New Michael Anthony pic with "Van Halen"

[Nitro Express]

I agree somewhat with the essence of what you're saying.

I definitely agree Roth's just too old to front Van Halen anymore. Not nearly well enough to get me to go see them. And if he's not able to front Van Halen well enough for that, I can't see where he's gonna be any better fronting some EEAS hypothetical reunion. Yeah, his prime WAS a long time ago. Truth be told, it basically ended around 1991. He pulled himself together admirably for the 2007/2008 tour, but it's been downhill since then. Even in terms of giving interesting interviews, the few extended ones he has done via various satellite shows over the last several years leave me with much the same feeling I got watching him perform in 2012 and 2015: I've seen and heard all of this before, and done quite a bit better.

I don't think much more or any less about Hagar musically than I always have, even way back before he joined Van Halen, which is to say not much one way or the other. Hagar has been able to parlay what I'd consider to be an average amount of talent into a lucrative career, so I suppose there is something to be said for that.

I will liken Roth to a once great athlete. You can't beat Mother Nature. Age takes it's toll no matter how much you work out and train. It's nobody's fault and there is nobody to blame. Dave got old. Simple as that.

I think what really pissed the classic VH fans off was Sammy started slinging mud at Dave. I think if that didn't happen Sammy would have been bashed less. I see Sam more as a enthusiastic go getter. I think he's limited as a musical artist but the guy has drive and he has charisma. I just have to chuckle at it all. The whole soap opera and all the characters in it. It is what it is.

[Jetstream]

Van Halen now with Roth is not very social and Van Hagar was not very social or is Samuel now. Sam is not interacting with anyone when he does his shit, he is on an agenda to make money and not a damn thing he says sounds sincere when he talks about fun. Sammy is not social, he talks only when his agenda is in front of him, because to be social you have to listen and he does not. Roth was once social, but now he is a recluse (though still a very smart motherfucker, with a ton of knowledge now which has no bearing now on rock music) and seems very uncomfortable when off the big stage and falls back on the same things and quotes he has been saying for ages likes a security blanket. Edward is, well a complete introverted social train wreck to put it mildly, and Alex is like some shady mafia guy who did not make boss and his younger brother did, so he just stays loyal and supports whatever nonsense comes out of Edward's mouth. Wolf is a quiet nerd, that simple with probably issues about being a fat kid and living in his dad's shadow... oh and Mikey, not very bright which makes for bad social skills which hilariously gets misinterpreted as him being the quiet 'take the high road' guy which is complete nonsense in my opinion

So what am I saying... Van Halen, better on drugs when their minds cannot dictate how removed they are lol

[bantonelli]

Whether the pic is recent or old, Bassplayer is sitting next to an old VH case... He's going to be on Mark Thompson's Birthday Bash in LA first weekend in Feb. '16 - maybe he's practicing for that event. Actually his hairline looks receding.... guess it is recent. The VH case means NADA.

[Terry]

I will liken Roth to a once great athlete. You can't beat Mother Nature. Age takes it's toll no matter how much you work out and train. It's nobody's fault and there is nobody to blame. Dave got old. Simple as that.

I think what really pissed the classic VH fans off was Sammy started slinging mud at Dave. I think if that didn't happen Sammy would have been bashed less. I see Sam more as a enthusiastic go getter. I think he's limited as a musical artist but the guy has drive and he has charisma. I just have to chuckle at it all. The whole soap opera and all the characters in it. It is what it is.

It was just bad form for all of the members of Van Halen to engage in slagging off Roth in 1986. Having said that, it was one thing to hear it coming from the Van Halens and Anthony, but when Hagar added his two cents in it was definitely a WTF reaction from me. WTF in terms of wondering what Hagar had ever done in his career up to 1985 to even give him the idea that his output was in the same league as what CVH had done. I think a lot of it was just reactionary on Hagar's part, because Roth was pretty unsparing in how he felt about Hagar. It would have taken a lot for Hagar to have taken the high road and remained silent. I can't even remember with Roth and Hagar who started making comments about the other first, and honestly who even cares at this point?

The last 20 years of Van Halen's career, for me, has sadly been a case of where the offstage speculation and non-musical drama between former and current members has become more interesting than the musical output. Sad in that when CVH were active the music trumped all that peripheral nonsense. And the years between the 1996 reunion and the 2007 tour were just a blown opportunity. Particularly 1996. That was Van Halen's last, best chance to do something really worthy on the level of what CVH had put out, and it went down in flames due to ego and control issues. What has transpired since 2007 is probably the best that could have been expected considering the toll age and various addictions have taken.

