Rivals as a production of I Heart Radio. Hello everyone, and welcome to Rivals, to show about music, beefs and feuds and long simmering resentments between musicians. I'm Steve and I'm Jordan's and we are back for the second of our two part episode in honor of Eddie van Halen, who died on October six at the age of sixty. Last week we looked at the relationship between Van Halen and David Lee Roth, and this week we're gonna go deep on the Sammy Hagar years. Yes, that's right, Van Hagar fans rejoice. Get some cricket sound effects in there. I think, okay, I can tell that. I guess I'm going to be the one in this episode who says nice things about Van Hagar. I don't relish this position. I feel like like Atticus Finch and Kill a Mockingbird. I'm playing the defense attorney in this episode, but like Johnny, position I've been put into and I accepted nonetheless. Look, I bought Van Hagar tapes as a kid. I still put on occasionally, and I let the power balladry of dreams wash over me like a fleet of blue angels. Please don't judge me too harshly. They do have some good songs, and you know, it's really interesting. There were discussions about whether to actually rename the band Van Hagar when Sammy joined, like basically as a way to preserve the Van Halen brand if it all went south, and the decision to carry on under the original name was definitely, you know, a practical one, and I'm sure they had you know, dollar signs dancing in their heads and everything, but also it was a giant middle finger today because bands tend to get held hostage by their lead singers in front Man. We saw this with Bernie sum there in New Order, because you know, they're viewed as justifiably the one member of the band you really can't replace unless you're in a band called Van Halen and you are one of the Van Halen's. So in this case, they bucked this trend with a new lead singer. And I don't know, aside from A C d C or maybe Black Sabbath or Genesis, I can't really think of another band that achieved that much success with a new singer, not just as a replacement, but as a way forward. And it's just so fascinating to me because this was such a hugely successful era for the band. I mean, all their albums went to number one, but it just seems to be universally looked down upon by Van Halen fans. Wouldn't you say, Oh, yeah, for sure. I mean it's not cool to see like Van Hagar. I mean you look at Van Halen with David the Roth in the band, and they're just like one of the most fun, infectious, like badass American rock bands ever. And then with Sammy Hagar, they just took this sort of adult contemporary turn towards power ballads. You know, I mentioned Dreams before us, you also had songs like right Now and like Love Walks In and when It's Love, lots of songs with love in the title. But yeah, I think it's worth noting that like the change with Hagar occurred at a time in the band's trajectory when I think they needed to grow up a bit or risk turning into a caricature. And like it or not, Sammy Hagar brought them into a more mature era, which is kind of crazy given that Sammy Hagar is a guy who drinks tequila all day and write songs about the time he was abducted by aliens. Yeah, I mean Jimmy off It meets Guy Fieri, you kind of get like Sammy Hagar vibes there. I mean, yeah, he seems awesome. But yeah, the Van Halen van Hagar debate is one for the ages and something that's pitted brother against brother and torn apart marriages. Uh. It's something we'll get too later on this episode comparing the two incarnations of the band, but for now we'll focus on Sammy versus the other members of Van Halen. So I hope you have your bottle of kabba wabo handy. Yeah, I mean yeah, Like Sammy might seem like a laid back guy, but he actually had a pretty bitter fight with Van Halen after he left the band and then when he left the band again. So I'm excited to get into it. So without further ado, let's get into this mess. So there's an alternate universe where Sammy Hagar was actually always part of Van Halen, which, you know, mind blown there. When the band recording their first record in nineteen seventy seven, the producer Ted Templeman came into the studio with an album he produced by Sammy's former band Montrose, and effectively said, you know, we're gonna make an album like this. He wanted to give van Halen's record that big rock candy sound, and Eddie was totally cool with this. He was a huge Montrose fan, so he thought it was fine as a blueprint. And it's interesting to hear that Sammy was sort of was a decade older than the guys in Van Halen, so he's kind of part of the generation that inspired the band. And and like I said, Eddie was heavily influenced by Ronnie Montrose as a guitarist, particularly the use of big open cores, a big crunchy guitar chord sounds that Van Halen used. So Templeman went even further to suggest that they hire Sammy, who by that point was thrown out of Montrose. And it doesn't seem likely that the band ever seriously considered this, but it's definitely an alternate universe thing I like to consider from time to time. Yeah, it would have been interesting if Hagar was in the band originally. I don't think they would have been van Halen. I don't think they would have been as successful as they ultimately were with Roth. Of course, will never know. But I mean we talked about this last week, just the magic that Roth and Eddie Van Halen had together that was really kind of based on diametrically opposed personalities and it just created this tension that put out sparks and created this kind of special elk me that resulted in the Van Hillen that we all know and love on those first six albums. While Van Hillen is like rising to you know, being one of the biggest bands in America, Sammy Hagar is actually taking like a much I guess more workman like path through his career. He's known as this guy who's like never like the most popular person on the radio. He's not often like the headliner at his shows, but he's a worker. He's someone that like puts in the time, uh to entertain the audience. In a way, he's as much of a showman as David Lee Roth. But whereas David Lee Roth is very much like the rock star in the gilded cage, you know, like the the exacted bird type rock star, Sammy Hagar is like the everyman rock star. He's the guy that you look on stage and you think, oh, I could be that guy, and he's also someone who's really good schmoozing, you know, program directors at radio stations and tour promoters, and he becomes this person that is like really popular in the industry that people want to give him a chance. So by the mid eighties he's actually achieving like the greatest success of his career. He puts out that song I Can't Drive fifty five. It's a big hit. It's the song I think that's still most associated with him as a solo artist. And he puts out his first platinum record, which is called v o A, which is short for Voice of America. Have you ever heard that album? By the way, my only frame of reference for that album, aside from I Can't Drove fifty five is Dick in the Dirt because my father's name is Dick. So I got endless amusement from that track. Oh man, well, I would think that your dad, you know, due respect to your dad, if you if you're called Dick, there's like lots of other references that you could also make to that name, I would think. So it's not just on Sammy Hagar that you were tortured for that. But yeah, Dick in the Dirt is from v O A and that album. It is this mix of like patriotic songs, like on the cover of the album, Sammy Hagar is parachuting onto the lawn in front of the Capitol Building in Washington, d C. Because like Sammy Hagar is, like I think he was. I don't understand even what that idea was. Like, you know, there was like a lot of like sort of anti Russian sentiment at the time. I think that he was like like a like a soldier rocker type thing, and he was a big fan of Ronald Reagan, like, and Sammy Hagar generally has been known to be leaning on the politically conservative side of the spectrum. And so yeah, he's writing hiss like sort of like patriotic