PunBB
Van Halen - Printable Version

+- PunBB (https://punbb.in)
+-- Forum: General Discussion - Hipbase.com (https://punbb.in/forumdisplay.php?fid=4)
+--- Forum: Non Tragically Hip Discussion (https://punbb.in/forumdisplay.php?fid=9)
+--- Thread: Van Halen (/showthread.php?tid=2003)

Pages: 1 2

Van Halen - hipkid33 - 04-28-2004

So, what do y'all think?

Van Hagar for me. I prefer the more mature Halen of that era, don't get me wrong though, Van Roth was great.

Van !choke! Cherone !choke! - Don't get me started! :x

- cnesbit - 04-28-2004

Roth for sure...

"Running with the Devil" is classic.

:twisted:

- jen - 04-28-2004

Definitely old Van Halen/David Lee Roth for me...

1984 is a classic 8)

- arseface88 - 04-30-2004

My position is that Van Hagar is good but Van Roth is classic, and deservedly so. I can't stand the Hagar era power ballads. Pure eighties cheeze. But the For Unwanted Carnal Knowledge record was great. I hope they actually make a new album after the tour.

- BuffaloHipFan - 06-08-2004

Eddie messed up the band. It went down hill in '86 without Roth.

- tommygunn - 03-19-2006

Did a search, and felt this was the most appropriate place to post this...

It's a rather long Michael Anthony interview, but quite a good read.

My thoughts...

Michael Anthony is such a classy guy, always great to the fans.

It's too bad Roth and the VH brothers are such assholes and egomaniacs.

This comment about Dave and the RNR Hall of Fame made me laugh..
"But I tell you it would be one damn interesting show when they ask
us to get together and play for the induction ceremony.
I know Dave; he'll be there a week ahead of the show just waiting."

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Published in Japan, Burrn! magazine is famous for their worldwide exclusive interviews.
VAN HALEN bassist Michael Anthony was
interviewed in February 2006 for the April issue, which is out now.
Anthony was interviewed by the magazine's U.S. correspondent John
"Shooter" Harrell for their exclusive story. Unfortunately, the
magazine is only printed in Japanese, but MelodicRock.com is
currently offering a few highlights from the interview —
translated from Japanese.

On the VAN HALEN 2004 reunion tour:

"Well, in general the reunion tour was great because it had been since
1998 that we played as VAN HALEN anywhere and it doesn't take very
long for me after we finish a tour, it only takes a matter of weeks
before I'm ready to get up and play in front of people again. So in
that respect it was great getting out there and playing again and you
know it's like when everybody got back together again, from outward
appearances everything seemed fine but we had a few bumps because old
things came back up again from time to time on the road between Sammy
and Eddie so it was a little bit shaky. Actually the tour didn't end
with as much fanfare as I would have liked it to or hoped it would but
we got through it."

On the new business arrangements within the band for the 2004 reunion:

"I was not going to just sit home and do nothing and that kind of
upset the VAN HALEN brothers for whatever reason I can't understand
myself. But basically when this whole reunion thing started Ed really
didn't want me to be part of it. I don't know how he was going to call
it a reunion (laughs) but I basically had to work out a deal with
Irving Azoff's management company in order to be part of this thing. I
kind of sucked it up a bit and I made less money but the way I looked
at it was, if this possibly was the last tour that VAN HALEN would
ever do then I'd be kicking myself because I wasn't a part of it and I
want to be a part of it, even more so than the money so I sucked it
all up and came on and did it. I did it for the fans."

On making the reunion happen and previous reunion attempts with David
Lee Roth:

"I used to needle Sam a bit and say hey, it'd be great (getting back
together). We tried to make this thing work with Roth three times and
each time it was even worse than the time before. We tried to do a new
album with him and his ego just wouldn't let it happen and the third
time that we tried to do it with him was more like, let's see if we
can just play some dates and just get along with him and he still for
some reason couldn't humble himself enough to just being one of the
guys again here. Sammy was out here at a relative's wedding I think
staying down at the beach and he actually called Al. So Al went down
and met with him and they hung out for the whole day and got along
great and at that point then it was just kind of like well, 'Let's see
what we can do as far as putting Sam and Ed back together.' I knew
that Al wanted to get out and play again too because he basically had
done nothing because the only person that he plays with is Ed. He
doesn't get out and jam with anybody else. So one thing led to another
and then (laughs) there was my involvement. You know, I'm the guy who
kind of helped put this thing together and then Ed didn't even want me
to be a part of it (laughs). I thought it was kind of funny."

