Everybody Wants Some (29 page)

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 occasion 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.

When
Van Halen
reached RIAA diamond certification in August 1996, marking over ten million copies sold, Van Halen would soon become one of five rock bands with two albums selling over ten million, joining the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, and Def Leppard. More people owned Van Halen’s first album alone than lived in any of the forty least-populated U.S. states. If the album
Van Halen
were a country, it would have roughly as many citizens as Belgium, Portugal, or Greece. Overall, more Americans had paid money for all of Van Halen’s albums combined than typically voted in U.S. presidential elections.

When Van Halen’s
Best of Volume I
was released on schedule on October 22, 1996, the record debuted at the top of the charts—Roth’s long-overdue first number 1 album. It stayed in the Top 10 for all of November, and lingered on the album charts for a year, earning double-platinum awards during 1997. The record company promoted the album with a Willy Wonka–style golden “Wolfgang” ticket packaged in one CD, granting the winner a flight to California to pick up a signed Wolfgang guitar from Eddie.

Eddie kicked more sand on Sammy Hagar’s name in
Rolling Stone
, claiming he became personally embarrassed at how badly Hagar treated
Best of Volume I
producer Glen Ballard, who had just produced Alanis Morissette’s phenomenally successful
Jagged Little Pill
and quit a troubled project with Aerosmith in order to work with Van Halen.

Eddie was also quick to diminish the continued importance of David Lee Roth to Van Halen. Beneath his rock titan armor, he was still bleeding from battle injuries. “No matter what we do, it will never be the same,” he told
The Inside
. “You can’t exhume something like that. The magic is just gone.”

The world was disappointed by the false restart. Having survived the end of L.A. hair metal and the ascension of grunge and hip-hop, now it seemed Van Halen’s only enemy was itself. There were cracks in the mirror, reflecting the ugly possibility that these old rockers were too bitter to reunite for the sake of love, their fans, or even money.

The Van Halen brothers let the razzing from the peanut gallery bother them like, well—milk off a duck’s back. Eddie and Alex topped off the tumultuous year like strong-boned, healthy all-American boys, appearing in a “Got Milk?” ad photographed by Eddie’s old friend Annie Liebowitz. They were the first rockers to appear in a Milk Council ad, then titled “Milk: Where’s Your Mustache?” Alex was pictured bare-chested and strangely drenched in bovine lactations above a caption they apparently hadn’t seen beforehand: “Every time we change singers, we have an extra glass of milk. That way we’re sure to get more than the recommended three glasses a day.”

Still, Eddie gave guitar fans what they had wanted for years, as he stepped outside his band to cross wires with musicians whose gifts equaled his own. He assembled a band for an eight-hour benefit concert on November 17 for Jason Becker—the guitar wunderkind diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease one week after joining David Lee Roth’s band in 1989. Dressed in black berets and wife-beater under-shirts, the so-called Lou Brutus Experience included Eddie Van Halen, his close friend Steve Lukather from Toto on guitar and vocals, Roth sideman Billy Sheehan on bass, and Pat Torpey from Mr. Big on drums. They played “Wipe Out” by the Surfaris, “Little Wing” by Hendrix, “Good Times, Bad Times” by Led Zeppelin, the Beatles’ “She’s So Heavy,” and a unique dual-guitar version of “Ain’t Talkin’ ’Bout Love.” The ridiculous level of musical chops onstage playing three-chord rock songs was like hiring Michelin chefs to make popcorn for a slumber party.

If Eddie would continue branching out, the promise of his life beyond Van Halen could prove very exciting. “It’s like when I did that City of Hope thing recently,” he told
The Inside
, speaking of another impromptu gig he played in October 1996. “Depending on what tune or who you’re playing with, you play differently. And it’s just the interaction with the people you’re with that pushes you to another level.”

The Cheronean Era and Neo-Rothozoic and Neo-Hagarlithic Periods, 1996–2007

• July 26, 1961: Gary Cherone born in Malden, Massachusetts.

• 1985: Cherone’s band the Dream wins MTV’s Basement Tapes.

• June 8, 1990: Extreme’s “More Than Words” single hits number 1.

• April 20, 1992: Gary Cherone joins surviving members of Queen at the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert in London.

• October 4, 1996: Alex and Eddie announce Van Halen’s new singer will be Gary Cherone.

• March 17, 1998: Release of Van Halen III, the first VH studio album not to go platinum.

• November 5, 1999: Gary Cherone leaves Van Halen.

• May 2000: Texas hospital confirms Eddie in outpatient cancer prevention study.

• Summer 2001: Van Halen completes at least three new songs with David Lee Roth.

• January 2002: Van Halen’s partnership with Warner Bros. ends after twenty-three years.

• April 15, 2002: David Lee Roth and Sammy Hagar announce joint forty-date summer concert tour.

• May 2002: Doctors declare Eddie Van Halen cancer-free.

• July 2002: Eddie and Valerie Van Halen announce separation.

• April 2004: Sammy’s Cabo Wabo Cantina opens branch in basement of a Lake Tahoe casino; Cabo Wabo tequila ships over 110,000 cases for the year.

• June 11, 2004: Van Halen launches reunion tour with Sammy Hagar; relations sour by the end of the summer.

• November 19, 2004: Eddie smashes two Peavey Wolfgang guitars, ending his thirteen-year partnership.

• December 6, 2005: Eddie and Valerie officially file for divorce.

• January 2006: David Lee Roth replaces Howard Stern as morning radio DJ; lasts through April.

• September 2006: Eddie Van Halen announces Van Halen will tour in 2007 with his son, Wolfgang, playing bass.

• December 2006: Roth rehearses with a new all–Van Halen lineup.

• March 2007: Van Halen inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

During the grace period between singers, Van Halen seemed to sail right along. Eddie and Alex were nominated for a Grammy in early 1997 for Alex’s piano piece on the
Twister
soundtrack. Eddie also remained central to the guitar industry, and his Peavey EVH Wolfgang won Guitar of the Year from the Guitar Dealers retail association. He increased production and added a lower-priced model for beginning players. Yet for lesser mortals the pantheon of hard rock was crumbling.
Headbangers Ball
had been dumped by MTV, the hot car on the horizon was not a Camaro but a revamped VW Bug, and guitar solos were shunned in popular music like a cause of AIDS.

Dinosaurs became extinct when their environment could no longer sustain them, allowing smaller, quicker animals to take over. Where David Lee Roth failed to send feathers flying in Vegas, in January 1997, the king of schmaltz Pat Boone laughed his way up the charts with a cover of “Panama” on the
In a Metal Mood: No More Mr. Nice
Guy
album. Van Halen should have been deeply worried when a campy, ironic version of their music was considered more fun than the real thing. Young audiences in the late 1990s liked their “rock” with a wink and a nod—like nerdy Chicago indie rockers Weezer, whose “Flying W” logo was a knowing riff on Van Halen’s trademark.

Piling on the chuckles, suburban pop punkers Nerf Herder released “Van Halen” in 1997, a singsong novelty hit that praised
Van Halen
and two-handed tapping, while mocking Roth’s hairline and lamenting Hagar’s lost cool. The Van Halen brothers, Michael Anthony, and Valerie Bertinelli granted permission for their images to be used in the video—which MTV added to regular rotation—but Nerf Herder claimed Hagar called them “faggots” and refused to sign off on the insulting tribute.