Speaker 1: Hello everybody. Before we get started, I just wanted to
let you know we have published our first episode to YouTube,
So if you want to know what Jason and I
look like, feel free to check out the link in
the episode description below or just search us up Surely
you Can't Be Serious Podcast on YouTube.
Speaker 2: On with the show.
Speaker 3: Hello everybody, and welcome back to the Shirley You Can't
Be Serious Podcast. We are here today with part two
of our Van Halen series. This one is the rise
and Fall of David Lee Roth van Halen as a
group with David Lee Roth at the Helm, one of
the most important bands of the eighties. Join us as
we jump back into the history of Van Halees. I'm sorry,
did you say jump back into we might as well
might as well jump.
Speaker 4: Hello everybody, and welcome to the Surely Can't Be Serious
Podcast with your co hosts James D.
Speaker 2: Graves and Jason cole Band.
Speaker 3: We're gonna pick up where we left off last time.
We had covered the first two singles off of Van
Halen One Awesome.
Speaker 5: This is going to be the rise and Fall Daily Roth.
Speaker 3: And as always, please hit the subscribe button now so
that you never miss an episode of the surely you
can't be serious podcast. So then where are we now?
The third single, yes, so yeah. The third single is
Ain't Talking about Love. This is one of those few
songs that they did with Sammy after Sammy joined the band,
one of the few Roth songs that made it over.
And it was originally supposed to be a punk parody
from Eddie, but he just said, well, it just didn't
ever really sound like punk.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's be punk.
Speaker 3: It's only two chords, it's a minor and it's g
It's one I was able to pick up.
Speaker 5: It's one of my favorite davidly Roth and Allen's it's
so good.
Speaker 3: It absolutely is. And it's one of the few ones
that it was overdubbed, but it was overdubbed with an
electric sitar. But he starts off that song and he's
you can listen.
Speaker 2: To the beginning. We'll listen to the beginning of it
real quick.
Speaker 3: So you hear how the strings sound different there, They
sound muffled, right. It's a technique called muting where with
your right hand you're holding the pick, but you put
your palm against the bottom part of the strings. You
don't press them down so much that there's no sound
at all, but you press it just enough to mute
the strings, okay, and so that's that cool sound. And
nobody's going to say that these songs were amazing. Lyrics wise,
David Lee Roth did pretty much all the lyrics, and
I think he'll readily admit there's no depth from some silliness.
Speaker 5: And so Dave was born into a family of a
successful eye surgeon. While his dad was bringing them up,
his uncle, I think, is a well known doctor as well,
and there's kind of medical family and they expected Dave
to kind of fall in their footsteps. And the day
was known as sort of the troublemaker, the high hyper energy,
troublemaking kid, but not medical school material.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: If anybody can say anything about David Lee Roth, it's
he's going to suck the marrow out of life.
Speaker 2: That's his goal. Right.
Speaker 5: He definitely party follows him around, that's for sure.
Speaker 3: His motto was it doesn't matter whether you win or lose,
it's just how good you look. I can't think for
really a more shallow statement than that, but that was
so like, that's's the kind of mantra of his life.
And then there but just you know, to kind of psychoanalyze,
maybe a little too much. If you looked at listen
to Ain't talking about love. It says I've been to
the edge, I've stood and looked down. I've lost a
lot of friends there, baby, I ain't got no time
to mess around. I think he probably had a darker
side that was related to the thinking deeply that he
actively decided to avoid. You listen to him talk, and
you know he's an intelligent guy. He's scattered and obviously manic.
He is way, way manic, but there's definitely a high
degree of intelligence that's going on there. But he I
think he has a fear of the deep.
Speaker 5: The next song, Jamie's Crying.
Speaker 3: So this song is about a girl who she decides
that she's wanting more than just physical love. She wants real,
true love. And so you can tell from the timber
of the band Dave lets her down easy. I'm sure,
Oh yeah, it's great, see you later. I'll go down
on the block.
Speaker 5: The interesting thing to me about this song, okay, Jami's
Crying nineteen seventy eight, we get a taste of this
against very six well song in nineteen eighty nine. May
have heard of it. May surprise you. Let's do it, Dunloaks,
wild thing.
Speaker 2: Awesome. All right.
Speaker 3: So on that debut album they had a lot of success.
They didn't have any number ones, but it was a
platinum album for them. They came back from the tour.
Speaker 5: When they come back from tour, in eleven months of
killing it every night, hard work, eleven straight months supporting
the album, they get back, the manager of the record
company says, great job. You guys did awesome. You lost
three million dollars in a new record.
