In continuing with his interview with Gastão Moreira of Brazil’s Kazagastão, Alex Van Halen Alex Van Halen was once again asked why he made the decision to end his Brothers book in 1984 and not cover any of the band’s later years, including those with Sammy Hagar
Van Halen stated (as transcribed by blabbermouth.net), “Well, I can only answer it one way, that was the publisher never mentioned it. They said this is the meat of the story. Yeah, there was good music made and all that, but the essence and the spirit and the balls to the wall was the first model. And that’s nothing to do with…than everybody has a peak in their life. I don’t care what anybody says, because it’s simply not true. Just because you sell more of anything doesn’t make you better or more creative. It’s just you learn how to sell more [laughs], like BIC lighters. So it was not meant to be anything other than he wasn’t there during that time period. And if somebody really wants to, that’ll be the next book. [Laughs]”
After Moreira noted that he personally prefers the David Lee Roth era of Van Halen over the Hagar era,Van Halen said, “There’s one thing to remember, and that was, this book, it was selfish, if you will. It was my way of putting all these open-ended things to bed. My brother [legendary guitarist Eddie Van Halen] died [as] he tried to create more stuff. He didn’t have to do it. I don’t know whatever reason prompted him to do it, but he died trying to go further. And this is not just about playing more hits, about more Number One records. That stuff is gonna fade. We’re glad that we had them. I don’t wanna lay on my deathbed and look up and go, ‘Man, Ed, I wish we should’ve done this,’ because you can’t take it with you. We did our best work with Dave.”
Asked if he thinks the band was a unique, Van Halen replied, “I think it was an interesting collection of different influences. Because of the exposure from my dad, who we worked with, and the different kind of musical tastes. And the fact that Dave is a very restless kind of guy. He couldn’t settle on one thing for one day. The next day he’s on something else, which some people might think is a negative. And it is, if it’s left alone by itself to fester and become something that it shouldn’t. In my personal opinion, if you see what happened when he went solo, that was it. You need conflict. You need open space. You need contradiction. You need friction. Without friction, you got no heat. Without heat, you got nothing. I can’t think of the rest of the lyrics. [Laughs] But, no, a creative environment is an extremely different, difficult kind of a thing to foster and to keep in check and keep it balanced. Now, you don’t want it completely balanced because then it becomes inert, then it becomes predictable, it becomes another record. And we were very concerned about ending up doing the same thing over and over again. The real question comes, are you doing something new just to be new or because you’re hearing something different? And you have to be honest with yourself. Yeah, we could have cranked out more records, more Number One records, whatever, but that wasn’t the point. And sometimes you make mistakes. Ed and I, we made some really bad choices.”
Read more of Van Halen‘s interview with Gastão Moreira of Brazil’s Kazagastão, where he discusses the new album he is working on with Toto guitarist, Steve Lukather, here.
3 Responses
1: Bulls**t.
2: Everything – regardless of who was singing…..all of the music and musical direction was written and created by – EVH.
3: I find it very belittling of Alex to say that. But I’ve seen things in the past from Alex which suggests whatever the narrative at the time is he goes with it. Example: The reuniting with Sammy in 2004. In an interview to promote the best of album and the upcoming tour, Alex was asked:
“What did you think when you heard that Sammy was going to go on tour with David Lee Roth?”
Alex: “I felt pretty sorry for Sammy.”
Before that, there was the interview in 1985/86 when Sammy joined the band. Alex was asked why the change from DLR to Sammy?
“Well, we had a tooth ache, and when you have a tooth ache you have the tooth removed.” (And let’s not forget the whole “First he was just Dave; then he was Dave Roth, then he was David Roth, then he was David Lee Roth and now he’s Diamond David Lee Roth. I’m not sure he knows who he is.” Or words similar to that effect.)
Fast forward a few years, Sammy releases his autobiography and tells the story of Eddie on the reunion tour. The man was clearly struggling with a lot of demons; in fact Sammy didn’t have to write about it in his book because a lot of people saw it first hand. Suddenly Sammy’s the bad guy and they bring Roth back and, clearly forgetting what he said in the interviews before hand, Alex hails Roth like he’s the one and only.
It’s a shame really – but whatever the narrative…… but one thing I know is true is that I still can’t stand DLR.
Hello my British Bud,
I guess we will agree to disagree on Roth.
Roth will always hold a soft spot in my heart, because he was the first long haired man, I was ever attracted to, and led me to loving my all time favorite, John Sykes, amongst others.
I also appreciate how interesting, multifaceted and what a Renaissance man Roth is, but with that written, it is also obvious, that he seems to have a complex, hyper personality and his ego, like many others at times, appeared be on overdrive.
I agree with you that Alex Van Halen, clearly has an axe to grind with Hagar. It probably stems from whatever Hagar wrote in his book about Eddie Van Halen.
Most publishers, try to encourage their subjects to reveal juicy and scandalous tidbits, in order to sell their product. Now whether Hagar felt pressured by his publishing house to deliver some “dirt,” we may never know. However, whether it was intentional (due to hard feelings at the time that he wrote the book) or not, I am sure the Van Halen‘s felt a huge sense of betrayal.
Most public figures, and us mere mortals, tend to blow hot and cold on people, depending on where they are in our lives.
The only musicians that I have witnessed in the press, that have been consistent in their opinion of a former bandmate, are Dave “The Snake” Sabo, Rachel Bolan and Scotti Hill. Since parting way with Sebastian Bach, they have been steadfast in their, what appears to be, their collective disdain for him. Despite many monetary offers over the decades, they refuse to reunite with him.
I agree 100% with Alex that VH did their best work with Dave. Just listen to the first six albums. That’s all the proof you need.
The Van Hagar albums had their moments – almost all of 5150, and then about 50-75% of each subsequent album. Granted, it was a different beast, but the consistently stellar material that’s stood the test of time is from the Dave Era.
As for a previous commenter saying that all the music and music direction was steered by EVH. That may be true…but only to an extent. EVH needed the push-back and the conflict AND the compelling lyrics/melodies, and he had that with Dave more so than Sam. EVH left to his own devices and calling all the shots – and AVH admits as much in the same interview – produced a bloated, directionless, meandering album like Van Halen III.