songs, or he's writing like really dumb sex songs, and this is going to be something that he will of course eventually take to Van Halen where I always feel like that's the difference between him and David Lee Roth. We talked about this a little bit last week, where I feel like David Lee Roth he could write these dumb sex songs, but there was always like a wink and a nod in there where again you felt like he was in on his own joke, like he was acknowledging the seediness of it, the ridiculousness of it. Whereas Sammy Hagar writes a song like Dick in the Dirt and it's an earnest song. He's actually serious about his dick being in the dirt. I mean, that is the difference between those two guys, like a smart guy who acts dumb in the case of David Lee Roth, and a guy who maybe just is kind of dumb but likable in the case of Sammy Hagar. So we get to the mid eighties, Sammy Hagar is writing High as a solo act. Meanwhile, Van Halen they need a new lead singer after David the Roth exits the band to become a movie star, which of course never happens, and they go through a couple of different singers. They go to Patty Smythe the singer from Scandal who had a big hit at the time called The Warrior that was like a big radio hit in the mid eighties. She said no. Apparently, they approached Darryl Hall of Hall of Notates to be the lead singer of Van Halen, which just seems insane. Darryl Hall is a great singer, but more of a blue eyed soul type singer. I don't really see him being the frontman of Van Halen. Of course he didn't either. He said no. There's actually a story recently that Steve Perry from the band Journey was approached by Eddie van Halen about possibly being a singer in the band, which I think is interesting given the direction that Van Halen was going in, which I think was more akin to Journey than the early records of van Halen War. They were moving in more of that kind of middle of the road direction. But Steve Perry said no, he was already in a successful band. So then he gets hooked up with Sammy Hagar because the mechanic for his Lamborghini suggested Sammy Hagar, which is the most mid eighties rock dude thing ever. It's like the Lamborghini mechanic, right, I mean, Sammy brought his card and because he's like, hey, I can't I can't drive fifty five. Can you fix this please? Like I need you need someone to fix this car exactly. I mean, yeah, that's amazing. But I guess Eddie took his mechanics suggestion and they put in a call to UH to Sammy and they arranged an audition at h at Eddie's studio at his house fifty Studios and UH. It was basically something approaching love at first sight. I guess the song Summer Nights came out of their first jam session, and in his memoir, Sammy compared the sound to his favorite band Cream. He said, this was something about this sound of slow, confident, almost majestic. My rock had always been more intense, but they relaxed into this groove thing, even if it was up tempo. I decided I was in. And the band loved Sammy because he could provide rhythm guitar, which Dave hadn't been able to do. But moreover, they felt he was a better singer. And Alex would even say, it's like driving a Porsche after years of owning a Volkswagen. Oh man, it's brutal. Yeah, Like it's the most colorful and high kicking Volkswagen of all time if it is a Volkswagen. I don't think that's a real affair comparison. Alex van Halen. I think another thing that's important too, is that Eddie Van Halen and Sammy Hagar became fast friends. They actually genuinely liked each other personally. I think they lived like on the same stretch of beach in Malibu, like they had beach houses, like it was like one over from each other. So I think in the early days, like Eddie and Helen would be playing guitar in his porch and he would like walk over to Sammy Hagar's house and they would write songs that way, which is never a relationship they had that existed between Davidie Roth and Eddie van Halen. Those guys were never close, So I think there was like a genuine sort of personal bond there. But of course, no matter how good they might have felt about each other at the time, it was risky for Van Halen to bring in a new lead singer. And you know you said this earlier. They were thinking about maybe changing the name. There was just concerned that this was going to blow up in everyone's faces. But when the record company heard the songs that they were working on a fifty, I think, especially the song why Can't This Be Loved? The head of the band's label, Moe Austin, said, I smell money. What's the quote? When he heard that song, which again extremely mid eighties, just like a sleazy like record label thing to say, even though Mo Austin is held in pretty high esteem in the record industry, but just the idea, like they heard this song and they're like, oh yeah, like this band is going to be huge. And of course that song ended up being a huge hit from the record. I think it was like a top five song on the pop charts, and of course went through the roof when it was released, and you know, you listen to and I think a lot of fans like that, you know, love the Roth era. They were really turned off because it did have this sort of corporate rock sound like I likened them the Journey earlier. The producer of that record is this guy Mick Jones, who played in the band Foreigner, so it has again like it feels more like Journey Foreigner, you know, Ario Speedwagon, like bands of that ilk then like the hard charging party band of old But again I have to say that, like I mean, Sammy Hagar is certainly a part of that, but I think he's somewhat of a scapegoat out here because the fact of the matter is that Eddie van Hillen was writing this music like he wanted to move in this direction, and I think obviously, like with the success of Jump, that proved that putting synths on a Van Haillen song would be very commercial, and I think there's a pretty natural progression from that to fifty, which is like pretty heavy on the sense. Yeah, absolutely, I mean all the way back to diver Down. I mean it's something that it seems like Dave was the one who was primarily against it. With him gone, he could really indulge in that. And also Sammy was a guitarist too, so on stage for all the songs that you know needed guitar parts, Sammy could play that, and then it would allow free Eddie up to play more of those parts too. So I think it definitely allowed him to expand further down that route too, because not only were people not objecting to it anymore, but also just from a practical standpoint on stage, he was able to do that more and allow that to be more part of the band's live sound. I have to do a quick sidebar on the song Love Walks in which I think is like one of the better power Baldy songs from Sammy. Haggard wrote that song about aliens and he's written like a bunch of songs about Aliens and like, I don't know if you've read like his memoir Read, which came out I think about ten years ago. It's like an underrated memoir. People don't talk about it and like when they talk about the great memoirs of recent years. But there's some haunting lines in that I have to say, especially later on about with any Yeah, yeah, the stuff about Evan Halan is great, but like just Sammy Hagar is like such a weirdo, like and he's a fascinating guy. Actually interviewed him when he put that book out, and he was a great interview I think we talked for like almost ninety minutes. Like he man like he is, this guy is a good storyteller and he's just like this eccentric dude. And he writes in his book about how he actually like met aliens when he was a kid. Like there's this passage in the book he says, I was laing in bed one night, dreaming. I saw a ship and two creatures inside of the ship. I couldn't see their faces. I just knew that there were two intelligent creatures sitting up in a craft in the little Creek Forest area at about twelve miles away in the foothills above Fontana. He's talking about Northern all Fourni here and they were connected to me, tapped into my mind through some sort of mysterious wireless