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You have MORE than 2 Camps here.. Dave has an interest, as does Mike, and the Van Halen Brothers. Ted Templeman also gets a bit of cash for producing the material.
The following comes from various sources, and goes way beyond - Oh Dave's better than Sammy (We all know that).. This shows you how Fucked up the Van Halen camp is..
I don't think a lot of people know what REALLY happened with Sammy and Mikey. Mikey is nothing more than a hired gun. He makes no money off of merchandising, records or publishing. Same stuck by Mike trying to get him a better deal.
The Fall Out with Sammy happened after Van Halen's manager Ed Leffler died. Sammy's club was going belly up, he owed back taxes and the person he left in charge (Haliburton) didn't pay the bills. Haliburton left Cabo in shambles. Ed, Alex, Mike, Ed Leffler, and Sam's wife Betsy all owned a portion of CABO.
Sam was also going through a divorce, and owed his Ex-Wife a large chunk of change. Sam owned the Mexican Government over 300 Grand, and the VH brothers refused to help with the deal. A deal was made with the Mexican Government where payments would be made each month, and Sam went into business with Marco Monroy, and the club was saved.
Geffen wanted to release a Best of album for Hagar, and Sam worked out a deal that would give him $500K for 2 new songs. Two songs which had been presented to the Van Halen Brothers, and were rejected. High Hopes & Buying My Way Into Heaven. EVH went through the roof. Sam needed the cash to pay off his Ex-Wife. He promised Geffen he would record the two songs, and do a 2 week press trip for promotion.
The band needed a new manager and names were thrown around, but EVH wanted Alex's brother-in-law Ray Danniels (Rush manager). Ray had been in heavy talks to manage (Drum roll please) Extreme, whom he thought were a bunch of losers.
Alex and Sam really got into it, and Sam wanted out if Ray was going to manage the group. Mike took Sam's side on the issue, but all of us know Mike doesn't have a say. Ed was also said to have a heavy drug & alcohol dependency at this time.
Sam wanted Tim Collins, the Aerosmith manager. Ed met with Tim late one night in the studi with Alex. Ed was blitzed out of his mind. Accoriding to sources - Valerie had kicked him out, and Ed decided to cut all of his hair off. After that Tim refused to take on both Aerosmith and Van Halen.
Ray Danniels unofficially came on board as Van Halen's new overseer later that spring. As work on the album progressed, Hagar quietly went about the task of separating his publishing money from the Van Halen account it was previously going to. Before Ed Leffler died, all the band's publishing income went into Yessup Publishing. The funds would then be divvied up from there. Shortly after Unboxed was released, Sammy instructed ASCAP, the music firm that monitored and collected album and song royalties for Van Halen, to separate his share of the proceeds.
Sam now wanted his portion sent to Nine Music, the holding company that received all royalties from his solo work. After completing that task, the singer realized he had some publishing dollars coming from
Warner/Chappell for the greatest hits album that was now on the market. He asked Van Halen's lawyer, Gary Stamler, to talk to his publisher, Rick Shoemaker, about the situation.
Van Halen were set to sign a new publishing deal, and Sam had Re-negotiated his greatest hits deal giving him around $750K in advances. This floored Ray Danniels.
The VH brothers wanted out of the Cabo deal with Sammy. Sammy wanted them to pay their share of the debt, they refused. Ray Danniels intervened on Hagar's behalf and had Gary
Stamler and Michael Karlin draw up papers to transfer the brother's
interest in the club to Sammy. The singer in turn, went to Ed Leffler's
widow and offered her the same deal. She could relinquish the estate's right to the Cabo Wabo or pay its fair share of the debt. She signed her interest over. Hagar then approached his wife Betsy. She loved the area and the club, and didn't want to sign away any claims to it at first.
Sammy, however, convinced his soon-to-be ex-wife that the holdings were a money losing proposition she didn't need to be saddled with. Still in love and willing to do anything that her husband asked, she signed papers giving up her stake in the property.