[Seshmeister]

It was just bad form for all of the members of Van Halen to engage in slagging off Roth in 1986. Having said that, it was one thing to hear it coming from the Van Halens and Anthony, but when Hagar added his two cents in it was definitely a WTF reaction from me. WTF in terms of wondering what Hagar had ever done in his career up to 1985 to even give him the idea that his output was in the same league as what CVH had done. I think a lot of it was just reactionary on Hagar's part, because Roth was pretty unsparing in how he felt about Hagar. It would have taken a lot for Hagar to have taken the high road and remained silent. I can't even remember with Roth and Hagar who started making comments about the other first, and honestly who even cares at this point?

I think it started with Hagar saying that Roth's singing on the Pretty Woman single was embarassing to which Roth answered back 'I know why Sammy sings so many songs about cars, I've seen his wife.' After Hagar joined the Van Halens though Roth took the high ground and said nothing for many months, maybe a year, while the 4 of them bitched in every interview.

[DONNIEP]

Ah, it was understandable that Mike and the VH faggity brothers were talking shit about Dave after the split. It would be kinda like the Panthers making it to the Super Bowl and the quarterback up and quits the day before the game. Dave split and left them high and dry. Of course, Ed couldn't see that his complete refusal to work was one of the main reasons Roth split. But it's kinda like when your old lady runs off and everybody thought y'all were a great couple but the truth was the complete opposite. Most guys look around and say well fuck her, it was all her fault anyway. Typical denial. But in this case Ed and Al had the media up their asses and they took every opportunity to tell everybody just how much Dave sucked and how awesome their new singer was. Which became Ed's pattern thereafter - Gary is my brother! This is the best version of VH!

Then you toss Slappy in the mix, he already didn't like Dave, and so he jumped on the bandwagon with the brothers and Mike. Nothing surprising there.

People forget that Dave was already hinting that he was gonna split before it went down. His whole hot dog or little weenie comments were just that. Bottom line was they were all idiots. These guys had it all and could have dominated rock throughout the 80s and after. But instead they all cried about how the other guy got too much attention and how this guy was a dick. People always say Sammy killed Van Halen. Nah, Ed, Al, Dave, and Mike killed Van Halen.

[Von Halen]

I don't know how close the release dates of the EEAS and 5150 albums were, but I think they came out at roughly the same time. I've never bought the bullshit that Ed refused to work. He was able to get a new singer, and come out with an album as fast as Dave did. But wait, wasn't it always claimed that a lot of the 5150 album was done while Dave was in the band, or for Dave as the singer? If that's the case, how could Ed have not been working?

[DLR Bridge]

I don't know how close the release dates of the EEAS and 5150 albums were, but I think they came out at roughly the same time. I've never bought the bullshit that Ed refused to work. He was able to get a new singer, and come out with an album as fast as Dave did. But wait, wasn't it always claimed that a lot of the 5150 album was done while Dave was in the band, or for Dave as the singer? If that's the case, how could Ed have not been working?

It's not that he didn't work, it's how much less productive he had become. He worked alone at night and slept all day. The creative well was heading towards empty and it was more fun for him to abuse his liver than work on music during more normal working hours with the rest of the band. As far as being able to get a singer goes, if it was as simple as talking to the Lamborghini mechanic, that didn't take a whole lotta effort.

[DONNIEP]

5150 dropped in March and EEAS dropped in July.

Dave has said repeatedly that when they were working on the follow up to 1984, him and Ted would sit out back at Ed's day after day while Ed refused to come down from his house, probably because he was stoned or drunk or both. So it's always been Dave's contention that Ed refused to work on the new record.

What's interesting is that Mike mentioned in an interview that when they did get together to work on the record, Dave would find any excuse to get all pissed off and go work with his new band. Now, it appears Mike may have meant the guys Dave was working with to work up the songs for the CFTH movie soundtrack, since the movie studio didn't close its doors until October of '85. So it would seem that both Dave and VH had a good bit of music worked up for their respective albums prior to Dave splitting.

I cannot remember exactly when Sam joined VH. For some reason I'm thinking late summer '85. Now, Sammy has said when he came in they had parts of songs already. So obviously Ed had been working on some stuff. But when Sam came in, the band had zero sense of direction and no idea what to do next. Sam came in, him and Ed gave each other the reach around, and they started cranking out finished songs pretty damn quickly. Of course this was going on between Ed and Al passing out daily while they were working OR Ed being too fucked up to work. Sam said when Ed was too fucked up to work he'd just say ok we'll hit it again tomorrow.