connection. They downloaded his thoughts. That's like what it is. It's amazing. And I think that the implication here too, is that like the aliens helped to set him on this path toward rock and roll greatness. Yeah, he say in interviews, like they taught me some things that really helped me in life. Was that he would always say that he learned from them, and he named his publishing company after them. He said that they were from the ninth dimension and he named his music publishing nine Music in their honor. And he actually said that like he wanted to write more about aliens in his book, but his co author Joel Selvin was like, no one wants to hear about the aliens. Do exactly, And he was like, I could write a whole book about aliens, and I was like he should please do that. That would be amazing because like, honestly, the mantro stuff it's kind of interesting, but like aliens downloading thoughts into your brain with a wireless connection, you know, many decades before the Internet. I'm into that. So you know, the song Love Walks In is about that. Did he talk more about that to you? We delved in into it a little bit, not as much as I would like. I think again, like he's sort of into talking about it, but also feels like maybe I should be promoting my book, right, not this transcendent experience I had with extraterrestrials. That's more in line with his brand. I guess you're right. So that's that is. Sammy brings a lot to the band. He brings his guitar playing, he brings his alien experiences, and of course he brings his voice, which you know, I don't think anyone could argue, even though I'm more pro Roth than pro Hagar, much stronger voice than Roth. I mean, he's a real singer. I mean no disrespect to Roth, but he, as you said in the last episode, is more of like like a scat singing kind of proto rapper or kind of He's not a singer, you know. And I think that with having Sammy there and he was able to write expand his range even greater. Not only the keyboard realm, but write the kind of songs that David would never really be able to sing. Yeah, and again I go back to that story about Steve Perry being approached by Eddie Van Hallen about and and and Steve Perry has said that, like, I'm not clear on whether he was inviting me to join the band or if he just wanted to jam. But when you look at Steve Perry or Patti Smith or Daryl Hall these other singers that came up as possible replacements, they are all just sort of classically like great singers, Like you would look at them and say like, oh, yeah, those people can sing anything. And it does seem that, like Eddie Van Halen, that was something that he wanted at the time, and it seems like it was more in tune again with the music that he was writing. Again, I think that if you don't like Van Hagar, to define the band purely by him, I think for Eddie Van Halen would would be offensive. Because we talked about this last week that he didn't like it when people split the band into different eras according to the lead singer, because to him, it's like I'm the common denominator. I'm the tour of this band, it's all van Halen music. These guys are just sort of coming in and out of the band, And I think if you look at the band that way, which is I don't think most people look at it that way. They look at the singers as being almost like the protagonists in Van Halen. But if you look at it as Eddie van Halen being the protagonist, it's pretty clear that he makes this progression from the party rock of the late seventies two more of this again corporate rock, adult contemporary sound into the late eighties. And as much as I think we all prefer the Roth era, I think it does make sense in a commercial sense and also an aesthetic sense that they would make that evolution, because if if you still have davidly Roth in the band and or five, that would have been a pretty dated band. I think it would have been harder for them to do what Van Helen did, which was be one of the only bands of their era to continue to be successful, you know, into the late eighties and then into the alternative rock era of the nineties. And Sammy Hagar certainly wasn't hip and they were not an alternative band, but I think there was maybe something a little bit more shall we say, dignified about this era van Halen, like as weird as it is to say that about them, but like they just seemed more like an older band with him in the band, and maybe that was more appropriate for this era. Yeah, it allowed them sort of instantly mature. I mean, not only for their own reputation and you can't be pushing forty and doing the kind of things that David Lee Roth was, but also their sound too. Mean, the sound of rock from the late eighties to early nineties is such a massive shift from like the tail end of hair metal, which was basically people trying to be van Halen but to the nth degree, to stuff like grunge, which leads you to their album Balance, which I always thought was kind of van Halen's take on doing a grunge album. Yeah, definitely feels that way. Like there's that the lead single, Don't Tell Me What Love Can Do, which which was supposedly inspired by kurk Obain's suicide, and you listen to the guitar and it does feel I guess grungy. It feels so strange to apply that adjective to Eddie van Halen's guitar tone, because I just think of his guitar tone as just being inherently bright and hot. You know, it's not sludgy really um, and it's not really sluedge you on that song. But I think like in the realm of Van Halen Um, this was like like a relatively like angry moody record. And this record comes out, and it was a four year gap between this album and the previous record, which was for Unlawful Cornel Knowledge that came out the Spring of ninety one, comes out really before grunge has become a big thing, like never Mind and Ten are going to come out a little bit later in ninety one, so Van Halen kind of got onto the wire there, and again, like Balance, it ended up debuting at number one, so it's their fourth consecutive number one record. But I know, like for me, like as someone again, I was buying Van Hagar tapes as like a ten eleven year old, you know, I had dropped out of Van Halen by the time of Balance Um because they just maybe didn't seem quite like they were of the era, and it also seemed like Van Halen was valling apart a little bit. Like I don't know if you've seen like clips of them performing at this time, but like they look pretty beat up. Like this was around the time that Alex van Halen was like playing with a neck brace on stage all the time, which like I hate to laugh because he was in pain at the time. But like, whenever I see the neck brace, I always think of like those legal shows, like where the person is pretending to be injured and then we're in the neck brace, and then like they take it off and like you know, play a drum solo. Yeah, they take it off. It's proven that they're faking it or something. It's always like this. I was associate neck braces with comedy, I guess, so to see him on the stage with the neck brace, it's just so bizarre. And of course Eddie van Halen was having his issues with his hip where it was hard for him to move around on stage, so they're following apart physically, and then of course they're also starting to have tension finally with Sammy Hagar again, like him and Eddie were legitimate friends for a long time, but it seems like around this time the tension that derived from the relationship seemed to be that, like Eddie Van Halen was like a workaholic, always in his home studio fifty one fifty recording, where Sammy Hagar again, He's drinking tequila all day long. He's got the flip flops on, he's got the baggy shorts, the Oakley's glasses. He's like becoming the Jimmy Buffett of heavy metal essentially at this time. And he's just a much more easy going guy. And it seemed like maybe Eddie looked at Sammy as being lazy, right, I mean, also, it sounds like there was a lot of musical differences during the recessions for balance to I mean, he would say that this was the era when when Sammy would say, you