"Believe me," lamented the Red Rocker, "the papers I had to sign with the brothers to get the club was a really shit deal for me. The terms were unbelievable. For instance, if I ever made a penny selling it, I would have to repay the band the money they wrote off on their taxes. Next, if
I ever brought the concept to the United States and tried to franchise
it, they would get fifty percent of the profits forever. That same deal
also extended to anything associated with the Cabo Wabo name. I had to sign all these documents that stated in the event anyone got sued, I paid all the costs. It even said in the contract that I could not let the club interfere with the band. If Eddie and Al voted that it was not a good time for me to travel to Cabo because they needed me, I couldn't go. God's truth that fucking clause was in there. I had to agree to all these conditions, otherwise there was no deal."
Hagar had no bargaining power, and he knew it. Apparently, neither did Michael Anthony. The brothers made him divest his interest in the club as well. If he didn't, Sammy says, they would have kicked him out of Van Halen.
If the brothers signed over their part of CABO, Sam would owe them, and they could rub the idea in his face if the club went belly up.
What they pulled on me was nothing but a powerplay; I guarantee it. The funny thing is it backfired. From January 1, 1994 when David Haliburton walked out to January 1, 1995, we paid off all the outstanding debts, redesigned the club, and I pocketed a tidy $300,000 profit. It was unreal."
When Balance was being made, Ray wrote up his contract for Van Halen. Hagar says that when he read the agreement that had been drawn up, he couldn't believe the terms Al's brother-in-law had proposed. "I remember the son-of-a-bitch wanted to get paid for the rest of his life," said an utterly amazed Hagar, "and that was for every Van Halen record sold in the catalogue. Even if he got fired tomorrow, he wanted 20 percent of everything. And get this. He wanted 20 percent of gross, not net. When I saw what he was trying to do, I went to the brothers raising hell. They were willing to sign Ray's proposed deal the next day.
I went to Ed and Al and said, 'Are you guys crazy?' You don't understand, I was the only guy fighting this. Michael Anthony didn't have a real vote per se, so his involvement was limited. He's not a full partner, just a salaried musician in the band. He was almost replaced on every record we did, but believe me, I fought for Mikey too."
Hagar refused to sign documents granting Ray Danniels any authority over his contributions to Van Halen since 1985. He thought the Canadian manager's demands were outrageous, considering he was stepping into a position that was already running smoothly, thanks to his predecessor.
Because of his intense distrust of Danniels, Hagar wanted to implement a codicil into the manager's contract to insure a smooth transition, in case he was ousted from the band. The concept was called "the sunset clause," a prorated pay scale that would eventually phase him out five years after leaving the band, for whatever reason. The language Hagar worked out with attorney Don Engel stated that if Danniels was replaced, or left the band for any reason during the first year, he would be paid his previously agreed upon full percentage. The second year, he would get half of that. The third year Danniels would receive five percent, the fourth,one percent, and after five years, Van Halen was finished paying him. The idea came to Hagar from a conversation he had while touring with the legendary Joe Cocker, nearly twenty years earlier.
Leffler Apparently never pushed the Roth catalogue. "This band had sold 65 million records in their 18-year career, and Ray Danniels knew exactly what he was walking into. He wasn't fooling me with the bullshit he was telling the brothers. Eddie and Al went ahead and gave Ray a large piece of their percentage of the old catalogue with Roth. They even gave him part of their percentage for the albums I was on. I refused to give him anything. I didn't need Ray Danniels
breathing down my neck, sucking my dick, holding my hand and selling me out all in the same picture. You want me to tell you something else? Ray Danniels makes more money off the David Lee Roth era albums than Michael Anthony. How about that one? Ray Danniels makes more money than Michael Anthony period! It's sick, man. Ed and Al go along with it, because they make more themselves."
Sam wanted to stick by Mike. Danniels thought if he could get Mike more money, Sam would warm up to him. Sam ended up signing a deal with Danniels, recognizing him as the manager for only the upcoming Balance album and tour, nothing else. Sammy's contract called for Ray to make 17 percent of net, not gross, like he originally wanted. Eddie and Alex Van Halen gave him the same percentage across the board for everything.
On October 2, 1994, Eddie Van Halen made the daring statement that he was giving up alcohol for good. The announcement was met with considerable skepticism considering the fact the guitarist had failed three previous attempts to go into rehab to kick his habit. With the help of a therapist, he boldly declared his days of drinking were a thing of the past.
