older and more mature. And I think we put all of our differences aside. We went for the enlightenment instead of the therapy. And so far it's working.
Q: How do you feel singing David's (Lee Roth) tunes?
SH: Anyone that can't stand out there and sing a song like "Panama" and have fun sinhing it, you're not a rock 'n' roll singer, as far as I'm concerned. Some of these songs are really great and fit right in with me. The whole problem is the vocal range. My range is a whole different range than Dave's. And when I sing some of those songs, they're too low for me. And to change them is kind of sacrilege, you don't want to go out and make them totally your own. So, you know, you kind of stay traditional. It's a little bit difficult, but some of the songs are too low for me, and I have no power in that range.
Just like, can you imagine Dave trying to sing