know, because that was the record where if I said black, Eddie said white, and if I said okay, white, he'd said, no, I want black. Then he'd say, okay, well I want to black to begin with, and then Eddie would go, well, I don't know what I want, but let you know when I do. He just wanted the opposite with Sammy wanted. That's what he said in years later too, So it's definitely spilled over into into the creative realm too, all right hand, We'll be right back with more rivals. And then things really come to a head weirdly enough, Uh during sessions for the Twister soundtrack, which you know, there was chaos going on screen and also chaos behind the scenes apparently, well yeah, becaucause the band's longtime manager who joined right when Sammy joined, had just died and uh, and they got a new manager who was also Alex's brother in law, and he was doing what a manager did, which come up with a lot of ways to make a lot of money very quickly. Someone called these schemes canny, others would call them kind of crass and cheap. And one of his plans was to do a song for the Twister soundtrack, but it was supposed to be done when the bay him, we're on a break. I was supposed to be after their Balance tour in in and everybody really needed some downtime, especially Sammy, who had just gotten married and his wife is about to have a baby and he wanted to go be with her, and I guess they were planning to have the baby out in in Hawaii, have a natural birth out in Hawaii, and so he got roped back in to do these sessions for Twister, And not only did he have to go work, he had to go fly across the Pacific back to Eddie's house. So it's not bad enough they had to like move, Eddie just has to go into his backyard. Sammy has to fly across the Pacific to leave his wife, his pregnant wife, to go do these songs. And the sessions were really tense. They were trying to write multiple songs and they weren't coming together, so they just did one song called I think it's called Human Beings, which I have to say I played once. It's not called human beings. It's called humans being, which is a terrible title. I don't understand it's called humans being because human beings makes sense. That's why you thought it was called that. It was called humans being for which I don't know what that has to do with with tornadoes. But apparently when there's a certainato in the vicinity, you can't properly title a song like that's something that just causes your brain to blank out. But yeah, they're trying to write multiple songs, but that was the only one that they could finish, right, And then so they finish it. He goes back to Hawaii and then they can call from Eddie, oh man, we actually gotta do a second one. Can you come back? And Sam He's like, no, my wife's about to have a baby. I'm not. So they end up putting an instrumental on the album to fulfill their their commitment for a second song on there too. But that's really a major line in the sand for them. Is ironically the Twister soundtrack, which I believe I could be wrong, is what brought Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks back together in the right Yeah. Oh man, So this Twister soundtrack bringing people together also tearing them apart. This is like the moment, like the most momentous classic rock related album of the night these I thought oral history on the Twister soundtrack. So there's issues over the Twister soundtrack. Sammy Hagar, I think with justification, felt like I don't really have time for this. You know again, my wife is having a difficult uh birth. I want to be with her. But Eddie and Alex are looking at him as not being a team player. Essentially, they don't feel like he's contributing his fair share to the band, and this gets compounded when the Greatest Hits album for Van Halen comes up, and this has ends up being tense for multiple reasons because not only are the Van Halen Brothers trying to get Sammy in the studio to record a couple of new songs for this Greatest Hits album, but they're also working with David Lee Roth and they haven't told Sammy Hagar that they're working with David E. Roth on these songs, and when he hears about this, of course he's going to hit the roof. So that is a big issue in the band. But from the Van Halen Brothers perspective, they were really feeling out of frustration because they were having trouble getting Sammy to work on these songs. Meanwhile, two years before this, Sammy Hagar had put out his own greatest Hits record called Unboxed, which, by the way, who's buying a Sammy Hagar Greatest Sets album? Was buying this? You you need more songs than I can't drive fifty five that's all you need. I guess. This was the nineties and you couldn't download songs, you couldn't stream songs, so people were like, I love I can't Drive fifty five so much I'm gonna spend on a Sammy Hagar Greatest Hits record. Maybe you end up stuff on there. I am not familiar with the Sammy Hagar Greatest Hits record, I must say, I guess I'm hoping maybe Dick and the Dirt is on that record. All apologies to your father, of course. But the Van Hallin Brothers look at this, and Sammy Hagar had recorded a couple of extra songs for that album, essentially because the record company was going to give him extra money for that, and he was getting divorced at the time, and he just like took that money and gave it to his ex wife. So it was just a pure sort of like divorce settlement type thing. Shades of here, my dear, I guess, only now instead of a masterpiece, it's a shitty Sammy Hagar Greatest Hits album. But the Van Halin Brothers look at this and they just see Sammy Hagar again not being a team player and also being a bit of a hypocrite because you did it for your greatest Hits record. This is for a Van Hill and Greatest Its record that people actually care about, and you're not contributing and Sammy would say like this project is where the all the bad blood really started. And the details of their final split are disputed, but it's apparently it ended with a phone call on Father's Day, which is very fitting considering the issues of Sammy wanted to be there for for his wife's birth on Father's Day, and in Eddie's version, he called Sammy and basically read on the riot act like, you know, if you want to make another record, do another tour, you have to be a team player. Dan Halen is a band, not the Sammy Hagar show. And uh, Sammy apparently responded by saying, you know, I'm frustrated. I want to go back to being a solo artist and and he said all right, well fine, like thank you for being honest, And his version of story at least said, you know, with minimal fury, said well go go back and go do that, and we're gonna do our own things. So uh, according to Eddie, Sammy quitting an egotistical huff because he wanted to go do his own thing rather than several made his artistic vision with Van Halen. Uh. Sammy, as you might expect, disputes this version. He basically says that he was fired and then you know, adding insult to injury. They turned around really quickly and got Dave back into the mix too, which for him, he said that was worse than sleeping with the enemy. We bumped heads and the next thing I know, Eddie calls and David Lee Roth is back, and that's uh, that's the end of it. Seems like there's like a some timeline confusion here because I've heard stories that Van Halen were working with David Lee Roth on these tracks for the Greatest Hits album again, because the idea was that they were going to record a couple songs with him and a couple of songs with Sammy Hagar to represent both eras at the band. But Sammy Hagar makes it sound like they contacted Roth after Hagar left and then maybe they kept it from him for fear of him like freaking out. So it's not really clear. I mean to me, like what this really speaks to is for all the success that Van Hagar had, I feel like Sammy Hagar always had a bit of insecurity about David Lee Roth and that really manifested itself in their concerts because he wouldn't perform David Lee Roth's songs in the show, and I think his idea was that, you know, this is a new band. I