"Eddie's affair had a lot to do with him making that statement," noted
Hagar. "Valerie had been trying to get Eddie to quit drinking forever.
When that incident happened, she had an ace on her. She said, 'Now,
you're going to stop drinking. You are going to straighten up, or I'm
leaving you.' Now I'm not quoting what I heard, I'm telling you that's
what happened. Listen, I don't blame Valerie for taking a stance like
that. She was the one positive influence in his life. For years, she
had been trying to get him to stop drinking, and she absolutely refused to let him smoke in the house. Despite her best efforts though, Eddie just started hiding his activities and went into the closet.
The way 1994 had been going for Hagar, he never knew what to expect when he answered his telephone at any of his homes. Perhaps the biggest surprise call he received came from Mo Austin, the legendary head of Warner Bros. He phoned the Hagar residence in Mill Valley to let Sammy know that he was stepping down as president of the label. Austin had been forced out in a boardroom coup, orchestrated at corporate headquarters in New York. He was leaving the company he'd built into a powerhouse with his second in command, Lenny Waronker, at the first of the year.
Mo told Sam that Leffler always tried to put a key man clause in his contracts that stated if Mo and Lenny left Warner Bros., his clients were automatic free agents.
"Mo came to the studio shortly after he called me," announced Sammy, "to listen to the record. He sat in a room with Ray, Eddie, Alex and myself and said, 'If you guys would do me a favor, can we get this record out by November?' He was looking straight at me when he said that. We said, 'Wow, that's pretty quick, but yeah, it's possible.' He said, 'If you can get this record out this year before I quit, I promise you I'll make this the biggest record that you've ever had. I will almost guarantee you an extra million records sold.' Now Mo wanted our record out during his last quarter because he got a percentage. We knew that, but at the same time, he was giving us an opportunity of a lifetime." With all the upheaval going on at Warner Bros. over Austin's forced departure, artists like Eric Clapton, Madonna and R.E.M threatened to leave the label.
On the Balance promo tour in the UK, the band was confronted by their attorney and accountant.
Stamler proceeded to tell Hagar, that right before the "For Unlawful
Carnal Knowledge" album came out in 1991, Ed Leffler had gone to the band's music publishers, Warner/Chappell, and negotiated a new deal. The new contract called for Van Halen to receive a $4.5
million publishing advance per studio album. In order to close the lucrative deal, Leffler had put the entire Van Halen catalog up as collateral including the first six albums with David Lee Roth. According to Michael Karlin's figures, the "For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge" album had recouped most of the advance, about $3.5 million. "OU812" had brought in $700,000; "5150" around $50,000; and the old Van Halen catalog with Roth, $300,000. "Ray Danniels," charged Hagar, "had stumbled upon the deal when he was going over the various contracts Leffler had put together before he died. He thought he'd found some hidden financial chicanery on Ed's part, and informed the brothers. Because I was so close to Ed Leffler, Ray told the
brothers I knew about this publishing agreement. No one in the band had any idea this had taken place, least of all, myself. I swear to God on that. Only Leffler and our accountant knew anything about this publishing deal.
Gary asked me what I knew about it, and I said, "Wow, I had no idea." Alex said, "Sam, you never knew?"I said, "You fucking A I never knew about this. I'd never wanted to take money that wasn't
mine."First off, it wasn't that much money. I had made millions of dollars for this band. I didn't need to cheat anyone out of $300,000." The startling news reminded Sammy of a conversation he had with Ed Leffler, two years earlier, right after the "Live: Right Here, Right Now" album was released. He was supposed to get a separate $80,000 publishing check from Van Halen for two of his songs on the two-disc set, "Give to Live" and "One Way to Rock." Over the years, Van Halen often performed the tunes live, with Hagar's "One Way
to Rock" becoming somewhat of an adoptive signature piece for the group. When a separate check for his songs never arrived at Nine Music, the publishing company he created for his music, Sammy started making some inquiries to its whereabouts. The answer the singer finally received stunned him. The monies had been
deposited directly into Van Halen's bank account instead of delivered to him, per Ed Leffler's instructions. "I was puzzled by this odd transaction and went to Ed for an explanation," he responded. "Leffler told me, "Sam, don't worry about it. You are in good shape.