Speaker 6: What squeeze.
Speaker 3: Yes, So they've got another album to come out with
and before we leave, before we leave Van Halen One,
we shouldn't forget that there are many other good songs
on there, and this is one of those few albums
that exists in history that is good from beginning to end.
There are no bad songs, there are no throwaway tracks.
Feel Your Love Tonight is one that's on there that
we didn't mention.
Speaker 5: One of my favorites that we don't. It kind of
gets overlook, but he gets some radio play. It's called
ice Cream Man.
Speaker 3: I Love ice Cream Man. It was cover of an
old blues song and it's the only song maybe maybe
on any of the albums. I haven't really researched it out,
but definitely on this album. It's the only one that
Dave is playing some guitar on.
Speaker 2: He's the one for the.
Speaker 5: I don't even know Dave could play the guitar well.
Speaker 3: The song part that he's playing is not terribly complicent.
You'd probably play it with only two fingers, you know.
But wisely, you know. Dave said when he first saw
them on stage before he had joined the band, he
saw Eddie play and he said, what he does with
his hands, I want to.
Speaker 2: Do with my feet and my voice.
Speaker 3: He knew his place, he knew what he needed to do,
and he knew where his skill sets. No your limitations,
absolutely so, Jason. Last week we mentioned that David Lee
Roth's first band was called Red Ball Jets.
Speaker 6: I know his first band before Vanhaling red Ball Jets.
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Might as well jump wack it. So you had ice cream, man,
you had Feel your Love. We have several other great
songs on the album, but we obviously don't have time
to go through all of those. After that, they come back,
Warner Brothers said we need a new album, and the
album that comes out is and Aalen two and Aalen two.
Several great songs on that album. A couple of my
favorites are beautiful Girls. Their big big hit was Dance
the Night.
Speaker 5: Away, the night great song.
Speaker 3: Dance, Yeah, and it was again you're seeing this this
bringing what people wanted from disco into rock and roll right.
Dance the Night Away is Dave obviously Dave's influence and
making something showy and glamorous with the hard rock and
rock behind it.
Speaker 5: Also, another notable song I think is the opening one's
You're No Good. It's Van Halen's version of the Linda Ronstads.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know that I've actually heard that version.
Let's I want to listen to it. We'll play a
example of that real quick.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 3: Well, I gotta say honestly, that was one of the
rare circumstances where they took somebody's song and I don't
think they made it better.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't.
Speaker 5: I didn't like it that much.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Now I think Linda Ronstad, I mean number one, she's
she's hot back then, and she was hot. She got
a great voice, beautiful voice. Usually had Eagles back thank
you too?
Speaker 2: Ye was? I wonder if they backed her on that song.
I can't remember. I don't know.
Speaker 3: So anyway, moving on, we've we've hit Van Halen two.
And you know how long it took them to record
this song or this album.
Speaker 5: Sorry, this isn't crazy, I really don't understand it. But
they started recording December tenth, nineteen seventy eight.
Speaker 6: They were finished.
Speaker 5: Recording this album December sixteenth, nineteen seventy eight.
Speaker 6: That's six days.
Speaker 2: Holy crap.
Speaker 5: I guess they wanted to get it in before Christmas.
Speaker 2: They had to do some shopping or something. Hi.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it was released March twenty third, nineteen seventy nine.
Speaker 3: Okay, so they released Van Halen one in January of
seventy eight. They released Van Halen two in March of
seventy nine, and what have we got after that one?
So they tour and then the next album they go
in the studio is Women and Children First, and it
comes out in nineteen eighty. The big song that I
remember from that album is Everybody Wants Some, which is
still getting record play today.
Speaker 2: I love it's still a great song.
Speaker 5: It is a great song. And for those of you
who maybe I don't know if.
Speaker 3: You're like me, but the movie Better Off Dead with
John Cusack, there's a big sort of dancing Hamburger animation
thing in the middle that is set to Everybody Wants
Some And that's how I learned that song. That's a
weird scene. That is a strange, strange scene.
Speaker 5: I guess at movie. We need to talk about that
movie sometimes.
Speaker 3: All right, So then anything else to say about women
and children.
Speaker 5: Are only on the one another.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 5: Another big song was and the Cradle Will Rock.
Speaker 3: And the credle Wile Rock reached number fifty five on
the Hot one hundred. At this point, there's still really
not seeing very many rock songs. They are still one
of the few bands that you that you're seeing on them.
