by Ian Christe
While planning to lay low after the strenuous Balance album and tour, the band bought time by working on a movie soundtrack for the tornado picture Twister. With Balance producer Bruce Fairbairn in tow, they began work on two new songs—the pensive and melodic “Humans Being,” and an epic ballad called “Between Us Two.” Though the fee they collected was high for a movie soundtrack, Van Halen could certainly afford to pass on the project if they had known the ultimate effect on the band. “Ray Danniels was always looking for ways to make his cut,” Sammy told The Road. “The guys wanted to do it for some stupid reason.”
The Twister project became its own kind of disaster, a whirling vortex of misplaced priorities and scheduling struggles that tossed the band members through the air and left them miles away from where they began. “We weren’t supposed to work the first half of ’96,” the irritated newlywed Hagar told Guitar World. “Eddie was supposed to get his hip surgery done, Al was supposed to get the vertebrae in his neck fixed so that he wouldn’t have to wear that neck brace all the time and look like a paraplegic, and I was having a baby with my wife.”
Instead, days turned into weeks. No longer drunk and amiable, the newly sober Eddie Van Halen turned into a finicky creative partner. Hagar’s requests to record vocals in Hawaii were nixed by the Van Halen brothers, and he found himself continually leaving his pregnant wife in Hawaii to work with the brothers at 5150 in California. “I finally ended up packing my bags and moving back to my home in San Francisco to have the baby, directly against the plans my wife and I had,” he said.
With priorities scattered to the wind, Van Halen’s story at this point became like the fable of the seven blind men and the elephant, where everyone saw a different, conflicting side. “Sam seemed more focused on his outside projects than he was Van Halen,” Ray Danniels told Pollstar. “And you know what? Ed Leffler probably wouldn’t have allowed that, either.”
With Hagar and Eddie, the relationship had always been easy. They meshed as songwriters and bandmates. The trouble was that when things began to sour, they didn’t have a vocabulary for keeping the pieces together. They could no longer look each other in the eye. The two men screaming the lyrics at each other in the “Humans Being” music video proved all too telling, as a decade of camaraderie came to a close.
Fed up with what they saw as familiar reticence by a singer whose heart was no longer in the band, Eddie finally told Hagar to be at 5150 by six o’clock to continue working on the song “Between Us Two.” By this point, the process had dragged on so long that Eddie had brought in outside lyricists to work the song to his liking.
“No, I did not show up the next day at the studio like he demanded,” Hagar told Guitar World. He was losing patience. “My wife had just gone through a difficult breach birth, and I was staying home to take care of her, period. That’s the sad state of affairs my relationship with Eddie had fallen into.”
The turmoil continued only briefly. After eighteen months of building hard feelings there was no avoiding the collapse. They gave up on “Between Us Two” and only finished “Humans Being” for the soundtrack. A second song, “Respect the Wind,” appeared under the names of Edward and Alex Van Halen—a complete outside work with Alex on piano and his younger brother accompanying.
On Father’s Day, in June 1996, hoping for help putting together a greatest hits album, Eddie called new dad Hagar for one last heart-to-heart talk. When sweet nothings came down to brass tacks, he changed his tune and accused Hagar of behaving like a solo artist, being a stubborn uncooperative partner, and always thinking of himself before the band. Eddie’s wife listened at his side. “Valerie was standing next to me and counted eleven times that I said, ‘Sam, all I ask is that you’re a team player.’ ”
While Eddie came clean with his resentments, Hagar claimed that Eddie also let slip an unbelievable threat: Van Halen were already working with David Lee Roth behind Sammy’s back, exploring the options in case Sam didn’t shape up.
Hagar said he stood with the phone in his hand, sputtering a few incredulous sounds. He and his wife looked at each other—she went pale. Then he recalled telling Eddie, “You, behind my back, are working with Roth? You fucking piece of shit!” He elaborated in a postfight interview with Entertainment Weekly: “Eddie, if what you do with Roth is better than what you and I have been doing, I’ll blow both of you!”