END OF PART 1
The following comes from various sources, and goes way beyond - Oh Dave's better than Sammy (We all know that).. This shows you how Fucked up the Van Halen camp is..
I don't think a lot of people know what REALLY happened with Sammy and Mikey. Mikey is nothing more than a hired gun. He makes no money off of merchandising, records or publishing. Same stuck by Mike trying to get him a better deal.
The Fall Out with Sammy happened after Van Halen's manager Ed Leffler died. Sammy's club was going belly up, he owed back taxes and the person he left in charge (Haliburton) didn't pay the bills. Haliburton left Cabo in shambles. Ed, Alex, Mike, Ed Leffler, and Sam's wife Betsy all owned a portion of CABO.
Sam was also going through a divorce, and owed his Ex-Wife a large chunk of change. Sam owned the Mexican Government over 300 Grand, and the VH brothers refused to help with the deal. A deal was made with the Mexican Government where payments would be made each month, and Sam went into business with Marco Monroy, and the club was saved.
Geffen wanted to release a Best of album for Hagar, and Sam worked out a deal that would give him $500K for 2 new songs. Two songs which had been presented to the Van Halen Brothers, and were rejected. High Hopes & Buying My Way Into Heaven. EVH went through the roof. Sam needed the cash to pay off his Ex-Wife. He promised Geffen he would record the two songs, and do a 2 week press trip for promotion.
The band needed a new manager and names were thrown around, but EVH wanted Alex's brother-in-law Ray Danniels (Rush manager). Ray had been in heavy talks to manage (Drum roll please) Extreme, whom he thought were a bunch of losers.
Alex and Sam really got into it, and Sam wanted out if Ray was going to manage the group. Mike took Sam's side on the issue, but all of us know Mike doesn't have a say. Ed was also said to have a heavy drug & alcohol dependency at this time.
Sam wanted Tim Collins, the Aerosmith manager. Ed met with Tim late one night in the studi with Alex. Ed was blitzed out of his mind. Accoriding to sources - Valerie had kicked him out, and Ed decided to cut all of his hair off. After that Tim refused to take on both Aerosmith and Van Halen.
Ray Danniels unofficially came on board as Van Halen's new overseer later that spring. As work on the album progressed, Hagar quietly went about the task of separating his publishing money from the Van Halen account it was previously going to. Before Ed Leffler died, all the band's publishing income went into Yessup Publishing. The funds would then be divvied up from there. Shortly after Unboxed was released, Sammy instructed ASCAP, the music firm that monitored and collected album and song royalties for Van Halen, to separate his share of the proceeds.
Sam now wanted his portion sent to Nine Music, the holding company that received all royalties from his solo work. After completing that task, the singer realized he had some publishing dollars coming from
Warner/Chappell for the greatest hits album that was now on the market. He asked Van Halen's lawyer, Gary Stamler, to talk to his publisher, Rick Shoemaker, about the situation.
Van Halen were set to sign a new publishing deal, and Sam had Re-negotiated his greatest hits deal giving him around $750K in advances. This floored Ray Danniels.
The VH brothers wanted out of the Cabo deal with Sammy. Sammy wanted them to pay their share of the debt, they refused. Ray Danniels intervened on Hagar's behalf and had Gary
Stamler and Michael Karlin draw up papers to transfer the brother's
interest in the club to Sammy. The singer in turn, went to Ed Leffler's
widow and offered her the same deal. She could relinquish the estate's right to the Cabo Wabo or pay its fair share of the debt. She signed her interest over. Hagar then approached his wife Betsy. She loved the area and the club, and didn't want to sign away any claims to it at first.
Sammy, however, convinced his soon-to-be ex-wife that the holdings were a money losing proposition she didn't need to be saddled with. Still in love and willing to do anything that her husband asked, she signed papers giving up her stake in the property.
