Excerpts from Blair R. Fischer’s article appear below.
“How’s Michael Anthony doing?”
That’s the first thing I say to Eddie Van Halen, the legendary guitarist and co-namesake of the rock band Van Halen. Rather, that’s the first thing I say to someone who possibly is, kidding? There’s no way the real Eddie Van Halen’s email address should be available for anyone to find in a public database — and it sure as s–t shouldn’t be an America Online account.
In other words, this can’t be him, which is why the first email I send is something this stupid and slapdash. Those familiar with the history of Van Halen know Anthony — the band’s original bassist — was not so much fired from Van Halen as he was replaced in 2006 with Eddie’s son, Wolfgang, without anyone ever bothering to tell Anthony. At least, that’s how Anthony’s told it. So, my opening line is the type of thing you might see a Van Halen traditionalist hold up on a giant sign at a concert just to troll Anthony’s replacement.
This isn’t just a fan talking. In a former life, I’d been a music journalist, including some time as an editor for Rolling Stone’s website. Back then, I got to interview everyone from Ozzy Osbourne to Diddy. But now it’s 2015, and I’m more than a decade removed from my dream job. Today, as a market researcher for a health-insurance company…
Sending emails like this has become something of a pastime, an exercise in nostalgia when the drudgery of my workday becomes too much to handle. Not long ago, I discovered that an old login I had to LexisNexis — a directory lawyers and journalists use that shows, among other things, a person’s criminal record, residences, phone numbers, and, yes, email addresses — had never been deactivated. After using it to look up a couple of exes, I’d turned to rock stars. On a lark, I’d reached out to who Nexis told me was Gene Simmons, Eddie Vedder, Stevie Nicks, and pretty much every member of the original Guns N’ Roses. But I’d gotten nary a response.
So, I fire off the Michael Anthony email at close to 5 o’clock on Sunday, May 31st, 2015, and figure that’ll be the beginning and end of it. But 51 minutes later: “You’ve Got Mail!” That response kicks off a five–plus-year correspondence that would change my life.
I don’t actually see the email until Monday morning, when I get to work. My insides flutter just a bit.
“Not nearly as good as Wolfgang Van Halen, nor will he ever!! Who the f–k is this, you would know that if you had a brain and ears!!”…
…There is one other thing I notice. Next to the email address is a name: Edward Van Halen.
But, no, it’ll take more than that to catfish me. So I write back immediately, throwing in a reference to Van Halen’s A Different Kind of Truth, which was released three years earlier. It’s their first album featuring David Lee Roth since 1984 (released in the titular year), and seven of its 13 songs have origins that date back to before the band released its self-titled debut in 1978.
“Regardless, you screwed up the classic lineup and, with all due respect to your son, with DLR’s voice in the shi–er, you need Anthony more now than ever. And how ’bout some new music you didn’t write in 1975? You are super lazy…”
…A few hours later, five new emails arrive in my inbox. They’re a bit stream-of-consciousness, filled with rage and incredulity. I speed-read them all.
The writer says they “can’t control Roth’s voice” and mocks my stopgap solution that Anthony rejoin the band to help cover for Roth’s vocal inadequacies. “And now you think Mike is a ‘lead singer,’ ” reads one email. “He sounds like Mickey Mouse. He just has a high voice.” Then they blame Roth for leaving the band originally in 1985 and lament the decision to bring Sammy Hagar in to replace him later that year: “Once Hagar joined it was never the same.”
“This is the last thing I’m going to say,” reads the final email. “When Hagar quit, Mike went with him instead of staying with Alex and me. That was as much of a betrayal as Roth blindsiding us when he quit. We didn’t see either one coming!! All we had was ourselves, Alex and myself. Wolf happened to be there and [it was] fun again. Life is change. I can’t control it any more than you can. If I could, I would change a lot of things starting with never having my first drink and maybe sticking to piano instead of guitar!!”…
…“Damn, OK . . . didn’t mean to get you all riled up,” I respond 21 minutes after the sender’s most recent email. “Maybe Mike was mad b/c VH wasn’t doing anything for years… I mean it took, what, 15 years to do Truth? Just sayin’ . . .”