Two weeks later MTV News prematurely reported that Roth was the new singer of Van Halen. On June 26, manager Ray Danniels set the record straight: “Van Halen is in the studio working with original lead singer David Lee Roth. . . . It has also been announced that Sammy Hagar, Van Halen’s vocalist since 1986, is no longer with the group. The band is currently considering a replacement.”
In the opinion of Danniels, who had become Hagar’s nemesis, the situation changed the day Eddie got sober. “Eddie got capable of making judgment calls that he probably let go for many, many years. The boy became a man, and he took his band back. It’s as simple as that.”
Sammy issued his own press release the next day announcing his departure from Van Halen over differences of creative opinion. Even though their official missive led with the Roth bombshell, the others denied that they had met with Roth except to discuss the upcoming greatest-hits record. “Sammy was telling everyone that we were talking to David Lee Roth behind his back, which we weren’t,” Mike said. “He started to attack the band, basically lying. He wants everybody to have sympathy for him, thinking we kicked him out, and that’s not the case.”
“What we thought was kind of odd was that Sammy quit and then got mad,” Alex said. “I’m not a psychiatrist, but there’s something wrong with that.”
“They were in there with David Lee Roth, while I’m changing my new baby’s diapers,” Sammy vented to Billboard.
The band closed ranks against Sammy. Michael Anthony had grown close to Hagar during the past two tours, but throughout the split he remained loyal first to his band. In 1996, Mike didn’t join Hagar in Cabo San Lucas to celebrate his birthday. “Mikey and I have always been great friends,” Hagar said later. “I think the reason he didn’t try to side with me during the breakup is that Ed and Al were out to crucify me, and they had gotten Mike and basically threatened him—‘You side with Sam, and you’re out.’ So I think Mike was just smart enough to pull his head off the chopping block.”
Closely tied to the drama behind Hagar’s departure, Ray Danniels maintained his poor rapport with the singer. “I understand him being upset and angry,” Danniels explained to Pollstar. “This is a guy who somehow managed to blow being a member of the biggest American rock band, period, and he’s smarting. But unfortunately, he’s created the situation for himself.”
The problems between Sammy and the band were not high-flying tabloid fare. The partnership was dissolved over six months of squabbles about movie soundtracks, travel timetables, and whether to do a best-of collection. These were music insider problems, not something normal people could relate to. It was a strangely unfulfilling end to one of the nicest and most lucrative partnerships in rock. After all, Sammy had lasted almost as long as Roth and racked up four number 1 albums. He went out not with a bang but with a flurry of nagging details and resentments.
Van Halen’s next piece of business was releasing a greatest-hits album without sounding their death knell. Sammy had shunned the idea along with Alex, saying that a greatest-hits collection was for bands whose day was done—even though he had just gone down that road himself with Unboxed. Fans were not thrilled about the idea, fretting that the release of a best-of would delay production of a new Van Halen album. With Hagar gone, the argument was over. Van Halen were ready to catalog their greatest hits, juicing the fans by including new music made with Roth.
By late July, Van Halen were officially recording two new songs with the original lineup. Eddie had learned of Roth’s interest while playing golf with their mutual guitar tech Rudy Leiren, a valuable soft channel for communication during the lengthy cold
war. Wasting no time on a respectful mourning period, and showing little interest in appeasing Sammy, Eddie brought Roth to the studio without warning—Alex and Mike were expecting Dave the helpful computer guy to drop by, not Dave Roth. Either afraid they would talk him out of it, aiming for maximum impact, or simply forgetful, Eddie got the original band back together, almost by accident.
From a slush pile of twenty unused songs, Dave chose “Me Wise Magic,” scratching out producer Bruce Fairbairn’s lyrics and bluntly dismissing the suggestion that Desmond Child be called to add some lines. He filled the vocal booth with potted palms to create a “Club Dave” in 5150. Eddie said that Roth humbly thanked him for digging through material to find a suitable second song, “Can’t Get This Stuff No More”—the first time Roth had ever thanked him for anything.
