Eddie Van Halen’s death has done nothing to end the bitchiness between old foes David Lee Roth and Sammy Hagar
If anyone imagined that the tragic death of Eddie Van Halen might perhaps help heal the long-standing divisions between former Van Halen frontmen David Lee Roth and Sammy Hagar, we regret to inform you that this does not appear to be the case.
Following Sammy Hagar’s recent comments to US radio presenter Eddie Trunk labelling Roth “not user friendly”, Roth has offered a somewhat oblique response by sharing a new illustration in which ‘Red Rocker’ Hagar is referenced several times.
The image posted on Roth’s Twitter account is styled in the form of a newspaper titled The Daily Catastrophe, and makes more than one mention to Hagar, who is labelled as “the Bottom’s Favorite Front Guy‘.
‘Sam The Man Not Only Will Be Giving His Life For Rock And Roll, But Plans To Be Buried In His Recently Acquired Jet!’ reads one ‘headline’ on the mocked-up artwork, while another suggests ’Red Rocker Refuses To Fly 55 In Afterlife’, a reference to Hagar’s 1984 radio hit I Can’t Drive 55 from the VOA album. The words ‘Concrete Flowers For Sam’ also appear on the artwork. Cutting.
The feud between the two singers stretches back to the 1970s, but intensified from 1985 onwards, after Hagar accepted an offer to join Van Halen following Roth”s departure from the band. Four Van Halen studio albums topped the US Billboard chart during Hagar’s time with the band, while Roth’s first album with the band (Van Halen) and his final one (1984) before launching a solo career, have both topped 10 million sales in the US alone.
Following Eddie Van Halen’s death on October 6, both his son Wolfgang and manager Irving Azoff confirmed rumours that Van Halen had been hoping to put together a final stadium tour featuring both Roth and Hagar. Asked about this on Eddie Trunk’s SiriusXM show, Hagar said he would have viewed the opportunity as a “dream come true” while taking a swipe at Roth once again.
“I wouldn’t look forward to having to share the stage with Dave,” Hagar said, “only because he’s not user friendly. I love the guy, I love the music, all that, but he’s just not user friendly.”
“He’s always gonna pull something to try to make you look bad and make him look good and all that kind of stuff. But it would have been a blast. Are you kidding me? It [would have been] a dream come true.”
Speaking to this writer in 2019, Hagar brushed off his long-running war or words with Roth by saying that their so-called "rivalry" wasn't even “a blip on my radar.”
"I don't respect Dave's artistry,” Hagar said, “but I do think he's clever and a great showman and what he did with Van Halen in the early days was fantastic. Van Halen couldn't have made it without him.
"God bless Dave, but he refuses to acknowledge that. Van Halen with me was even more successful than Van Halen with him, and that's very stupid of him. That'd be like me not acknowledging what he did for the band before I joined: that would be stupid, wouldn't it?"
Eddie Van Halen died on October 6 at St. John's Hospital in Santa Monica, California.
Eddie Van Halen Guitars Sell for $422,000 at Auction
Iconic customized Kramer electric guitar played by late rock legend fetched top bid
A trio of Eddie Van Halen guitars sold for more than $422,000 during Julien’s Auctions’ annual Icons & Idols Trilogy: Rock ‘n’ Roll Auction.
Variants of the late rock legend’s Frankenstrat were among the instruments fetching the highest bids of the two-day event. His customized Kramer electric guitar, which he built with his guitar tech Matt Bruck at Van Halen’s home studio sold for $231,250. The winning bid for his 2004 EVH Charvel Art Series electric guitar came in at $140,800. A non-playing prop guitar used by child actor Bryan Hitchcock, who played a young Eddie Van Halen in the band’s “Hot for Teacher” video, sold for $50,000.
The auction, which sold nearly 900 items, included instruments and memorabilia from a wide array of music icons. Two Fender guitars smashed by Kurt Cobain sold for a combined $281,600, Bob Marley’s first guitar ever to come to auction sold for $153,600 and a mid-1960s Hammond B-3 organ played by Greg Allman garnered $102,400.
Other notable items from the event included Jimi Hendrix’s Octavia pedal used on live album Band of Gypsys ($70,400), a Paul McCartney Texan FT-79 acoustic guitar played and signed by the artist ($54,400) and Pete Townshend’s owned and played first guitar, a 1936 Radiotone cello guitar ($41,600).
Eddie Van Halen's son criticises sale of his father's guitars
Eddie Van Halen's son Wolfgang has criticised a recent auction of three of his late father's guitars, which fetched $422,050 (£313,000).
Wolfgang claimed the anonymous sellers were "taking advantage of my father's passing", and said he had "nothing to do with" the sale.
"I don't EVER plan on selling any of my father's iconic guitars. The only place they'd possibly belong in is a museum."
Eddie Van Halen, co-founder of rock band Van Halen, died at 65 in October.
The revered guitarist had been receiving treatment for throat cancer.
Wolfgang Van Halen added that one of the guitars sold had been a gift, adding: "It WASN'T for charity. They're just taking advantage of my father's passing. What a surprise."