Speaker 5: Nineteen eighty is the time when sort of Kenny Rogers
and sort of pop country was big on the charts.
Speaker 3: Sure you had southern rock doing well as well, but
it just still wasn't the hard rock. Other than Van Halen.
They were the guys that were that were the soul
soldiers march in that tune.
Speaker 5: So after this album comes out, they go on a
tour YEP. So it's like album tour, album tour, album tour.
Speaker 2: Working hard like they did when before they were famous.
Speaker 5: Okay, so nineteen Eightion one comes along and this whole
time Eddie's been working on material. He wants to come
up with a solo album, and that's what Fair Warning
was actually intended to be, was an Eddie van Halen
solo album. And that's why it's a little more darker,
a little more guitar heavy.
Speaker 2: It's creepy.
Speaker 5: Not a fan.
Speaker 3: It's I'm not a fan of Unchained is great, Don't
be wrong. I love Unchained. It's a great song, but
the majority of the album is not. It's not to
my text. And I'm not saying this it's a bad album.
It's and there are tons of diehard fans that will
love it, but it's just not my It wasn't my
favorite me either.
Speaker 5: Unchained is phenomenal.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that song, that's the bright shining star on that
album for sure.
Speaker 2: Without me.
Speaker 5: A lot of people don't realize. But at this time
in nineteen eighty one, this is when we have the
first major tension between Eddie and Dave. Dave is wanting
to be more pop, Eddie wants to be more rock.
That's crazy because they flip sides later on absolutely flip sides.
So Dave wants to.
Speaker 3: Be more pop, Eddie wants to be more rock and
everybody's getting tired of Dave's ego. I think, yeah, absolutely,
And Eddie can be a pain in the butt too,
and you couple him with Alex and the thing about
people who are able to achieve this type of success
in these type of fields is that they have to
be they have to be kind of full of themselves.
They have to be extremely confident, which is led them
to each other. I mean, Dave saw Eddie's ability and
confidence on the stage. They saw Dave's swagger and thought,
this will be something that fits for what we want.
And so obviously it works very very well. But those
tensions will eventually come to a head.
Speaker 5: Right, Okay, So moving on past nineteen eighty one, past
Fair Warning, which to me, the only thing worth talking
about on that album is unchained. You go into nineteen
eighty two, they come up with this idea that, hey,
we need to take some time off, but we want
to stay relevant, we want to stay out front. Let's
I got an idea. Let's just do a cover song,
put it out there, we'll make a video for it,
and we'll stay in front of people. And so Dave
comes up with the idea and he says, let's do
Dancing in.
Speaker 3: The Street, right, And Eddie says, no, I don't think
that's a good one.
Speaker 2: Let's do pretty Woman.
Speaker 3: So Eddie says, I can't find the guitar part in
Dancing the Street. Let's do Pretty Woman by Roy Orbison.
And so they say, okay, let's do it, and they
come up with it and it's and it's great, and
they put it out and it's this massive hit number twelve,
reach number twelve, which, again, knowing that what we know,
what we've said so far, a hard rock version of
pretty Woman getting that high on the chart is amazing,
but it locks them into another issue, that's right, And
the record company says, you got this hit song, but
we don't have an album.
Speaker 5: We've got to have an album. You guys got to
get back in the studio and produce an album to
go with this hit song. Right, Which, before we get
into that, have you ever watched the video for Pretty Women? No,
it is the weirdest Okay, So we know music videos
at nineteen eighty two, you know, are weird and they're cheap,
and they're all these things.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: Nineteen eighty one, by the way, just for a reminder,
is when MTV first came out late eighty one. August
of eighty one is when MTV came out, right, and
so in eighty two the music video there. There's less
than three hundred music.
Speaker 5: Videos out there. So this move this music video Pretty Woman,
if you watch it, you have these midgets who are
sexually assaulting this woman who is tied up.
Speaker 2: They are groping her. Oh my Goshkay.
Speaker 5: And so Michael Anthony gets a phone call, but he's
a samurai, and then he calls his friend jungle Boy
Alex van Halen, who's like, you know, he's got bones
and he's like a capeman. So he calls his friend
Gunslinger Eddie van Halen, who then calls his friend David
Lee Roth, who is dressed like George Washington.
Speaker 3: Okay, now, actually I can I can kind of remember
that part because he had a very adam aunt look
about him with his yeah, with his George Washington thing.
I'm thinking that I just have blocked out the midget problem.