“Me Wise Magic” was a welcome return to Roth’s dark funk, though in the buildup to the chorus he shadowed Hagar by singing too high for his range. “Can’t Get This Stuff” evolved from a rejected song written during the Balance sessions called “The Backdoor Shuffle.” The song was sitting on the back burner when Roth came along and wrote new words and a vocal melody. Sammy claimed that Ray Danniels overnighted him a check for $35,000 and an apology when he cried foul, demanding credit on a song he helped write.
The typically easygoing Michael Anthony was the last member of the band to okay the reconciliation with Roth. Besides being closest to Sammy, Mike had often borne the brunt of the abuse. He hadn’t spoken to Dave in eleven years. “At first I told them I didn’t want to work with Dave and I wouldn’t wanna tour with him,” Mike told Van Halen’s Dutch fan club. “Then we had a meeting with him. It’s funny because he was very humble. He hasn’t got a record contract. He admitted that he has made big mistakes and that he did the wrong thing. He admitted that he has a very big ego. Hopefully he’s better now.”
Roth took several days to nail vocals for the two new songs, and fin-gerprints of studio wizardry were all over the tracks. Still, the songs rekindled the spirit of ’76 without abandoning the lush, flowing musicality of the later records. Eddie had installed a Fernandes Sustainer in his guitar, a special pickup to recirculate string vibrations so each note in his fast, agile noodling could hold indefinitely—or at least as long as Roth could chatter, which was pretty close to indefinitely.
MTV polled a few luminaries from the rock world, and found Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins and Kim Thayil of Soundgarden eager to see a Roth reunion. Chris Cornell of Soundgarden compared the event to Kiss touring again after fifteen years with full makeup. Even Hagar’s Cabo Wabo buddy Jerry Cantrell of Alice in Chains confessed to preferring the Roth lineup.
Needless to say, the record company was pushing hard for the reunion to go further. The opportunity certainly had lucrative potential. The original lineup of Kiss had regrouped earlier in 1996 and was in the throes of a 192-date tour that would ultimately take $43.6 million at the box office, according to Pollstar, making them the runaway top earner of the year. The problem was that Van Halen had enough money already—they were hoping for a more powerful cocktail of money, love, creative freedom, and respect.
In early August, Van Halen still would not rule out a reunion tour, though they were proceeding with extreme caution. “After we’ve finished mixing these songs,” said Mike, “we will be looking for a new singer.” The band seemed vehement about using a brief interlude with Dave as a chance to put the eternal reunion question behind them.
Yet Sammy Hagar later said that Van Halen definitely had a European tour booked with David Lee Roth—he claimed promoters were contacting him to book his solo act in the fall of 1996, hoping to capitalize on runoff business from the monster reunion. “I might send my produce guy,” Hagar told the Los Angeles Times. “If Roth sings one of my songs, he deserves to get a tomato thrown at him.”
Nonetheless, against what all parties involved later said was their better judgment, the original Van Halen bowed to record company pressure and MTV’s enticements. In a move that could only be construed by anyone watching as evidence of a reunion, David Lee Roth and Van Halen agreed to appear together onstage at the MTV Video Music Awards. A montage promo spot featuring footage of the old band and the Welcome Back, Kotter theme hammered home the misconception with a sledge.
As the four men walked onstage, the crowd shot out of its seats. While front-row celebrities like comedian Chris Rock applauded wildly, Roth embraced Eddie before an ecstatic audience. “This is the first time we’ve actually stood onstage together in over a decade,” Roth needlessly reminded the crowd, ad-libbing during the tightly scripted event. Eddie yanked Roth away from the microphone after the ovation so Michael Anthony could read his lines, but the bedazzled singer danced in the background while hapless winner Beck attempted to accept the award they were supposed to present him.
The next few hours were a painful struggle between Roth’s natural push for full-fledged spectacle and the band’s extreme caution. Interviewed by Kurt Loder, the others squirmed uncomfortably while Roth waxed nostalgic. Roth later described the tense demeanor of the others that night as “balled up like angry pill bugs.” During a press meeting, Eddie insisted almost angrily that the band was still looking for singers. Roth piped: “But they’re not going to find anyone better than me!”