want to, you know, stay true to this era. I want to stay true to our songs. Obviously, Van Hagar was very successful, so you know, they had hits of their own, they didn't necessarily have to play the older songs. But I feel like that might have backfired on him because you know, look, if you love Van Halen, you want to hear Running with the Double, You want to hear a talking about love, you want to hear Panama. And the fact that like they never played those songs with Hagar, I think it just created like a mythology about that period that like made people really pine for that. Like what if Hagar had just sung those songs and like people thought, Wow, like these songs sound even better with Sammy Hagar, or they sound as good with Sammy Hagar. I just think that at some point maybe people wouldn't have felt so much affection for the Roth era if Hagar had sort of like blocked it out or tried to block it out so completely from his years in Van Halen. Does that make sense? Yeah, it didn't rock, do the same thing too, but people basic he said, like he just didn't have the chops to sing Hagar songs. But I feel like Roth sort of did the same thing and refused to sing the Hagar Era's different with him, though. I think that, like, if you're going to see like the Roth Era van Halen, you just want to hear that. I don't want to hear David Ross sing you want to pretend it's nineteen. I don't want to hear him singing love walks in and talking about aliens. That's like the Sammy Hagar alien song. I want to hear David Lee Roth do the rath Era stuff. I think the onus was on Hagar to like plant his flag in the rath Era and say, hey, I can perform these songs as well as he can, which I don't think, by the way, he could have. I think their styles are so different that like hearing Sammy Hagar do like the David Lee Roth stick, you know, like you know, he's the seat back that whole Panama rapped. You know, that would have been weird. You know, he wouldn't have done it as well. But I just feel like that he did that. I think so people wouldn't compare the two versions of the band, but I think in the way he sort of like inadvertently exacerbated it. I wonder how much Eddie was involved with that though, too, Like I wonder if he said, you know what, no new era, like, we're gonna do mine new songs, like I wonder, like whose decision that fully well possible. I just feel like he probably would have done it. And I remember I read Ian Christie's book Everybody Wants Some, which is a great biography of Van Halen, and the sense I got from that book is that, especially towards the end of Van Hagar, that like he was itching to play some of those songs again because they're great songs, and he I'm sure he knew that if he played ain't talking about love that like he's gonna burn down any arena in the world, you know, like people are going to be so excited to hear that. But it doesn't. May Hagar leaves the band, I think kind of hastily. You know, this exit to me doesn't make as much sense as Roth leaving. Like they're arguing about the Greatest Hits album and the Twister soundtrack. It seems very petty to me, like whereas I feel like Roth was clearly growing apart from van Halen, but like Hagar again, Hagar and van Halen were actually pales and to blow up the band over this, it just seems sort of silly to me. Maybe he seemed to have a lot of remorse and regret over it all, Like not that long after he said, you know, if I knew that my making the greatest hits album, the unboxed album was gonna do is the band, I wouldn't be in van Halen anymore. I never would have done it. Like he seems genuinely sad about all this, which I don't think Dave ever was. Throughout the eighties. I mean, Dave was in the wings kind of like a w w F fighter, trash Chalk and Sammy every chance he could in the press, and like, you know, there's a singer, Sammy, Hagar is a singer, but I'm the singer. I think one of his great quotes, So, like, you know, Dave never really had that kind of regret. I don't think where Sammy seemed very quickly, like very sad about all this in the short run, though he did take some shots at the van Hillen brothers, and of course, like his book read is like brutal to uh to both of them, but especially Eddie van Halen. But in the short run he puts up the solo record called Marching to Mars, which is another alien reference, I guess, And the album kicks off with a song called Little White Lie, which is him basically just like venting about what he sees again as the van Halen brothers stabbing him in the back, you know, sleeping with the enemy, as it were, by working with David Lee Roth. Also like that album, it ends with a song called Both Sides Now, which is not the Joni Mitchell song, although it'd be hilarious were if he's saying the Joy Mitchell song. But like that song is, you know, it's like he vented his spleen on the first track, but now he's like a little bit more reflective. And there's the line of the song where he says, yeah, we gotta learn how to listen before we learn how to talk. We gotta learn how to crawl before we learn to walk. If you want a little piece, sometimes you gotta fight. We gotta walk through the darkness before we stand in the light. Oh, yeah, that's about this philosophical as uh Sammy Hagar gets in his lyrics. You can feel like that regret. I think a little bit there that Okay, maybe you know, we could have talked this out, like we had a great thing going, maybe just take a breather and then come back, but instead we've just blown up this hugely profitable band. My favorite part about that album too, is that he gets Slash into play. I think it was on a Little White Lie actually, the song where he's venting his spleen, and I always thought that was a message, like you know what, because this was when Slash was on the outs with Axel and I thought, Okay, I'm gonna get my own guitar god Eddie and my own guitar god who hates his lead singer, And like, you know, see, I feel like that was just him like sort of openly replacing him in a in a small way on that song, like look like we can David Rock try the same thing when he brought in Steve I on his early solo records and like, yeah, everyone is always just trying to replace Eddie van Halen, which of course you cannot do. Like Evan Helen is Eddy van Helen, and I gotta say to that, Like the Van Hagar records, you know, even if like Sammy Hagar isn't your cup of tea, there is still like some pretty great Edie van Halen guitar and Alex van Halen drums on those records. Like I was listening to oh You eight one two, which is an album as dumb as that album title basically, but like if you just listen to the instrumental tracks, there's like some hot playing on that record. Same with Foreign level Kernel knowledge, Like there's some like terrible lyrics like the song Sucker and a three piece from oh U eight one two so stupid, or black and Blue, which you know you can just tell from the title that's just like a gross sex song. But you know those guys could play and they and they could elevate even like terrible lyrics, whereas like I'm marching to Mars I don't know Slash can like elevate Sammy Hagar's terrible lyrics in the same way that Eddie Van Halen ken No yeah, I mean also even mentioned powder Kick Yet, which is one of my favorite songs in the Van Hagar Our bound Cake Pound Cakes Yeah, pound cake exactly pound cake. Stupid stupid title, stupid lyrics, but pretty like rock and music. So you know, that was always the case. I think with Van Hagar much more than with David the rock where I think, like the lyrics and the music, we're working more in concert with each other. We talked about this last week, But there was the Sammy Hagar and David the Rock tour that occurred in the early odds, which was during this period was post the Gary Sharone era where you know, they put up Van Halen three, that record just tanks and Van Halen goes on yatis for an extended period of time. Eddie van Halen really kind of lapses into a dark period of alcoholism in the early odds, and the idea again like for this Hagar davidly rock tour was that, Like, I