Now, Ed's all jazzed up cause Sammy's in the band and the creative shit is flowing, and yet he can't keep it together long enough to work on a regular basis. Back up six or eight months when Dave was in the band and I can see Ed not coming down to work when Dave and Ted are there ready to go. If he couldn't keep it together to work with his new soul mate, I don't see him making any real effort to work with the singer guy he hated. Plus Ed liked to work late at nite after her slept off the booze from the nite before.

So what we have here is Dave's claims that Ed didn't want to work, backed up by his shitty work ethic after they got a new singer. Was Dave exaggerating or looking for a reason to throw up his hands and say "See?? This fucker won't even come down to cut the new record. I'm outta here!!" Probably. Actually it's highly likely this was the case. And who could blame the guy? He was the single biggest rock star on the planet, had a movie deal and a new record to crank out, and he'd already seen he could put out a four song EP that sold over a million copies right out of the gate. And three of the songs were stuff most VH fans had never even heard before and were completely unlike anything Van Halen had done. So he's got the world waiting on him and figures he doesn't need these guys or the hassle and he wants to take advantage of the momentum.

Anyway, that's my take on the whole Ed refused to work story Dave always told. There's a lot of truth to it, but it was also an excuse to do his own thing without the rest of the band.

[VAiN]

I think that's a pretty fair assessment there.. I know Ed was playing the main riff to good enough in new haven on the 84 tour.. You can pretty clearly tell which songs on 5150 were for Dave-VH, IMO...

[DONNIEP]

I think that's a pretty fair assessment there.. I know Ed was playing the main riff to good enough in new haven on the 84 tour.. You can pretty clearly tell which songs on 5150 were for Dave-VH, IMO...

Yeah, exactly. Aside from the lyrics, I wonder just how different the songs would have been had Dave worked on them rather than Slappy. Sam's said that he had to take Ed's bits and pieces of music and turn them into songs and I think Dave has said the same thing. There's an interview with Al and Ed from right after Gary joined where Ed talks about how much he hates DTNA because it was Dave's idea to change it to have the whole Latin vibe. Things like that have always made me wonder if - as Sammy has said - Ed just shows up with riffs and bits of music and then Dave, and later Sam, had to turn those pieces into full blown songs.

This is one of the reasons I wish they'd do a Classic Albums series of shows. I've always wanted to know all the little details of how those songs came together, aside from the ones they already basically had in the can before they walked into the studio. And when I talk about releasing the old stuff, I'm talking about any video they shot in the studio while they were recording too. If there is any.

[chuckjitsu]

5150 dropped in March and EEAS dropped in July.

Dave has said repeatedly that when they were working on the follow up to 1984, him and Ted would sit out back at Ed's day after day while Ed refused to come down from his house, probably because he was stoned or drunk or both. So it's always been Dave's contention that Ed refused to work on the new record.

What's interesting is that Mike mentioned in an interview that when they did get together to work on the record, Dave would find any excuse to get all pissed off and go work with his new band. Now, it appears Mike may have meant the guys Dave was working with to work up the songs for the CFTH movie soundtrack, since the movie studio didn't close its doors until October of '85. So it would seem that both Dave and VH had a good bit of music worked up for their respective albums prior to Dave splitting.

I cannot remember exactly when Sam joined VH. For some reason I'm thinking late summer '85. Now, Sammy has said when he came in they had parts of songs already. So obviously Ed had been working on some stuff. But when Sam came in, the band had zero sense of direction and no idea what to do next. Sam came in, him and Ed gave each other the reach around, and they started cranking out finished songs pretty damn quickly. Of course this was going on between Ed and Al passing out daily while they were working OR Ed being too fucked up to work. Sam said when Ed was too fucked up to work he'd just say ok we'll hit it again tomorrow.

Now, Ed's all jazzed up cause Sammy's in the band and the creative shit is flowing, and yet he can't keep it together long enough to work on a regular basis. Back up six or eight months when Dave was in the band and I can see Ed not coming down to work when Dave and Ted are there ready to go. If he couldn't keep it together to work with his new soul mate, I don't see him making any real effort to work with the singer guy he hated. Plus Ed liked to work late at nite after her slept off the booze from the nite before.

So what we have here is Dave's claims that Ed didn't want to work, backed up by his shitty work ethic after they got a new singer. Was Dave exaggerating or looking for a reason to throw up his hands and say "See?? This fucker won't even come down to cut the new record. I'm outta here!!" Probably. Actually it's highly likely this was the case. And who could blame the guy? He was the single biggest rock star on the planet, had a movie deal and a new record to crank out, and he'd already seen he could put out a four song EP that sold over a million copies right out of the gate. And three of the songs were stuff most VH fans had never even heard before and were completely unlike anything Van Halen had done. So he's got the world waiting on him and figures he doesn't need these guys or the hassle and he wants to take advantage of the momentum.