Playing it close to the hip, so to speak, Eddie told reporters the only thing sure was that he would undergo hip surgery in the fall. Grimacing, Roth turned on his new friend: “This night’s about me, not your fucking hip!” Ed apologized, but for a moment Eddie and Mike saw Roth again as the band dictator they had hated passionately in 1984. “Yeah, you’d fucking better not!” Roth added.
“We did not tell him he was in the band—period,” Eddie emphatically explained to the press.
Eddie thought he had recently bonded personally with Roth for the first time ever, but moving forward was now impossible. He thanked Van Halen tour manager Scotty Ross for preventing a fistfight. Chances of a full-fledged reunion were scratched. “You don’t treat me or anybody the way Roth did,” Eddie told Guitar. “Because you’ll end up 60 fucking years old without a friend.”
Roth unleashed an open letter on October 2, 1996. He claimed to be completely aware of the limitations of the reunion, that Van Halen were auditioning other singers, and that he was only back for a couple of songs. He also claimed he was against appearing together on camera for the benefit of MTV. He didn’t want the public to get the wrong idea when they were only shaking their hips together this once for a “quickie.”
Then he laid the blame on Eddie, crying betrayal and deception. He believed the band had secretly hired another singer as long as three months earlier and was only stringing him along for the publicity value. “I can’t think of a reason Edward would lie to me about being considered for the lead singer when he had already hired someone, and then let me appear on MTV under the impression that there was great like-lihood that Van Halen and I were reuniting,” he wrote. “If I am guilty of anything, it’s denial. I wanted to believe it just as much as anyone else.”
The next day, Van Halen countered with a press missive that scoffed at Roth and promised to reveal details of their unconfirmed new singer. “We parted company with David Lee Roth 11 years ago for many reasons. In his open letter of October 2, we were reminded of some of them. For the last two weeks, we have been working with someone who we hope will be part of the future of Van Halen, although no final decision can be announced until contractual considerations have been resolved.”
Without waiting for the paperwork to settle, Eddie and Alex appeared on the Mark and Brian morning radio show and announced that their new singer would be Gary Cherone, with more details to come. Ironically, when Cherone’s old band Extreme had opened for Roth’s solo band in 1991, Roth told them they were good enough to someday take the glory away from Van Halen.
That very week, Eddie, Alex, and Michael accepted awards for passing the ten-million mark in record sales with Van Halen. It was an occas
ion that Roth deserved to enjoy, except for the flare-up in renewed animosity. The remaining three members gave a thumbs-up as a plaque commemorating their rise to stardom was embedded in the sidewalk outside the Whisky a Go Go club, where they had often played for $100 a night.
Then in August 1996, Alex announced his divorce from his second wife, Kelly, after two years apart. Alex had been through the wringer before with his brief first marriage, but this time with his six-year-old son, Aric, the split was much more painful. The revelation added another problem to the pile of explanations for the general unhappiness. Complicating everything further, Van Halen’s manager was now Alex’s ex-brother-in-law.
Against all this tumult, even if the band was personally done with Roth, their record label was not. “Me Wise Magic” was released to rock radio on October 7, and its hopefulness already sounded like a regret-tinged farewell. Eddie’s endless tremolo summoned images of something beautiful flying far away. Plans for a voodoo-themed concept music video were scrapped—Roth reportedly hated the idea of using actors, and he nixed a video treatment that diluted him to singing on a big screen behind the three live members of the band. It was too boxed in, seemed totally meaningless, but the band was in no shape to create a new performance video together.
The band refused to be photographed with Roth for magazine stories about the reunion. Small wonder why the initial concept of a double-disc best-of collection celebrating both singers was scrapped. Alex and Eddie now seemed embittered by frontmen as a class. “Sammy is an extremely talented guy,” Alex said, “and Dave in his own way is very talented, but there’s just a couple pieces missing.”
“They’re not from the same planet I’m from,” Eddie agreed.
Dave returned to Miami and his grandmother and resumed rehearsing with the Mambo Slammers. After making so much noise in such a brief time, he remained uncharacteristically silent for the near future.