think it was partly to troll the van Halen brothers, but I think also I think, certainly from Sammy hag Our perspective, it was also to kind of goad them back into touring again. Yeah, I can't tell if he knew that. I mean, he openly said like this was the pist off Alex and Eddie, So I know, I feel like almost that was at least it right there that that's my gut. It would be nice to think if that actually was responsible for the two thousand four reunion, although when we get to the two thousand four reunion with such a disaster that I'm sure you'd probably be crab. I think like in the Ian Christie book, there's a bit and there about how I think Sammy Hagar felt like, oh, if I can just show them how many fans still want to hear this music, that it will inspire them maybe to like get out of whatever funk they're in and get the band back together again. And as much of a train wreck in a lot of ways is that Sammy Hagar and David Lee Ross tour was. It was like pretty successful, like they played large venues, they sold a lot of tickets, and you know, whether it was directly responsible or not for the reunion, Sammy Hagar did end up back in the Fold in two thousand four. And this era is so dark, but it began with uh with some good feelings like that they taught became was a phone call between Sammy and Alex van Halen and they encouraged him to stop by and Uh and jam a little bit and just kind of, you know, see if they could get the old magic back. And Uh. In Sammy's memoir he describes it's like it's too bleak to even quote this, like really dark scene with Eddie really descended an alcoholism. And he's walking around with like you know, rope for a belt and like boots with like gaffer tape over him to cover the holes, and he's he's drinking wine out of a bottle and it's just rough, but he can still He's still Eddie van Halen and Uh, Eddie and Alex start playing some music that they've been working on, and he said it just sounded great. He was really inspired by it. So they decided, you want, we're gonna start fresh. We're gonna do this, We're gonna rise above it. And they decided to make a new album and it was supposed to be a full length album. It was gonna be called the Best of both Worlds and Uh. They recorded some songs and they were in a couple of weeks they recorded I think almost the full album's worth, and they were waiting for Eddie to put his guitar solos on it and Corn to Sammy at least Eddie was just in no state to do it, and it was just taken months to get these solos on and it was just taken way too long. So instead they decided to put out a Van Halen or Van Hagar I guess era Greatest Hits album and put these new songs on it. Uh and tour. I love that. Like Sammy Hagar in his book Read describes Eddie van Halen as quote the weirdest funck I've ever seen. I mean, yeah, that's what he wasn't that air? I guess? Yeah, he's just in rough shape. There's this terrible story that he tells in the book about how, you know, they were getting ready to go on the road, you know for and by the way, yeah, like those tracks that they recorded, I don't think they've ever been released, have they. I mean that I don't think that's this time, and that's probably for the best. But there's this terrible story about how they were getting ready for the tour and like Eddie van Halen was not in good shape. He was drinking a lot and he says, according to Sammy Hagar, at one point he says, I will kill the first motherfucker that tries to take this bottle away from me. I left my family for this ship. You think I'm gonna do it for you guys, which is just that is the darkest behind the music moment ever. But it just it speaks to like, how you know, they're trying to get back on the road again. This is a very profitable brand, and I remember that the expectations for this tour, even though it wasn't rough, I mean, the Van Hager, I think Erro was already kind of like had receded in a steam by this time. But people were still excited. I mean they were still playing arenas, and I think there were a lot of there's a lot of excitement at least initially, but yeah, they just could not really get their act together behind the scenes. Yeah, I mean they went on the road, they just they decided to put the album on ice permanently, and uh and Eddie was just in a bad way throughout this tour, I mean, flooding solos and forgetting songs and at one show he kept tripping over his guitar cable and I'm plugging it in some so some hapless guitar tech. At the following around the whole show, just to make sure he's plugged in. Bad bad vibes all around. I guess after one show there was nearly a full scale brawl backstage. In in Sammy's memoirs a lot of really horrific backstage stories about Eddie flipping out on him, and I guess after one show, Sammy decided to take a shower before heading to their private plane, and when he got on the plane, Eddie was waiting for him and basically, don't you ever make me fucking wait for you again. Without me, You're nothing. You need me. You'll see at the end of this tour, you guys will have nothing. You're gonna have to call me if you ever want to tour again. Which is quite a thing to say to somebody for taking a shower and making you wait a little bit. Uh So, yeah, bad bad vibes on this tour all around. But I know you saw this tour. How was that? This is the only time I saw Van Halen who was on the tour where Eddie van Hillen was fall down drunk and Sammy Hagar was hitting everyone in the band like that was the only time I saw them. My memory of it is that it was like pretty good, like I enjoyed it. I think my standards were probably pretty low because you know, I listened to Van Halen since I was like a little kid, and I was just excited see any incarnation of them. A notable thing about this tour as far as Sammy Hagar goes, is that he did say some roth era songs on this tour. I remember he did jump and he might have done like some songs from the first record, so he had definitely loosened up on that by this time. But yeah, you read about this tour and like you have to laugh, even though it is again depressing because Eddie van Halen is such a great musician and this was like a low point for him. There's that story I think they're playing in Chicago where he was in the middle of a solo and he stops playing and he says, sorry, folks, I've run out of gas. Like he just stopped like that, which is just incredible. And you know, again he's just drinking a lot, and it sounds like, you know, either because he was drunk or because he was just sick of Sammy Hagar. He was like just openly disrespectful. The Sammy Hagar. There's that other story where, like I guess backstage at a show like this was towards the end of the tour, he pointed at Sammy's Kabbo Wabo tattoo and he said, that thing ain't gonna last. And then he pointed to like his own Van Halen tattoo and he said, see that that's better. That's that's going to last longer. Now, should be noted that Sammy Hagar he sold like a share of his tequila company, the Kabbo Wabbo Tequila uh company, for like eighty million dollars. Like he made a ton of money from his tequila company. So like the Cobba Wabbo tattoo, Eddie Van Halen, you maybe pay some respect to that, to the Kabbo wob because Sammy Hagar made that happen Jimmy Buffett style. But yeah, this tour was a disaster, and I think again, like I think Alex van Halen was still holding out hope that like, oh maybe we can salvage the album. Oh yeah, I mean they were barely talking to each other. Sammy and the Van Halen's had separate jets, separate hotels, separate limos, even separate security. I mean, it was just completely that they were They were not on speaking terms at this point, and Sammy just went down to uh down the Cabo to become a liquor baron basically and make his music with the robber Rita's Yes, a tequila magnate. Now, another notable thing about the two thousand four tour is that it was the final tour with Michael Anthony, who, again we've barely talked about Michael Anthony in our van Halen episodes because he has rivals with no one. He's he's a nice guy. He's