It works. After saying this would be the “last thing I’m going to say,” the writer says much, much more — enough to more or less confirm that it’s indeed the real Eddie Van Halen. (A representative for Van Halen said the band and Eddie’s family declined to comment on the correspondence. A representative for Wolfgang also declined comment.)
That same day, he tells me he “gets riled up because I’m always the one who gets blamed for everything.” Then he eviscerates Roth, or at least that’s how I see it at the time. It’ll prove tame by future standards.
“The reason it took that long for Truth is Roth, including all the rehashed demos,” he begins. That’s the same reason, he says, the band has “nothing but a live record [2015’s Tokyo Dome Live in Concert] to show for three years downtime.” Roth, he explains, only wants to be onstage doing his “Vaudeville shtick!!” He then says that “Roth is out of his mind” and not at all interested in rock & roll, which makes recording new music a near impossibility. He says Roth only likes “dance music” and “hates bands like AC/DC,” adding that Roth calls that band’s fans “culturally illiterate.”
“Well, I guess that makes me one of them ’cause I love AC/DC and its simplicity,” he continues, saying the band inspired many Van Halen songs he’d written, including Panama, Drop Dead Legs, and Good Enough. But because Roth doesn’t like their music, he says, “I have no outlet. It’s very frustrating. If people only knew the truth, they wouldn’t believe some of the s–t that goes on and what we put up with. Probably not much longer though. I’m too old for this s–t!! I really wish things were different, but they’re not!! All the best man!!”
I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed. For this not to be Eddie Van Halen, you’d have to believe a weapons-grade EVH doppelgänger was just lying in wait in hopes that some internet troll would mysteriously acquire his email address and then use it to bombard him with fanboy questions. That’s some QAnon-level crazy. But, then again, why? And why me? So, almost exactly 48 hours after my initial email, I just ask.
“You know, I asked myself the same question and there are actually a few reasons,” begins the response. “For one, whenever we do interviews we can’t really tell the whole truth because if I said in an interview what I have said to you certain people would get pissed.” And since the band at least appears from the outside to be working together, “it wouldn’t do much good to say that I think our own lead singer sucks and is a complete mental case pre-Madonna.” The other reason? “It’s almost a strange kind of therapy to tell the truth to someone you don’t even know!! Make any sense to you??!!”…
…Fairly convinced now that I’m talking with Eddie Van Halen, I decide to offer up my name. And my journalism credentials, too. I say that I’m a huge Van Halen fan, and that I hope to meet him when the band plays in Tinley Park, about 60 miles southeast of my suburban Chicago home, the next month.
“Well hi Blair!! I had a feelin’ but that’s neither here nor there,” probably-Eddie Van Halen writes back. “Are you a male or female?? I know a Blair that’s a chick and 2 that are guys!! Ed.”
Ed. For the first time, he signs off as “Ed.” I feel like a mobster who just got made: I get to call him “Ed.”
Van Halen were the first band I liked that was undeniably cool…
…Of the original four band members, Ed always seemed like the biggest mystery. Mostly it’s those unduplicable legato notes he makes flow from his custom-made red, white, and black Frankenstrat guitar. Or the whammy-bar dives and sorcerous two-handed finger tapping he popularized, which unintentionally helped inspire the birth of hair metal. In any rock & roll era, past, present, or future, Ed was and will always be ahead of his time…
…While Ed hasn’t told me anything…outrageous, that he’s been so open and available to me probably qualifies. We’ve been emailing and texting several times a week since my snarky overture, and now I feel like a contestant on a dating reality show: Time to see if this’ll work in real reality. Van Halen is gearing up for their first tour in two years, where they’ll be playing to about 15,000 rabid fans every night. It’s on the 10th stop of their 41-date summer tour where Ed and I are scheduled to finally meet.
Leading up to our meet-and-greet, Ed tells me that, following an endoscopy and biopsies of his esophagus, he’s cancer-free. “Yippee!!” he emails me. “That is more important than anything. If you don’t have your health, you got nothin’!!”…
…As the show gets closer, Ed also confirms what we already assumed was true — he and Roth do not get along.
Up until recently, Ed says, Roth at least spoke to Alex, but now the brothers have no communication with him at all. He continues, “I don’t know what I ever did to him, but so it goes,” adding, “I wouldn’t be surprised if he somehow implodes onstage or does something really, really stupid.”