I don't think that's a PC anymore.
Speaker 2: Little people. He's being attacked by the little people.
Speaker 5: This woman is being assaulted by little people. So yeah,
back to the album. Five of the twelve songs are.
Speaker 3: Covers, right, and this is this album is diver Down, right,
This is diver Down.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So the album that they produce when they realize
that Pretty Woman is such a big success is diver Down.
And as you've said, several covers and the band they're
not getting along and they really kind of consider this
Dave's album because they would never have done this many
covers on an album, that's right.
Speaker 5: And this is the van Halen Brothers very public least favorite.
Speaker 3: Album, absolutely, and it's the least favorite album of the
Roth albums for most folks, I think. But it let's
keep in mind they set a world record at this
point in their career, which kind of indicates it doesn't
really matter that they're not doing what they feel is
their best work at this Just after their tour for this,
they they decide they got to get away from each other.
Dave goes with their head of security and they travel
down to the Amazon. Now, you know, the rest of
the guys are married and they've got you know, they're
going to go be with their wives and family. But
Dave and a handful of security guys are down there
on a boat in the Amazon, in the jungle Interestingly,
this guy, the security guard who is their head of
security and looked like a total kick butt guy, said
that he you know, when they put him in charge
of security. The first thing that they have said to
Hi when he came in is do you have a
problem with h drugging and drinking? No, he goes, do
you have a problem with underage girls running around and
have a fun And he goes no, And he goes
can you roller skate? And the guy says no, what
I can learn? And so he was. He was their
head of security, and he developed a system where if
there was going to be a problem in the crowd,
they had sectors and zones of the crowd, like ay
problem in Sector five, Row seven, man in the black
t shirt. Well, Dave very quickly caught onto this mapping
concept and so even in the middle of the show,
he would be bop himself over to one of the
security guards.
Speaker 2: And go okay.
Speaker 3: Sector fix fifteen wrote three red shirt blonde giver backstage
pass And so all of this there was a system
like all of the security guards would hand out the
backstage passes for Dave and maybe for the other guys,
but really for Dave, and they would sign their name
to the back of the pass. And if Dave had
a deep and meaningful conversation with one of these ladies
that had the badge, the guy who had the name
on the back of the backstage pass, he got a
little extra money and got a nice tips, and if
it was really deep and really long, he got.
Speaker 2: A lot of extra money. That's right.
Speaker 5: So centivizing the help.
Speaker 3: I mean, yeah, yeah, exactly. You gotta know where your
priorities are. Use the system that's in place.
Speaker 5: So Dave in the jungle.
Speaker 3: So Dave's in the jungle with the security guard. They
they end up in one port. They call back to
that to the US to talk to people, and they're like, hey,
you guys got to get back. We have been asked
to do the US Festival. And so the US Festival
was something that had been put together the year before
by Steve Wozniak. It was of Apple computer fame, yeah,
co founder of Apple with Steve jobs and he was
disenfranchised with the seventies, which had been the ME generation,
and so he put together this thing called the US
Festival because he wanted the eighties to be the US
generation and the headlining band for that for that festival
was Van Aalen van Halen. And do you know what
the record is that they set so.
Speaker 2: Guinness Book a world record.
Speaker 5: They got one point five million dollars for a ninety
minute set.
Speaker 3: So they they do an hour and a half set.
They make more money than anybody has that but tensions
are still high.
Speaker 5: Tensions are high. Even a million dollars an hour can't
cure some of the tensions that are going on. Okay,
So during nineteen eighty three they begin working on a
new album YEP, to come out at the very end
of nineteen eighty three, YEP, and that album is called
nineteen eighty four. For me, this is the best of
the Dave albums. This is my introduction to van Halen. Sure,
this is where I jump in, but this is a
new van Halen. So my introduction to van Halen is
the new van Halen, absolutely, which is partly why I
think I'm partial to Sammy later on. But new sound
begins here.
Speaker 3: Absolutely it does. So as I said before, this was
my introduction to the band as well. And you couldn't
help but be inundated with jump at that time in history,
it was the it was the first single off the album.
It is their only number one hit, And if you
got the opportunity to watch MTV, it was on all
the time and it was fascinating.
Speaker 5: It was fantastic.
Speaker 3: It was it was four guys on stage with no crowd.
I mean, it's just them jumping.
Speaker 5: It's like a black room with the black drum cloth.
Speaker 6: I mean, there's nothing happening.