@wolfvanhalen . . . during the probate of Bryan's estate, which included your dad's guitar that Bryan treasured and displayed at COH & home, one of his brothers sold it on eBay without telling or asking permission. The eBay buyer sold it @JuliensAuctions yesterday for $231 K 2/
Sammy Hagar Says Final Phone Call With Eddie Van Halen ‘Broke My Heart, But Thank God We Connected’
Sammy Hagar says he’s grateful he had the opportunity to speak with Eddie Van Halen one last time before the guitarist passed away earlier this year.
Speaking to Variety from Big Sky, Montana, where he was launching Santo Reposado, the latest expression in his Santo Tequila line, Hagar says the distance between him and Van Halen was something he regretted, and he’s glad the two of them were able to finally find some closure.
“Poor Eddie, broke my heart, but thank God we connected before [he died],” Hagar says. “I heard he was in bad shape and I wanted to reach out; I finally said, ‘I’m just calling him.'”
But according to Hagar, trying to get ahold of his former bandmate proved to be difficult, as he no longer had Van Halen’s number. “I was calling his brother, I was calling his manager, I was calling his friends, and I’d say, ‘Hey, tell Ed, give him my phone number. Tell him if he ever wants to talk to me, I really, really want to talk it out, help him and see what I can do,'” Hagar says. “I [told them], ‘I want to be his friend, I want to bury the hatchet,’ but they never got it done.”
In the end, Hagar says, it was George Lopez of all people who finally brought the two together. “George is a dear friend and he was Eddie’s friend and he said, ‘Sammy, Eddie’s in bad shape, he loves you brother, you need to reach out.’ I said, ‘Give me his fucking number and I’ll make sure I call him.'”
When Hagar finally reached Van Halen, the singer says there was nothing but love between the longtime musical partners. “I said, ‘Why don’t you respond? I’ve been reaching out,'” Hagar recalls, “and Ed said, ‘Why didn’t you call me? Don’t fucking call my brother, fucking call me!’ And I said, ‘I love you man,’ and it was like, boom, we were good. It was,” Hagar says, “a beautiful thing.”
Van Halen passed away in October after a long battle with cancer. Hagar confirms a Van Halen group reunion tour had been in the works, prior to the guitarist’s illness. “Eddie and Al [Alex Van Halen} and Irving Azoff, their manager [and] my dear friend, we were looking at doing the reunion tour with everybody, which is the way it had to be,” Hagar says, corroborating reports that the tour would have included both himself and David Lee Roth, whom Hager famously replaced in 1985. “I’ve been pushing for that for 10 years,” Hager insists, adding that he was ready to “put [any differences] aside. Let’s go give the fans the biggest band in the world, you know what I mean?” he says. “You don’t get bigger than Van Halen, and the fans deserve to see it all, hear every song.”
While Hagar has found success as a solo singer and with his band, The Circle, he said it was always the Van Halen catalog that fans wanted to hear. “You know, you go see just me, I’ll sing some of the Dave songs, but I wouldn’t ever sing enough,” he says, “and then he can’t sing my songs, so they never heard, you know, the Van Halen hits, the No. 1 albums we had. And so it’s not fair. You know, there’s always a bitch,” Hagar jests. “Every time we do a reunion, whichever one it was, it was a bitch. But yeah, that would have been wonderful.”
Though the reunion tour won’t be happening, Hagar had been touring with The Circle before the coronavirus pandemic brought live shows to a halt. The 73-year-old admits it was nice to slow down for a while, though he’s eager to return to the road when it’s safe to do so. “I’m starting to really miss it now,” he says.
Still, the time off has given Hagar the chance to focus on some of his other projects, including Santo, the premium tequila line he co-founded with celebrity chef Guy Fieri. The longtime friends held a socially distant launch event at the upscale Lone Mountain Ranch in Montana in mid-December to unveil their new Santo Reposado. The cask-aged 100% agave tequila joins Santo’s Blanco tequila and the brand’s popular tequila-mezcal blend, the aptly-named Santo Mezquila, as part of the brand’s offerings.
Hagar, whose Cabo Wabo tequila brand in the ’80s inspired a Van Halen song of the same name, says he quickly converted his former bandmates into “tequila guys” too. “Every band member loved tequila,” Hagar says, adding, “Everyone on the planet loves tequila — it’s just fun.”
I finished reading Ted Templeman's book last week. I highly recommend if you are interested in stories behind recordings and albums. The story behind Diver Down is really interesting, for example.
Sometimes he shares the origin of some of the song ideas, and these are two cool examples. The first song, "Stranded In The Jungle" by The Cadets, provided some inspiration for the drums in Everybody Wants Some. The other song, "Shopping For Clothes" by The Coasters, played a role in developing the talkback part in Unchained. There's even a 'that suit is you' lyric.
Anyway, I had never heard these oldies and it was really cool to hear how they played a part in some killer Van Halen tunes.
Originally Posted by L.A. Chieffan:
Jerry's Wolf guitar auctioned off for $1.9 million. I'm surprised Eddie's didn't go for more
EVH didn't have just "one" guitar that he played on every single album or every single tour. He had hundreds of "clones" of his original, which really wasn't "original" because he had the Black & Yellow and White & Black before building the finally the Red, Black and White striped guitar, which is probably his best known guitar of the group.
Both the Black & Yellow and Black & White didn't have a Floyd Rose, whereas the Red had one installed, as did all of his subsequent guitars.
There's not much, if any, value associated with them because they were built by Fender and not by EVH himself. [Reply]