Not only are Ed and Roth incommunicado, Ed says leading up to the July 5th tour opener in Auburn, Washington, that “I have a feeling Roth will not sing any of the deep cuts. I think we should play them with or without him, what do you think??”…
…Ed attempts to clarify. “I’m talking about asking the audience to just sing along and tell them Roth doesn’t want to sing them,” he begins. “And if they go nuts, then tell them we’re gonna spend the next 15 to 20 minutes just you and us, without Roth. I think it’s gonna force Roth to come around and it can be kinda fun without him.”
Mercifully, somehow, Roth comes around, and, far as I can tell, sings on every song at every show, including the one I attend on July 24th at the Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre in Tinley Park, Illinois, where I finally get to meet Ed. I’m with my plus-one, friend and rock photographer Barry Brecheisen, who’ll be photographing the show.
We’re leaning against the white pockmarked concrete wall that snakes around the backstage corridor, staring at the cement-gray double doors that serve to demarcate dressing rooms and business offices from security areas and craft services. That’s the one Ed walks through. Prior to this moment, the closest I’d ever been to him was 27 years earlier, when, as a college freshman, I sat third-row center on the OU812 tour. I even caught a guitar pick Hagar side-armed into the crowd.
On this day, only some of that is still true: He’s still thin, but so, too, is his short, gray hair. He walks slowly, slightly hunched, cradling his Pomeranian, Kody, as if he’s handling a nuclear football. Still, he seems peaceful, without a care in the world.
Shortly after Ed slips into his dressing room, we’re told to follow suit. We slowly walk toward the door just as he opens it slightly and peeks through.
“Which one is Blair?” he asks eagerly.
“Me,” I respond, now just inches away.
He sizes me up quickly, flashes that famous grin, and then pulls me in for a giant hug. “You’re not how I pictured you,” he says with a big smile. I don’t think to ask what he expected. Probably taller.
“F–kin’ Roth,” he fumes, shaking his head…
…Before we depart, he tells me to text him later to tell him what we thought of the show, and we hug one last time. Next time, I think, I’ll bring my son with me to meet him.
After the tour, I implore Ed to reconsider bringing back Hagar, mostly because he can still sing, unlike Roth. He texts me that Mike would be part of the package if Hagar were to rejoin the band and that he doesn’t “think I’d be able to play with him after Wolf!!”…
…The hostility Ed has for Hagar is arguably more dug in than it is for Roth, and totally different. When it comes to Roth, Ed’s rants are about his abysmal singing and rock-star egomania, while his Hagar slams boil down to claims of greed (“it’s all about money with Hagar,” he says at one point, adding in a seeming reference to Hagar’s successful tequila brand, “He used the band to elevate himself!!”) and a relentless drive for publicity. As Ed saw it, Hagar “just can’t open his mouth without saying Van Halen.” Even when Hagar had just formed his band Chickenfoot, Ed texts me, “instead of talking about his new band, all he did was basically say how much better they were than Van Halen. So, he’s actually our biggest promo man.” (Representatives for both Roth and Hagar declined comment to Rolling Stone.)
On Jan. 26th, 2016, Ed turns 61 years old. I wish him a happy birthday. Soon after, I send him a screen grab: It’s of Hagar wishing him one, too, on Facebook; Hagar does the same on Twitter. The message includes a photo of Hagar and Ed onstage together. Ed seems genuinely surprised. He decides to respond, knowing, he says, it’ll “stir up some shit!!”
Ed is right — he stirs up shit. He thanks Hagar for the wishes on Twitter and, almost immediately, sends the blogosphere into a tizzy.
In August 2017, in preparation for stem-cell shots, doctors do an MRI of Ed’s neck and back and discover swollen lymph nodes. He gets a CT scan which shows a mass in his lung. But they do an invasive search and find nothing.
His doctor is stumped. He tells Ed that whatever he saw on his CT scan, 70 percent of the time turns out to be cancer. But not this time.
“All I know,” he texts me, “is I’m one blessed, lucky motherf–ker!!”