And on the 2004 tour and tensions within the band:

"We got along great. Obviously, there was tension between the
brothers, basically Ed and Sammy's tequila thing, because he was never
happy about that, the whole Cabo Wabo thing. And a lot of these arenas
that we were playing in sold Cabo Wabo and even though that really had
nothing to do with Sammy because he sells to people and then the
buildings, the venues buys the stuff and Sammy doesn't sell to them.
So I think Ed would get a little put off when he'd see a lot of Cabo
Wabo banners up around the arenas and sometimes that would even create
some tension onstage and offstage. There were nights where you know
you have that after the show flight on the jet and things would
sometimes be a little tense on that plane and without getting into any
great detail there came a point to where we actually split it up and
we traveled on two different jets; Eddie and Al would fly on one jet
and Sammy and I would fly on another. This was only to keep the peace
and that sucks just like anything else that even turns into a big
business you know, sports or anything. A lot of times you almost lose
the reason in the first place of why you got into doing it you know,
making music and getting laid (laughs) and it all turns into big
business. It got to the point to where I couldn't even see this thing
going on much longer without either somebody blowing up on somebody or
whatever. So Sammy finally said, 'I'm not doing any more dates because
this is just not working.' When we first started out I was fully ready
to do it because I thought we were going to go to Japan, Europe, South
America, you know, do the thing that we should have done, like, big
band reunites but unfortunately that wasn't going to be.

"[Ed] did not want Sammy doing any promoting of his stuff at all using
the VAN HALEN name but a lot of that you don't have any control over.
I came out with a hot sauce about the same time we were putting the
tour together and the local radio station here in Los Angeles, KLOS,
they would talk about the tour and then they would talk about my hot
sauce. Well the brothers caught wind of that and they thought that I
had my people, as they would say 'my people,' calling the radio
station and telling them to pump my hot sauce on VAN HALEN's dime here
or whatever and they finally asked me to have my people 'cease and
desist,' I remember that distinctly. But I didn't have a damn thing to
do with that and I have no control over what the radio station said.
In fact, gee isn't this one of the benefits that you're supposed to
reap from all these years of success that you can be able to go off
and do something like that and promote something? They went on and
they (the brothers) had their lawyers call every radio station that we
were going to play at in every city and told them specifically they
were not to mention Cabo Tequila or my Mad Anthony's Hot Sauce in the
same sentence with VAN HALEN!"

On Eddie's son Wolfgang joining the band on tour:

"Oh it was great. I think he has grown up to be a great kid. I think
he's a great player and he jumped up there on the drums a few times
during sound check and shit the kid can play drums too you know!"

On VAN HALEN's failure to be nominated for the Rock N Roll Hall Of
Fame:

"I would have thought that we would have been nominated, voted in and
inducted the first year that we were eligible, which would have been
like 3 years ago or something like that. But for whatever reasons they
have, maybe a lot of the people that vote you in are looking at the
drama that this band has gone through and figured well, they don't
deserve it yet. I don't know, but that's the only thing that I can
come up with. Other than that it's like I have no idea. But I tell you
it would be one damn interesting show when they ask us to get together
and play for the induction ceremony. I know Dave; he'll be there a
week ahead of the show just waiting."

On the last time he saw David Lee Roth:

"It was when him and Sammy toured together, what is that, four years
ago now? He would kind of pull his hat down and just walk by me
because I tell you one of the first shows that I did with those guys I
forget where we were at but I had a few drinks and I went into Dave's
dressing room after the show and I just unloaded on him, on what was
his problem that we could not make this reunion work? And all he kept
saying was, you're right, you're right. I told him, look at them out
there; when you go out there and this is the beginning of the tour and
he actually impressed me at the beginning of the tour but as the tour
went on boy by the last show they didn't even do the last show of the
tour that I was out there because they couldn't do it; Dave just
started pulling shenanigans left and right. Most nights Sammy and I
would pound on his door and say come on out and numerous times invited
him to come out onstage and do an encore, all three of us together but
it never happened."

On recording a new album with Roth:

"We were going to do videos for the songs [on the 'Best Of Volume 1']
and everything but Roth was really trying to take control and we
finally just said, let's not even do the videos for these songs
because he's going to kill the whole thing and so it fell apart. But
yeah, before that tour yeah, we tried to make it work. We went into
the studio and it was kind of funny because we first got together in
the studio and we were all in the one room together and we did 'Hot
For Teacher', 'Mean Street' and a few other songs and it's the
weirdest thing because once we started playing it was like, son of a
bitch, there it is, that's the magic! It was like a big déjà vu
because it was the original band playing again and it sounded pretty
fuckin' good too! But then of course the longer we spent in the
studio, you know we had two or three different producers in there
trying to work with us and Dave would just come in with tapes of the
CHEMICAL BROTHERS, all different kinds of weird stuff and say 'Hey,
let's do a song like this,' and Ed was having a hard time dealing with
him, a real hard time dealing with him and Al was saying, 'Well, let's
do a couple of things that Roth likes to do and then let's just do our
thing.' I don't know if we had a complete album's worth of stuff but
we were pretty damn close and unfortunately, there you go with Dave
again and we just couldn't finish it and all those old reasons why he
left the band in the first place they started surfacing you know. He
went right back to his old ways. I mean even if you just wanted to
look at it purely look at it from a money standpoint that guy was
hurting for money. And it was like Dave, I mean he couldn't even put
his ego aside if he wanted to go out and make $50 million and you know
you've got a pretty large ego when you're going to give that all up
even just because you don't get your way on something. I couldn't
understand it."