Speaker 3: There is literally nothing going on. They're in weird clothes
that you know, there's leopard skin coats and tatters of
clothes on stuck on to Dave's body and he's making
love with the camera as much as anybody could and
then doing these amazing acrobatics.
Speaker 5: That's a pretty limber guy. Yeah, he can do these
jumping high split kicks.
Speaker 3: Yeah, doing the full splits up in the air off
of the drum stand.
Speaker 2: Yeah, does flip in the video. Yeah, And it's fascinating.
Speaker 5: I remember Jump being the intro to all the cub
games on WGN, right that whole summer.
Speaker 2: Right, Oh wow.
Speaker 3: Jump is everywhere. The diehard Van Halen fans are getting
mixed reviews. Some of them are sticking with them, some
of them are like, I don't know what's going on.
With these guys. Now, if you listen to the rest
of nineteen eighty four, there's plenty of pure hard Van
Halen hits on the one, no doubt, and a couple
of them are are popular now. You know, you get
those guys who think they sold out and so then
all of a sudden, if it's popular, they're not interested anymore.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I don't care about you guys, because you love the
popular song.
Speaker 5: I love any like radio friendly hits.
Speaker 3: That's what resonates with me, right, I like that, I
like that, I don't I'm not one of these guys.
Speaker 5: Is like a radio on top forty sucks. Before we
move on from Jump. Yeah, Jump was listed by the
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as one of five
hundred songs that shaped rock and roll.
Speaker 2: Okay, so.
Speaker 3: Nineteen eighty four is the first single and biggest hit
that they ever had is Jump, as we've said, and
then there are three more singles that come off of
that album, Panama, Hot for Teacher, and I'll Wait. Drop
Dead Legs is another great song of the album, but
I don't have a lot to say about that one.
Speaker 5: Drop Dead Legs is a fantastic stripper song.
Speaker 2: Okay, I don't strip, so I don't know.
Speaker 3: Well, you know, so let's talk briefly about that those
three songs. I'll Wait was there was a thirteen hit.
Speaker 5: For the second release, it went to number thirteen, the one.
Speaker 3: Hundred Yeah, no video, no video for that one, which
is interesting, is as big of a hit as it
was and as obvious video heads that they had become,
especially Dave, but more synthesizer on this song as well.
But the the use of the synthesizer, I'm gonna have
to say, yes, it was a crossover. But that is
why this was the number one hit. That is why
that is why I'll Wait it was such a big hit,
is because that synthesizer allowed them to cross over to
a broader audience than they had ever had before.
Speaker 5: Now, no doubt.
Speaker 3: And so they've got, uh, they've got these other singles.
I love Panama maybe my favorite song off of the Olden.
Here's something interesting and I didn't bring it up when
we talked about Van Halen's debut album, but they covered
a band when they were in their early stages called Cactus,
which I had never heard before. But there is no question.
I mean, the boys have as much admitted, so several
of the songs that they have they totally have borrowed
some part of a song. So for those of you
who want to listen, maybe we can play it here
in just a second Hot for Teacher. The intro to
Hot for Teacher with the drums and the guitar coming
in is just almost identical basically for a song called
Parchment Farm by Cactus.
Speaker 6: Stop Swim tea Doc.
Speaker 3: Down Ball and then eruption was a song that uh
that they again, the intro was very similar to a
song called let Me Swim by Cactus, and we can
play those side by side as well. Yeah, there's no
question he's borrowed these. You listen to him, it's undeniable.
Speaker 5: But he's improved them.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, he's Mozart. There's somebody that nobody's.
Speaker 2: Ever heard of. That's right.
Speaker 3: So Panama reaches number thirteen on the Hot one hundred. Yes,
Hot for Teacher comes out. It's a This video is
one of my favorite videos.
Speaker 2: Of all time. Oh yeah, absolutely, with.
Speaker 5: The young Van Halen boys running around the school terrorizing. Right,
you've got miss fizzed and you know, misspelled and miss
science or whatever and those spelled.
Speaker 6: Teachers running around. It's it's fantastic.
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
Speaker 3: You got the beginning part with Waldo and Waldo, You've
got his kind of awkwardly sighing mother, and then when
Waldo speaks, he's got this unusually deep voice.
Speaker 2: Oh mom, yeah, no, I'm not like other guys. I'm
nervous on my socks there too.
Speaker 3: You know who that voice is right now? That voice
is Phil Hartman of Saturday Night Live fame. Oh Phil Hartman,
God rest his soul. Of course that's him. Oh, that's perfect.
Speaker 2: It's on the.