Twenty days later, I check in just to make sure everything is still OK. I don’t get a response that evening, which is unlike him — but I don’t pay it much mind. He always gets back to me. The next day, I’m in my home office, listening to R.E.M. and scrolling through Facebook on my laptop when I feel my phone vibrate. I pull it out of my pocket — it’s Ed. All I expect to read when I ask how he’s doing is something along the lines of, “I’m doing well, buddy, how are you??” That’s pretty standard, and it always makes me feel good. Buddy. But not this time. Instead, he tells me, “I have lung cancer.” It’s stage 3. Feeling faint, I reread it, just to make sure.
In October 2017, Ed begins what will be frequent trips to Europe for treatments not available in the States. No one, other than I’m assuming family and close friends, knows. I wish him well, wanting so bad to hear, once again, that it was all a big mistake. He gives me impossibly thorough updates, using terminology I need my wife, a physician assistant, to dumb down for me…
…I try my hardest to keep things light, never knowing how or if I should even address his health…
…Often, it’s just small talk. Ed binge-watched House of Cards before me, in June 2017, and the next year, I return the favor. “Are there new episodes without what’s his name??” he asks, referencing disgraced star Kevin Spacey…
…In December 2018, Roth does an interview with Vulture in which he more than hints at a Van Halen summer reunion tour featuring the original classic lineup (so, Anthony instead of Wolf). He specifically mentions Yankee Stadium as a tour stop, as well as a bunch of bands that may join Van Halen at the Bronx show, including Metallica, Foo Fighters, and Guns N’ Roses. My gut feeling is it’s the type of overwrought rumor typically started by some bored Reddit troll. Ed never said a thing to me about this, and he’s in no condition to perform. Quickly, Ed ends the speculation — at least on my end. Roth, he says, has recklessly jumped the gun.
“I told [Roth] it ain’t happening ’til I’m healthy enough to make it through a show!!” he texts me. “That is not now!!”..
…A few months before Ed was told the cancer was back, he was helping care for an aging member of his wife Janie’s family. It was a tremendously stressful time. Ed knew even the most Herculean efforts wouldn’t heal him. And he could easily imagine the roles reversed. “When I go,” he told me, “I hope I go quick!! I don’t wanna be a burden on anyone!!”
Ed didn’t go quick — he died more than three years after he first told me he had lung cancer. But I’m sure he wasn’t a burden on anyone, either. He pounced on gut-wrenching treatments and sought every solution possible to remain in his family’s life.
He kept his mouth shut about his illness, seemingly saving his fans from worry and foreclosing any possibility of a pity party he had no interest in hosting. He never gave up and never wanted anyone to send the wrong signal to the world that he had.
For me, and for anyone who ever heard Van Halen’s first album, Ed’s musical legacy was sealed before the end of Side One. He was the guitar hero’s guitar hero, back when there was such a thing. But he never seemed to crave the spotlight like others in his echelon and only stepped in it when he had something exceptional to share. That’s why he rarely traded barbs with Roth or Hagar, I think — he didn’t want to engage in all the infighting. He just wanted to play.
Had my initial, smartass email languished in Ed’s spam folder, I’d have cried the same tears upon learning he died. Concert photos of Eddie Van Halen torn from Circus and Hit Parader covered my boyhood walls. I’d gaze at his electric smile, as he lurched his tricolored Frankenstrat into his bare chest. I’d imagine what song he was playing in that frozen moment. I envied the photographers, too, because they got so much closer to Eddie Van Halen than I’d ever be.
I don’t regret never telling Ed how much he meant to me, because I’m certain that’s a big reason we bonded. Nearly his whole life, he was showered with praise, treated like he was something more than mortal. But, for me, he’d become just a regular guy full of the same contradictions and paradoxes, the same beauty and demons, as the rest of us. Watching Ed bravely face the end of his life gave me a new appreciation for my own. Now, I do my best to hang on a little tighter when things get tough, knowing Ed had it tougher.
Not a day goes by when I don’t think of Ed because not a day goes by when I don’t hear Van Halen’s music. I’m still sad to have lost my friend, the person who gave me so much over the years and asked so little of me. And sometimes I’ll send a text that ends in double-exclamation points, just to let him know I was listening.
Read much more at Rolling Stone.
7 Responses
Great read thx.