"Believe me," lamented the Red Rocker, "the papers I had to sign with the brothers to get the club was a really shit deal for me. The terms were unbelievable. For instance, if I ever made a penny selling it, I would have to repay the band the money they wrote off on their taxes. Next, if
I ever brought the concept to the United States and tried to franchise
it, they would get fifty percent of the profits forever. That same deal
also extended to anything associated with the Cabo Wabo name. I had to sign all these documents that stated in the event anyone got sued, I paid all the costs. It even said in the contract that I could not let the club interfere with the band. If Eddie and Al voted that it was not a good time for me to travel to Cabo because they needed me, I couldn't go. God's truth that fucking clause was in there. I had to agree to all these conditions, otherwise there was no deal."
Hagar had no bargaining power, and he knew it. Apparently, neither did Michael Anthony. The brothers made him divest his interest in the club as well. If he didn't, Sammy says, they would have kicked him out of Van Halen.
If the brothers signed over their part of CABO, Sam would owe them, and they could rub the idea in his face if the club went belly up.
What they pulled on me was nothing but a powerplay; I guarantee it. The funny thing is it backfired. From January 1, 1994 when David Haliburton walked out to January 1, 1995, we paid off all the outstanding debts, redesigned the club, and I pocketed a tidy $300,000 profit. It was unreal."
When Balance was being made, Ray wrote up his contract for Van Halen. Hagar says that when he read the agreement that had been drawn up, he couldn't believe the terms Al's brother-in-law had proposed. "I remember the son-of-a-bitch wanted to get paid for the rest of his life," said an utterly amazed Hagar, "and that was for every Van Halen record sold in the catalogue. Even if he got fired tomorrow, he wanted 20 percent of everything. And get this. He wanted 20 percent of gross, not net. When I saw what he was trying to do, I went to the brothers raising hell. They were willing to sign Ray's proposed deal the next day.
I went to Ed and Al and said, 'Are you guys crazy?' You don't understand, I was the only guy fighting this. Michael Anthony didn't have a real vote per se, so his involvement was limited. He's not a full partner, just a salaried musician in the band. He was almost replaced on every record we did, but believe me, I fought for Mikey too."
Hagar refused to sign documents granting Ray Danniels any authority over his contributions to Van Halen since 1985. He thought the Canadian manager's demands were outrageous, considering he was stepping into a position that was already running smoothly, thanks to his predecessor.
Because of his intense distrust of Danniels, Hagar wanted to implement a codicil into the manager's contract to insure a smooth transition, in case he was ousted from the band. The concept was called "the sunset clause," a prorated pay scale that would eventually phase him out five years after leaving the band, for whatever reason. The language Hagar worked out with attorney Don Engel stated that if Danniels was replaced, or left the band for any reason during the first year, he would be paid his previously agreed upon full percentage. The second year, he would get half of that. The third year Danniels would receive five percent, the fourth,one percent, and after five years, Van Halen was finished paying him. The idea came to Hagar from a conversation he had while touring with the legendary Joe Cocker, nearly twenty years earlier.
Leffler Apparently never pushed the Roth catalogue. "This band had sold 65 million records in their 18-year career, and Ray Danniels knew exactly what he was walking into. He wasn't fooling me with the bullshit he was telling the brothers. Eddie and Al went ahead and gave Ray a large piece of their percentage of the old catalogue with Roth. They even gave him part of their percentage for the albums I was on. I refused to give him anything. I didn't need Ray Danniels
breathing down my neck, sucking my dick, holding my hand and selling me out all in the same picture. You want me to tell you something else? Ray Danniels makes more money off the David Lee Roth era albums than Michael Anthony. How about that one? Ray Danniels makes more money than Michael Anthony period! It's sick, man. Ed and Al go along with it, because they make more themselves."
Sam wanted to stick by Mike. Danniels thought if he could get Mike more money, Sam would warm up to him. Sam ended up signing a deal with Danniels, recognizing him as the manager for only the upcoming Balance album and tour, nothing else. Sammy's contract called for Ray to make 17 percent of net, not gross, like he originally wanted. Eddie and Alex Van Halen gave him the same percentage across the board for everything.
On October 2, 1994, Eddie Van Halen made the daring statement that he was giving up alcohol for good. The announcement was met with considerable skepticism considering the fact the guitarist had failed three previous attempts to go into rehab to kick his habit. With the help of a therapist, he boldly declared his days of drinking were a thing of the past.