Speaker 6: Bus, sat down Waldo.
Speaker 3: So Dave is the one that's responsible for the videos
on both Panama and in Panama. You know they I
think they they did a thing that seemed to be
happening a lot back then, which was videos of the
concert where they're flying on cables like bon Jovi is doing.
Speaker 5: The same and living on a prayer and doon Jovi.
Speaker 2: Was like bouncing all over the place. They look awful.
Speaker 3: These guys look fun, right, They're they're flying and drinking
beer and playing the guitar.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 3: It's it's amazing stuff. And so they've their success is
beyond what has it has ever been in history They
are literally at the top of their game and they
hate each other.
Speaker 5: This is where it falls apart. Dave's ego is out
of control.
Speaker 3: At this point, Eddie and and Dave are lockinhorns, and
Alex sides with Eddie of course, of course, and Michael's
in the crossfire. But Dave comes up with a new album,
a solo album called Crazy from the Heat right, so
he had he had criticized Eddie in the past for
playing with Michael Jackson. This is something we talked about
on our first episode that, uh, the you know, the
guys were doing other things. Michael calls Eddie we played
guitar in the song shirt and then that one ends
up being a number one hit and the album keeps
nineteen eighty four from reaching number one status as an
album Sodve and the guys are pretty pissed about that,
and you see it in one of his videos that
comes out from that solo album. It's he kind of
is mocking Michael Jackson in the just a Jigglo video.
As all of this is going on, is that they
would call these band meetings to get together and write
songs and talk about.
Speaker 2: What was going to happen, you know.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so they would have these band meetings at eight
o'clock in the morning, which is crazy for a rock
band to try to do anything at eight o'clock in
the morning. But the group consensus is, anytime you heard
the words band meeting, everybody was like, oh gosh, So
eight o'clock in the morning, they were supposed to be
there to write and play music. Dave would show about eleven,
start a fight, and then leave.
Speaker 2: Yeah, probably with a couple girls.
Speaker 5: Right right, And I can tally see Dave doing.
Speaker 3: This, Yeah, absolutely, And so then just like he was
upset about he walked, He unbeknownst to them, goes and
finds another group of guys to play with produces an album,
a four song album, which he says, hey, you know,
any album's only got four good songs on it. Anyway,
I'm just cutting off the fat. As it turned out,
there were only really two good songs on the album,
so it's still worked out to be about the same.
But as a surprise to the remainder of the band,
he releases Crazy from the Heat. Now he I guess
this is the ego speaking right here. He does an
interview with David Letterman in early eighty five talking about that,
and Dave is trying to find out what's going to
happen with the rest of the band.
Speaker 4: I think now's a good time on New Year's to
decide whether you're going to be a hot dog or
a little weenie.
Speaker 6: I well, I have beautiful.
Speaker 4: I have chosen to remain a little wiener for one
more season.
Speaker 2: You're gonna be a weenie for another year. Yeah, you bet.
Speaker 3: When you're doing solo work, is the is the Does
this mean that the band will soon be breaking up?
Speaker 4: No, No, that happens. You know that does happen. That's
that's the spinal tap story. Now. I still have very
I still have very strong tribal instincts. And we'll be
going into the studio like the middle of this month
and start arguing again, and we'll come back out with
an album sometime this year.
Speaker 2: Hopefully.
Speaker 3: He has this full expectation that the band's going to
stay together. But you just you can't do that. You
can't be the guy who goes and trashes the meetings,
the guy who berates somebody for going and doing work
with other people, and then pull off this stunt and
expect to remain in the band.
Speaker 5: He also had a movie deal on the table that
was annoying the band as well.
Speaker 3: Well, you know, as we've as I said earlier, he
was the he was the directing force behind their videos,
which are fantastic. I mean, they're great, well put together videos.
He's obviously playing a part in this. He's developed this
kind of Dave TV idea, which is the you know.
Speaker 5: It was the big thing for about five minutes ago.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he really really was coming up strong. But there's
only so much wind power that can take you when
you don't have your name band behind you, that's right.
Speaker 5: So we've heard rumors that he was fired, we've heard
rumors that he quit.
Speaker 2: Either way, I.
Speaker 3: Don't think there's any question that he made a decision
that led to his exit from the band, but that
that decision was probably not his to leave. But there's
to say, you don't belong here anymore. You've pushed it
too far.
Speaker 5: So Dave's out.
Speaker 2: Dave is out.
Speaker 5: Dave's out in nineteen eighty five, right at the pinnacle
of their professional career.