Anyway, that's my take on the whole Ed refused to work story Dave always told. There's a lot of truth to it, but it was also an excuse to do his own thing without the rest of the band.

Do you know the time frame when Dave recorded EEAS? I always guessed they recorded it in spring of '86, but that's just a guess and I've never seen any specific dates as to when they were in the studio.

I remember reading somewhere that they had Good Enough and Summer Nights in some form when Dave was still in the band. Good Enough is one of a handful of Samburglar era tunes I would've enjoyed seeing what Dave could've come up with lyrically/vocally as I've always enjoyed the music part of that song.

If the VH Rising guy ever does a sequel, I'd love for it to cover the Dave era. I've always felt that the breakup story was incomplete and there's more detail there than we've heard. I think there is some truth in the typical narrative -Dave got tired of waiting for the Van Halens to get off their substance influenced asses and do something; the Van Halens were sick of Dave's arrogance/ego and he wanted to be a movie star- but I've always felt there was more that we've never heard.

What about the '07 reunion? Ed had spent 8 years with his thumb up his ass to that point and seemed content with that, so what motivated him to finally get off his ass and do something? And why Dave? He's EVH and could've done whatever he wanted with whomever he wanted, yet he reunites with Dave, a guy he's never really liked, "Dave doesn't want to be my friend" bullshit aside. I'd love to get more info on this stuff.

[DONNIEP]

Do you know the time frame when Dave recorded EEAS? I always guessed they recorded it in spring of '86, but that's just a guess and I've never seen any specific dates as to when they were in the studio.

I remember reading somewhere that they had Good Enough and Summer Nights in some form when Dave was still in the band. Good Enough is one of a handful of Samburglar era tunes I would've enjoyed seeing what Dave could've come up with lyrically/vocally as I've always enjoyed the music part of that song.

If the VH Rising guy ever does a sequel, I'd love for it to cover the Dave era. I've always felt that the breakup story was incomplete and there's more detail there than we've heard. I think there is some truth in the typical narrative -Dave got tired of waiting for the Van Halens to get off their substance influenced asses and do something; the Van Halens were sick of Dave's arrogance/ego and he wanted to be a movie star- but I've always felt there was more that we've never heard.

What about the '07 reunion? Ed had spent 8 years with his thumb up his ass to that point and seemed content with that, so what motivated him to finally get off his ass and do something? And why Dave? He's EVH and could've done whatever he wanted with whomever he wanted, yet he reunites with Dave, a guy he's never really liked, "Dave doesn't want to be my friend" bullshit aside. I'd love to get more info on this stuff.

I can't remember when the guys were in the studio actually recording EEAS. And I can't remember when Dave auditioned Vai and then all the drummers. I'm guessing it would have been after the movie studio folded in October of '85, since Dave would have had to form a band at that point and actually make a record. Dave has said that all the songs on the record were written for the movie but we know that's typical Dave exaggerating because Vai has discussed the writing process for at least some of the songs and Sheehan brought one with him.

So I'd guess they recorded it in late '85 and into early '86. It wasn't all put down at once because they recorded it in NY and California. Another question is when did Ted start working with them on the record? And why did the record company wait until July to release it? The tour didn't kick off until the middle of August, so maybe they timed the record drop to be near the start of the tour. Maybe the logistics of putting the tour schedule together pushed the record release back or it wasn't finished until June or who knows what. Hell, maybe Warner didn't want it coming out too close to VH's record in March. The only person here I can think of who might know is Scraps.

[Von Halen]

Well, you Dave apologists can cuntinue to absolve Dave from any responsibility in the demise of Van Halen, but I'm not buying the bullshit. All Ed has ever done is sit in his fucking studio and make music. So, in late '84 early '85 he just decided to stop? But yet he came out with an album a mere 2 months after Dave quit the band? Dave sat on David Letterman in January of 1985, and told Dave they'd have an album out in 1985. Guess what? Ed did have one out in '85. Barely two fucking months after Dave's appearance on Letterman. Sure as fuck doesn't sound to me like a guy that isn't doing any work! Oh wait, Hagar came in and recorded the album in the middle of the night, because that's the only time Ed would work, right?

Yeah boy. Dave was busting his fucking ass. Putting out an EP of cover songs, and working on a movie deal that never came to fruition.

We should change the name of this site to The DLR Salad Tossing Army.

[Von Halen]

EEAS and 5150 came out in '86? Okay, then I amend my above statements about 2 months. But Ed still did an album before Dave did.

Who gives a fuck anyway? Both fucking albums sucked ass.