like the nicest guy in Van Halen, and yet he got treated very poorly by the van Halen brothers. I don't think there's any other way to put it, and he ends up getting kicked out of the band in favor of Wolfgang and evan Halen's son, who joins the band on the two thousand seven tour that they ended up doing with David E. Roth and Wolfgang van Halen. He's like, what like thirteen fourteen years old at this time, so talented kid, but somewhat of an insult to Michael Anthony. A charter member of this band, someone who I don't think anyone would call a bass playing virtuoso, but his vocal is backing vocals on Van Halen songs are such a signature part of their sound, and also just his presence on stage. He's always smiling playing the Jack Daniels bass. For as much darkness and rancor that has existed in this band, it seems like Michael Anthony in a way is like the most sort of genuinely party hardy guy in the band. Like he's the one that you would want to hang out with the most, I would think. But and evan Halen like really like went after him in interviews like and kind of took away any recognition that he might have had from people. Like he talked about how like he basically would either like tell Michael Anthony want to play or like play bass himself on a lot of songs. And he even like said that like, you know those backing vocals you're on Van Halen records, it's like I'm singing to like that's as much me as him. So like even like the backing vocal thing, he couldn't let Michael Anthony have that, He said, he sounds like a piccolo. It's so sad to me. Yeah exactly. He said he's got a high voice, basically saying that, like he has like a piccolo like voice, and I'm like the conductor who's like using his voice in a very specific way because that's all it can do. But it's like he's not really a great singer, Like I'm as good of a singer as him. It's like, Eddie, come on, man, like you already have the name in the band and you're a guitar playing genius. We all recognize that. Let Michael Anthony have his backing vocal, DAP have his one thing. Yeah, I mean, and you really you wonder what actually started this between them, because apparently it was that Eddie was mad that he was stayed friends with Sammy after the split, which is really weird. Like when they were going on there two thousand a reunion tour with Sammy, they didn't want Michael back in the band, and it was part of Sammy's conditions for joinings. We gotta got Mike Anthony back. But it makes no sense, like if you're gonna bring Sammy back, why are you still mad at this guy for being friends with Sammy? I don't know, it's just it's the whole like Van Halen Brothers almost like mafia style US and them like you're on the outside kind of thing. But I think with Michael was really cruel, and all those interviews that Eddie gave where he said, like Michael would would bring a cam qorder over and film Eddie playing bass parts so that he could go home on work on him like a bass tutorial privately is sad and Sammy took a lot of offense to that too, and he went on his Facebook page and had some video I think right after when Eddie's interviews where he was slacking off Michael basically saying like that's the biggest load of horseshit ever. And also Michael is a great guy, which I don't think I've ever heard anyone say anything bad about Michael. Throut the entire Van Halen saga which is filled with bad behavior, and you go back to when he joined the band. David Lee Roth joined the band because he rented them a p A set. Michael Anthony joined the band because he gave them a p A set one night when their p A broke down. I think that just shows like what a good heart this guy has. And this, you know, in a group that you know isn't really known for for showing a hell of a lot of loyalty. Uh yeah, A big fan of Michael Anthony. He didn't deserve any of that. Yeah, And the biggest bummer for fans is that they were robbed of like a genuine Van Halen reunion, Like when David Lee Roth came back in the band Wolfgang was the bass player, and you know, look, I can appreciate Eddie van Helen loving his son, wanting to play with his son, and I'm sure it was great for the van Halen brothers to have like the next generation playing in the band in much the same way that like their own father, Jan van Halen would play with his kids. And it was like, Okay, we're passing on this heritage to the next generation. But like you reconcile with Sammy Hagar for a while and Michael Anthony was there and it was great. Then you finally get David the Roth back in the band, but it's like, oh, it's still not a full fledged reunion. We're not going to see the four guys that we remember from the late seventies. And early eighties because this kid is there and it's just so sad that like they couldn't really do that calculus in their head that would say, like, Okay, well, Wolfgang is young, He's gonna have other opportunities. Let's at least do one tour where it's like the four original members. Like how amazing would that have been. It sounds like too that like that might have been in the works, like towards the end of Eddie Van Hillen's life, Like I think there were rumors in that they were going to maybe do a tour with Michael Anthony and then of course Eddie van Hillen got sick and they couldn't make it happen. Yeah, they might confirm that. He said that Irving as Off called and tried to gauge his interest in doing a big summer tour, but yeah, Eddie, Eddie's health was on with the client then and it it never happened. But that reunion was so close that would have been incredible. So I mean, if the Van Hillen brothers are on the outs with with Michael Anthony, the nicest man in rock, you know that it was going to be a hard road for them to reconcile with Sammy Hagar, especially after that two thousand four reunion tour, and of course then they subsequently get back together with David E. Roth And it just seems like really up until shortly before Van Halen died, that there was a fair amount of rancor between Sammy Hagar and the Van Halen camp. Yeah, especially when the Roth album A Different Kind of Truth came out. He gave an interview and Rolling Stone where he basically said that Edie couldn't write songs anymore. He was using old demos from the seventies and eighties. Uh for this new album. He said, well, those aren't really songs. And he said, it was always really easy for me to write songs with ed He had all these parts, and I had all these ideas. But it wasn't like he wrote instrumentals and I just had the right lyrics over him, he said, like Sammy said, I was an integral part to the writing process in the later years of of Van Hagar too, so uh. And obviously Eddie was not happy to hear that he could no longer write songs. Uh. So they fought in interviews for the next few years until until and that was the year that Prince died, Bowie died, Glenn Fry died, and um, and Sammy said, you know, I really don't want to carry this around with me anymore. So he started sort of tentatively reaching out to try to repair his relationship. I guess, like he tweeted at Eddie van Halen like happy Birthday, and Eddie wrote back, thanks, Sammy, hope you're well too, you know, not exactly overflowing with warmth there, cordial. It's cordial, you know. And I guess Sammy he went on Oprah that summer and he was like talking again about like he wants to patch things up with Eddie van Helen and he wants to be friends and not even almost kind of putting like the personal relationship first. Really like in the way he was talking about it, clearly I think he would have loved to have done more musically with Eddie van Halen. But again, these guys were actually like bros for like a decade, like when they were together. It wasn't like the David Lee Roth thing, which which was purely just kind of like a business relationship. Like I think he felt like, oh, this was a guy I was actually once pretty close to and now, you know, we've had all this bad blood for a while. And after Eddie van Halen died, Sammy Hagar talked about how in the final months of Edie van Halen's life that