Speaker 3: Right, and so everyone is wondering what's going to go on,
including Eddie and Alex. They don't know what to do.
They don't know whether to get another bass player. They
don't know whether to do a kind of compilation album
where they've got multiple singers performing different songs with them,
or to try to find one singer that they can
go with. That's right, and the smart money at this
time was probably on Dave. Yeah you were if you
were like, who am I going to back? Is it
going to be Dave or van Halen? I mean, van
Halen is not van Halen without David le Roth.
Speaker 2: It's just not.
Speaker 5: And that's why Ted Timberman went with Dave to produce
Ediman Smile.
Speaker 3: Right, And he called Eddie and said, I'm sorry, I
got to go with Dave on this and the crew too,
and Eddie said, that's okay. I don't really want you
to produce our albums anymore.
Speaker 2: Anyway.
Speaker 3: Well, he didn't take everybody. Don Landy stayed with them.
Don Landy then became instead of the sound engineer, he
became the producer. He became the new Ted Templeman.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 5: So there's some discussion in nineteen eighty five about whether
or not to hire a full time lead singer or
to just do an album with guest lead singers, right,
but one of the So here are the names that
are kicked around as Dave's replacement, and some of these
blew me away by all accounts, including hers and Eddie's.
The lead option to replace Dave is Patty smythe great voice.
Not sure she's a fit for van Halen.
Speaker 3: No freaking way, no, all right, And so she was
the lead option. I think Patty Benatar. That would have
been a great one.
Speaker 5: Patty ben Atar could have been an option.
Speaker 3: That ben Atara had some kickbuck songs and was walking.
Speaker 5: Beacon away man, all right. Option number two Jimmy Barnes,
which if you've.
Speaker 3: Ever seen The Lost Boys, you're familiar with the song
good Times. Oh yeah, that was the one that he
did with in excess. That's right, that's a great that's
a great tune. And he does he's got a strong voice.
I don't know if it's the right voice, but it's
it's it's more, it's deeper, more like Dave's.
Speaker 5: Yep, it's a it's a screamer. It's a screamer, all right.
And then option number three, guy named Eric Martin, who
you'll know if you have heard nineties music at all.
The song to be with You by mister Big.
Speaker 3: Come on baby, come on over, let it be. You
don't want to show you. So he was the lead
singer for mister Big. He was, Okay, that's an entirely
different semi voice, absolutely softer. He's still got a raspby
good voice, melodic. But this is the one that blew
me away. This was an actual offer on the table.
Speaker 5: Darryl Hall of Hollowise.
Speaker 2: I love Hallowose.
Speaker 3: I listened to that. I listened to uh Lion Eyes
with Private Eyes, thank you? Yeah, sorry, yeah, I listened
to Private Eyes over and over.
Speaker 2: But I'm not a Van Halen.
Speaker 5: How about how about Eddie Plane your kisses on my
lips kiss.
Speaker 2: Unchained melody or something?
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, no way.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 5: So there's very few people that I can actually step
in for Dave. They have to be established or the
fan base of Chewno. Right, they have to have balls
of steel to get up there and rock out to
these old ones and then pursue a.
Speaker 2: New career with these guys. Right, So who they go to?
Speaker 5: They go back to the Montrose guy they call Sam
Hagar And.
Speaker 3: It makes it does make absolute sense, And I thought
so at the time. You know, the he had done
very well with Montrose, had been very successful. Then he
went out on his own solo career. Everybody knows the
song I Can't Drive fifty five. Loved the video of
fast cars frustration with this For you younger listeners. In
the nineteen eighties, no one was allowed to drive over
fifty five miles an hour anywhere in the United States.
Speaker 2: Can you imagine how.
Speaker 3: Horrible that was, especially if you own a Lamborghini.
Speaker 5: That's right, that's right.
Speaker 3: I mean, that's just like, you know, here's the candy,
but you can keep the wrapper on it.
Speaker 2: You can't, I don't. That'd be horrible.
Speaker 3: And so as it turns out that the Lamborghini that
you see, and well maybe not that one, but a
Sammy Hagar Lamborghini comes into play with the joining of
Eddie van Hans exactly right, and Sammy Hagar Sammy's cars
in the shop right at the same time Eddie's cars
in this Yeah, Eddie also had Lamborghini, which, by the way,
that is that is the car engine that you hear
in Panama.
Speaker 6: Yeah, we'll run a little bit hot tonight. I can
barely see the road from.