On those new tunes with Dave:

"For the most part it was actually pretty good. I don't think Ed would
ever let it out though. I've got some demo stuff at home, they didn't
even really want me to take any stuff home but I ended up with some
stuff at home anyway. I'd never do anything behind the other guys'
backs with any of it so it'll just sit in my box in the archives and
maybe one of my grandkids or grandkid's boyfriends will put something
out one day (laughs) or steal it (laughs)."

On the "Best Of Both Worlds" compilation and those three new songs:

"You know when we did the 'Best Of Both Worlds' we had problems with
Roth because of what he wanted and didn't want on the CD, how much he
wanted to get paid and so on. So there was a point to where we were
just going to say okay Dave, if that's the way you want it, we had
some live versions of some of the old VAN HALEN songs and we were just
going to tell Dave, 'Okay if that's the way you want it we won't even
put you on this record, you won't make a dime off it!' I mean, he was
being difficult on that thing and what we wanted to do was the one
disc with Sammy and the other disc with Dave plus the three new songs
and Dave was even making that difficult but in the end he folded. I
think he was just trying to pull a power play. Bad stuff (laughs). I
knew that we weren't going to do a whole new album with Sammy on this
reunion thing. The time that it was taking in the studio to do these
three songs it would have taken us a couple of years to do an entire
album. And like I said, once it started to get put together Irving
Azoff really pushed it, speeded us along to get us out there and so it
just turned out to be well, let's just do these three songs. And to
tell you the truth and I'll say this for the record: I didn't play
bass on any of those three songs on there. I wasn't even in the band
yet when those three songs were done. I came aboard and I sang
backgrounds on them but the music was already done and I wasn't even
back in the band as far as the reunion part of it yet when the music
was done. So that was kind of tough for me but it's like hey, it is
what it is and I don't think Ed really talked about it much but if
anybody asks me I'm not embarrassed to say that I didn't play bass on
them because I wasn't part of the band at that point."

On the difference between Roth and Hagar:

"There was magic with both of them. Once Hagar joined the band he
brought a new level of musicianship to the band and like Eddie always
use to say, he could play anything that he wanted now because Sammy
could sing anything. He (Sammy) definitely had a better range. When
Sammy joined the band that's when I really had to start working on the
backgrounds; the background vocals were a little bit more, uh, not
tougher but with Dave there was never any problem singing backgrounds
because he didn't have a huge range like Sammy did. I think and there
was still magic with Dave too because I mean a lot that we did back
then was really cutting edge from Ed's guitar playing to all these
little clones that Dave spawned...they were all there because all
these guys wanted to be him."

On the current status of VAN HALEN:

"Well, never say never but we're currently in a state of limbo. After
the reunion tour ended so abruptly we all went into our own corners
and truthfully Ed doesn't want to tour right now or maybe ever again.
I don't know what he's thinking at this point. So I would say that
we're on a temporary hiatus that possibly could become permanent, you
never know. With that said I realize that's not much of an answer but
that's really where things are right now and tomorrow it could all
change again."

For more excerpts from the interview, visit MelodicRock.com.

- ryan93 - 03-19-2006

As much as i liked Van Roth, it's Van Hagar for me.

- opiated - 03-19-2006

they're all jokes now, but there's some early classic halen that's amazing...fair warning is one of the best rock albums of all time..so for me it's roth

- Lizard King - 03-19-2006

Roth gets my vote as well. I liked the Hagar albums, but the Roth albums are classic, way better songs. Im not even going to mention Cherone...puke!

- RevolutionMan - 03-19-2006

its a shame whats happening right now to this band. greatest rock band ever gone down the tube while they are all still alive.
its very unfortunate that eddie has a massive ego problem, while we all thought roth was the guy. i guess its eddies fault too.

- Ballgame - 03-28-2006

none of these, I have no time for agoles like Eddie. His ego is so big he cant even play anymore. No doubt his playing is amazing but doesnt mean a thing to me. Its sad

- Naga - 04-01-2006

It ain't Van Halen if it don't got Roth.

- robert goulet - 04-12-2006

Van Halen is one of those bands that i just never got into...sort of like ACDC, but even with them I can lay claim to being a fan of a few songs....honestly with Van Halen I can't even say that. I'm not ashamed to say that I couldn't even distinguish a Roth song vs. a Hagar song...sad eh? But....I do respect what they've accomplished throughout the years.

RG

- ikky99 - 06-13-2006

robert goulet Wrote:Van Halen is one of those bands that i just never got into...sort of like ACDC, but even with them I can lay claim to being a fan of a few songs....honestly with Van Halen I can't even say that. I'm not ashamed to say that I couldn't even distinguish a Roth song vs. a Hagar song...sad eh? But....I do respect what they've accomplished throughout the years.

RG

And you still got a star on the Canadian Walk of Fame. For shame sir, for shame!

- GBV - 09-28-2006

I actually love all three. and find all the they-sucked-after-dave-left people to be wallowing in their sad nostalgic i'm-so-old misery. listen to 1984 and it's clear they were going "that sound" (i.e. keyboards) with dave, with sammy or with whoever...