they were texting each other on a weekly basis, and it sounds like like towards the end that they were finally able to kind of achieve some measure of reconciliation. It sounds like, you know, they weren't as close as they maybe had once been, but they could you know, text regularly the way you went with an old friend and reconnect and and hopefully you know, tell each other what they meant to each other, you know before Eddie passed. Yeah, that's really wonderful that they had that. We're gonna take a quick break and get a word from our sponsor before we get to more rivals. All right, Well now, which is part of the episode where we give the pro side of each part of the rivalry. Let's talk about Sammy Hagar first. Um, you know I said this before I interviewed Sammy Hagar one. So this is like in two thousand eleven, and I thought he was like a really nice, gregarious guy, and it seems like, anecdotally that for the people who know him, like that's a common takeaway with Sammy Hagar. He's just like this big puppy who wears swift flops and drinks tequila, you know, like the Spuds Mackenzie of singers, and uh, you know, as a singer and songwriter, he is the opposite of like a subtle and artful artist. But he does get the I'm done And you can't discount how difficult it was to follow someone like David Lee Roth and how Sammy pulled it off. I mean, just look at the guy who followed Sammy Hagar, Gary Sharon. I mean they crashed into the side of a mountain with Van Halen three, So I mean, I think that speaks to how difficult it was for Sammy Hagar to pull that off. So I feel like when people talk about Van Hagar and they talk about them being this kind of lame, synthy, power ballady adult contemporary band, Hagar ends up being the scapegoat, which I don't think it's totally fair. I mean, obviously, I think his vocal style suited that kind of music more than the party jams of the David Lee Roth era. But again, like this was music that Eddie van Halen was writing, and I think it was a direction that he wanted to go into. So if you don't like those Van Hagar records, Eddie van Halen must bear the brunt of that responsibility as much as Sammy Hagar. But it must be said, just for the record, that the four albums that they made together all debuted at number one, and they were able to be successful in an era where many bands of their generation had either faded away or broken up. So Sammy Hagar really gave this band a new lease on life and extended their career, maybe even doubled their career, you know, because he was able to make that transition so successfully. Yeah, I mean it was that definitely the toughest time in a band's life when they're sort of too young to be classic or a legacy band, but too old to be cutting edge. And like you said, yeah, I think that it gave a built in excuse for Eddie to sort of rebuild the sound from the ground up. And now you've got songs like Don't Tell Me in Pleasure Dome and seven Seal that you know, it's interesting, even if I prefer the earlier Rath stuff. I definitely really appreciate stuff like, you know, even right now. I really like the sort of the more almost prog rocky journey style stuff that they did do. I don't like it as much as Roth, but it definitely it's It's something that I'm grateful exists. And I do feel bad for him, just as like nobody ever likes the replacement dude, and especially as somebody's amiables him and as talented as him too. I mean, I think that his voice and his musical skills were a real asset to the group. Now, if we go over to the pro Van Halen's side, I mean, look in terms of his relationship with Sammy Hagar. Deep down he must have known that the David Lee Rothiers were more popular. I mean, Van Halen has two Diamond selling records and they're both from the Roth era, the self titled debut in you know. And while Dan Hagar did have those four consecutive number one records, the David the Rothiers they sold a lot more albums overall. So when it came time when the possibility to reunite with David Lee Roth arose, and really when they were at the point where they weren't making hits anymore, and they kind of transitioned into that era where they were just going to be a nostalgia act. It made obvious sense to stick with David the Rother over Sammy Hagar. And again, also, I don't think Sammy Hagar helped himself by not singing those David the Roth hits earlier in their career. I think that if he could have put his own stamp on those songs and at least convinced part of their fan base that like, oh yeah, he can sing jump better than David the Roth, or he can sing unchained better than David the Roth, I think it would have been harder for Van Halen to pivot back to them. But because he didn't sing those songs, it almost created a scarcity effect where after ten years of hearing you know best of both worlds and you know when it's love and all these power ballots people were just hungry for like the Van Hellen of old and David Lee Roth was ready to step in. So I think when you look at this band overall, Sammy Hagar he deserves some credit for helping shepherd Van Halen into this new era. But again This is ultimately Eddie Van Halen's band, and he knew that Sammy Hagar would work for that late eighties early nineties era, and then he also knew when to go back to the original guy when it was advantageous to do that. Yeah, I mean, the fact that he was able just through sheer force of will to push the band through the split with their lead singer is amazing enough. But then also doing doing that while navigating the tremendous musical shift of the late elies in early nineties, that was all Eddie's doing, And I uh, yeah, I think that's really where his uh he shines in the Van Hagar Eras that you said, it basically doubled the band's career by doing that, by creating a whole new sound. So if you look at these two together again, I think we've hit upon this that ed Evan Helen was able to strike gold again with a much different lead singer. And you know, as much as you know people want to compare Sammy Hagar to David the Roth, I actually think it's a good thing that they hired a guy much different than David the Roth. If they had hired another like motor Mouth, like crazy showman type singer. They would have inevitably fallen short of David Lee Roth. But with a guy like Sammy Hagar, there's really no point in comparing him to Davidle Roth because they're doing two completely different things and it allowed Van Halen to really become a different band. Like when I listened to Van Halen, I really do think of them as two different bands, and I think the Roth era it's the one I prefer. But there's certain attributes to the Hagar era that don't exist in the Roth era. And I'll say I have a lot of guilty pleasures in the Van Hagar era that I still turn to when I am looking for inspirational synth rock power, balady goodness. Oh yeah, I mean Dreams is like, you know, I feel like everything I hear that, I feel like I'm in like an eighties movie with like a like a montage of like working out and like moving towards something. It's definitely Yeah. Now, again, two different bands. Vastly prefer the Roth, but Van Hagar has some great moments too. So this concludes our Van Halen series. We've talked about the Van Halens with David Lee Roth. We talked about the Van Halens with Sammy Hagar. At the end, you might just be thinking, why can't this be love between all these people? But I think by the end it was. Would you say it was a dream it was or multiple dreams because those two different bands, I think it is safe to say that. So thank you all for listening to this episode. We will be back with more beefs and feuds and long swimming resentments next week. Rivals is a production of I Heart Radio. The executive producers are Shawn Titone and Noel Brown. The supervising producers are Taylor Kin and Tristan McNeil. The producer is Joel hat Stat. I'm Jordan's run Talk and I'm Stephen Hyden. If you like what you heard, please subscribe and leave us a review. For more podcast for my heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.