"Eddie's affair had a lot to do with him making that statement," noted
Hagar. "Valerie had been trying to get Eddie to quit drinking forever.
When that incident happened, she had an ace on her. She said, 'Now,
you're going to stop drinking. You are going to straighten up, or I'm
leaving you.' Now I'm not quoting what I heard, I'm telling you that's
what happened. Listen, I don't blame Valerie for taking a stance like
that. She was the one positive influence in his life. For years, she
had been trying to get him to stop drinking, and she absolutely refused to let him smoke in the house. Despite her best efforts though, Eddie just started hiding his activities and went into the closet.
The way 1994 had been going for Hagar, he never knew what to expect when he answered his telephone at any of his homes. Perhaps the biggest surprise call he received came from Mo Austin, the legendary head of Warner Bros. He phoned the Hagar residence in Mill Valley to let Sammy know that he was stepping down as president of the label. Austin had been forced out in a boardroom coup, orchestrated at corporate headquarters in New York. He was leaving the company he'd built into a powerhouse with his second in command, Lenny Waronker, at the first of the year.
Mo told Sam that Leffler always tried to put a key man clause in his contracts that stated if Mo and Lenny left Warner Bros., his clients were automatic free agents.
"Mo came to the studio shortly after he called me," announced Sammy, "to listen to the record. He sat in a room with Ray, Eddie, Alex and myself and said, 'If you guys would do me a favor, can we get this record out by November?' He was looking straight at me when he said that. We said, 'Wow, that's pretty quick, but yeah, it's possible.' He said, 'If you can get this record out this year before I quit, I promise you I'll make this the biggest record that you've ever had. I will almost guarantee you an extra million records sold.' Now Mo wanted our record out during his last quarter because he got a percentage. We knew that, but at the same time, he was giving us an opportunity of a lifetime." With all the upheaval going on at Warner Bros. over Austin's forced departure, artists like Eric Clapton, Madonna and R.E.M threatened to leave the label.
On the Balance promo tour in the UK, the band was confronted by their attorney and accountant.
Stamler proceeded to tell Hagar, that right before the "For Unlawful
Carnal Knowledge" album came out in 1991, Ed Leffler had gone to the band's music publishers, Warner/Chappell, and negotiated a new deal. The new contract called for Van Halen to receive a $4.5
million publishing advance per studio album. In order to close the lucrative deal, Leffler had put the entire Van Halen catalog up as collateral including the first six albums with David Lee Roth. According to Michael Karlin's figures, the "For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge" album had recouped most of the advance, about $3.5 million. "OU812" had brought in $700,000; "5150" around $50,000; and the old Van Halen catalog with Roth, $300,000. "Ray Danniels," charged Hagar, "had stumbled upon the deal when he was going over the various contracts Leffler had put together before he died. He thought he'd found some hidden financial chicanery on Ed's part, and informed the brothers. Because I was so close to Ed Leffler, Ray told the
brothers I knew about this publishing agreement. No one in the band had any idea this had taken place, least of all, myself. I swear to God on that. Only Leffler and our accountant knew anything about this publishing deal.
Gary asked me what I knew about it, and I said, "Wow, I had no idea." Alex said, "Sam, you never knew?"I said, "You fucking A I never knew about this. I'd never wanted to take money that wasn't
mine."First off, it wasn't that much money. I had made millions of dollars for this band. I didn't need to cheat anyone out of $300,000." The startling news reminded Sammy of a conversation he had with Ed Leffler, two years earlier, right after the "Live: Right Here, Right Now" album was released. He was supposed to get a separate $80,000 publishing check from Van Halen for two of his songs on the two-disc set, "Give to Live" and "One Way to Rock." Over the years, Van Halen often performed the tunes live, with Hagar's "One Way
to Rock" becoming somewhat of an adoptive signature piece for the group. When a separate check for his songs never arrived at Nine Music, the publishing company he created for his music, Sammy started making some inquiries to its whereabouts. The answer the singer finally received stunned him. The monies had been
deposited directly into Van Halen's bank account instead of delivered to him, per Ed Leffler's instructions. "I was puzzled by this odd transaction and went to Ed for an explanation," he responded. "Leffler told me, "Sam, don't worry about it. You are in good shape.
END OF PART 1
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