Speaker 2: The heat coming on.
Speaker 3: So that's that is Eddie's nineteen seventy two Lamborghini. But
he's having trouble with it. He takes it to his
mechanic and is down, and the mechanic says, what's wrong Eddie,
And Eddie says, man, I need a new lead singer.
And he says, man, want's you call Sammy?
Speaker 2: Sammy from Montrose.
Speaker 6: Right, So I thought this was interesting.
Speaker 5: So Eddie actually takes his advice, calls Sammy and says, hey, man,
we'd love to come down with the jam with the band.
Let's let's see what we got here and come down tomorrow.
And Samy's like, man, I do nothing tomorrow.
Speaker 6: I just got off tour.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he just shaved his head. I mean it was
I mean he cut his hair.
Speaker 3: It was he had he was on vacation, right, I'm
taking a break. And honestly, he's one of the few
guys that could say I don't need you guys right now,
that's right. I'm I'm really successful on my own. I'm
not Van Halen successful, but I'm successful enough for me.
And he is a savvy businessman. If you learn anything
from his biography, it's that he he knows how to
run a business, and he's a business guy, and he's
been around for a long time. He's older than all
the rest of the guys, and he knows his stuff,
so he's got no reason to have to do this.
But he just says, you know, what the heck, it's
what's the harm in meeting.
Speaker 5: I heard him say publicly in an interview that he
went initially.
Speaker 6: To Jim see what, see what they had, see what.
Speaker 3: Was going to go on, and hopefully entice Eddie to
play on his next album.
Speaker 5: Oh nice for my friendship. Maybe Eddie will play on
my next album. Right when they get together, he shows up,
he said that.
Speaker 2: They're baked out of their minds.
Speaker 5: They are drunk, and the whole place is covered in
cigarette butts and it smells like a bar that hasn't
been cleaned in ten years.
Speaker 3: And they start playing.
Speaker 5: They start playing, and magic happens.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, he says to himself, my gosh, if they
can sound this good, completely burned out of their minds.
These guys know how to party and they know how
to play. This is my type of show.
Speaker 6: He said literally that day.
Speaker 5: Yeah, they played, and words just sort of came out
of his mouth and Summer Nights was born out of
that jam session, right, just flowed right.
Speaker 2: Out, scouting, scouting the melody. That's it. Yeah.
Speaker 3: So uh, he's he's known as the red Rocker at
that point, and and he's got his own fame. And
so the first time that I saw him other than
in his video was during Farm Aid which gosh, if
you go back, you can search. You can do a
YouTube search on this one and see the old farm
Maide video.
Speaker 2: Oh my, oh my, oh my, okay, that's the song.
Speaker 6: Are you trying to pull him on the out there?
Speaker 4: Come on?
Speaker 3: I can't drive you all that he was.
Speaker 2: He was a unique guy.
Speaker 3: He's he's very free with the language, very colorful, and
he's with his regular band.
Speaker 2: And then he says he's looking.
Speaker 3: At the newspaper, right, and it said that Eddie.
Speaker 6: Was gonna jam with me, And I thought, well, I
didn't know that.
Speaker 3: But Eddie comes out and they play together and they
do an old led Zeppelin tune and they kill it.
Speaker 2: They killed of course, they kill it.
Speaker 5: So I heard Sammy talk about how he really messed
up because this was for all the world to see
their first chance to play live as a group, and
he bombs it with the big mffort and they cut
him off, like they shut down.
Speaker 3: It's no longer televised. Oh so I saw a lot
of cuss wordies whenever I watched it.
Speaker 2: I remember that.
Speaker 3: So anyway, Warner Brothers, so it's kind of like a supergroup.
You've got a very successful solo artist. You've got the
three parts left over after Dave left, right, are we
still going to be Van Halen? Warner Brothers actually came
to him and said, would you consider changing your name
to van Hagar?
Speaker 5: Which I think is interesting. I thought that was always
just kind of a slang.
Speaker 3: Term, but yeah, like a or The first time I
heard it was on the movie Joe Dirt.
Speaker 6: No, sir, man, I don't like that crap. I'm a
rocker dude, through and through.
Speaker 3: Here's my favorite bands, AC DC, Van Halen, not Van Hagar,
and Sammy's the one who says, no way, not doing
it right. So anyway, Sammy officially joins the band in
nineteen eighty five, and we will take that up on
our next episode, part three of the Van Halen versus
Van Hagar discussion.
Speaker 6: Right next week, Van Hagar.
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