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  • Eddie Van Halen ‘Guitar God’ Title Slipping?

    Eddie Van Halen ‘Guitar God’ Title Slipping?

    When Eddie Van Halen gave an interview in Billboard magazine recently he dogged Michael Anthony and David Lee Roth, despite the fact that one of those guys is still actually in his band.

    But Eddie Van Halen also that he doesn’t listen to music. “I don’t listen to anything,” the guitar god said. He noted that, even when he drives, he doesn’t listen to music. “I prefer the sound of the motor,” he claims.

    “It’s an odd thing, but I’ve been this way my whole life,” Van Halen said. “I couldn’t make a contemporary record if I wanted to, because I don’t know what contemporary music sounds like.”

    The real stunner came when Eddie Van Halen claimed he doesn’t remember writing his own hits.

    “I have no memory of coming up with any of those riffs,” Eddie said. “Even the stuff I wrote for the last record, I don’t remember. It just comes to me. I never sit down and decide to write a song. I’ve never done that.”

    Eddie does claim to remember that Michael Anthony can’t play bass without a primer from Eddie.

    “Every note Mike ever played, I had to show him how to play,” Van Halen said. “Before we’d go on tour, he’d come over with a video camera and I’d have to show him how to play all the parts.”

    Sammy Hagar was having none of that.

    “For Eddie to say he had to show [Michael] what to play and had to teach him all those songs, that is the biggest line of bullshit I’ve ever heard in my life. I was in that band for eleven years, and there was never a video camera involved of Eddie showing him what to play.”

    Defending Michael Anthony is one thing. But Sammy went further, claiming that it is Eddie’s playing that was slipping.

    “Eddie would tell him what to play once in a while, and say, ‘No, Mike, don’t play with that many notes. Just stay on one note — boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom — so that I can fuck up and nobody will know it.’ It was that kind of shit. And I am telling you straight up, especially on the ’04 reunion tour, if Mike would have played any more than one note, it would have been showing that Eddie wasn’t playing the right chords again and again and again; I couldn’t sing to ’em, you couldn’t play bass to ’em.”

    If Eddie says he can’t remember writing his own songs, and doesn’t like listening to music — plus Sammy claims Eddie screws up so bad live that you can’t sing or play anything but rudimentary bass with him — is Eddie Van Halen’s “Guitar God” title at risk?

  • Sammy Hagar Pounds Eddie Van Halen for Statements About Michael Anthony

    Sammy Hagar sounded like a man who was open to a reasonable compromise late last year.

    “I’m honored to be a part of [Van Halen],” Hagar told Rolling Stone. “I’m sorry about the bad blood, but I’m totally honored.”

    He said that writing music with Joe Satriani in Chickenfoot was one of his best experiences. I’d rather write a record with him than anyone else,” Sammy said. But it was who he compared Satch to that was noteworthy.

    “Joe Satriani is my favorite writer to work with since Eddie Van Halen,” Hagar said.

    But something has sure changed Sammy Hagar’s tune lately. And that something is Eddie Van Halen himself.

    The guitar-playing Van Halen recently told Billboard that he and David Lee Roth were certainly not “friends,” despite touring together. But it was Eddie’s statements about former Van Halen bassist and singer Michael Anthony — who is also one of Sammy Hagar’s best friends and current bandmate — that set Sammy off.

    “Every note Mike ever played, I had to show him how to play,” Van Halen said. “Before we’d go on tour, he’d come over with a video camera and I’d have to show him how to play all the parts.”

    One huge hole in the current Van Halen lineup sound is the Michael Anthony harmony vocal. Instead, that sound is present in Chickenfoot and Anthony’s current project with Sammy Hagar, The Circle. It’s very apparent where that sound comes from.

    But Eddie Van Halen even slagged that off. It’s like he can’t help himself.

    “Mike’s voice is like a piccolo trumpet. But he’s not a singer. He just has a range from hell,” Eddie says. “Mike was just born with a very high voice. I have more soul as a singer than he does. And you know, people always talk about Mike’s voice on Van Halen songs, but that’s a blend of Mike’s voice and my voice. It’s not just him.”

    Michael Anthony responded to the criticism in a very diplomatic way.

    “I am proud to say that my bass playing and vocals helped create our sound. I’ve always chosen to take the high road and stay out of the never-ending mudslinging, because I believe that it ultimately ends up hurting the Van Halen fans.”

    Sammy Hagar was not nearly as nice. During an interview, he was asked about what Eddie said about Mike. Hagar issued a blistering riposte directly to Eddie Van Halen.

    “Fuck you, Eddie Van Halen, for saying that about Mikey. You’re a liar.”

    Looks like the feel-good vibe is gone again, eh?

    Sammy Hagar once said, “I suppose I had ‘fuck me’ money before, and now I have ‘fuck you’ money.”

    Sounds like Sammy just used it.

    Here is the video of Sammy’s response. The transcription is below.

    “It’s really irritating to see them go after Mikey. Mikey didn’t do anything — ever — to Van Halen. Mikey was the most loyal guy in the band. He was the first guy there at rehearsal, the last guy to leave, the guy that was… the first guy at the gig, the guy that flew the… carried the banner, the flag, the VH banner… he carried it every night. And the horseman with the flag, the flagman on the horse in the calvary. That was Michael Anthony, okay?! [He was] a hundred percent dedicated. [He] never did anything to hurt those guys. And they try to hurt him again, and again, and again.”

    “For Eddie to say he had to show [Michael] what to play and had to teach him all those songs, that is the biggest line of bullshit I’ve ever heard in my life. I was in that band for eleven years, and there was never a video camera involved of Eddie showing him what to play. Eddie would tell him what to play once in a while, and say, ‘No, Mike, don’t play with that many notes. Just stay on one note — boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom — so that I can fuck up and nobody will know it.’ It was that kind of shit. And I am telling you straight up, especially on the ’04 reunion tour, if Mike would have played any more than one note, it would have been showing that Eddie wasn’t playing the right chords again and again and again; I couldn’t sing to ’em, you couldn’t play bass to ’em. So… that is a lot of bullshit.”

    “I don’t know why they go after him like that. He doesn’t deserve it. He’s one of the greatest rock and roll bass players ever in the world. Michael Anthony is Top 5 rock and roll bass player in the world. Any bass player will tell you that, any musician will tell you that. Listen to him play on The Circle. He ain’t going ‘boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom’ unless it was called for.

    “Michael Anthony is a bad motherfucker. Fuck you, Eddie Van Halen, for saying that about Mikey. You’re a liar.”

  • David Lee Roth: Eddie Van Halen Finally Says What We All Knew About His Nemesis

    David Lee Roth and Eddie Van Halen don’t get along. That is not a shocking statement, nor new. More importantly, neither is it old news.

    Fans of Van Halen have long known that the two men just did not see eye to eye, and have not since the early 80s. Every once in a while, David Lee Roth and Eddie Van Halen manage to get into a room, preferably not alone, and do something that somewhat approximates the voodoo they used to do so well.

    But every time a camera is present to catch the vibe in that room, the disdain in the air that it can almost be felt through the screen.

    When the current incarnation of Van Halen set out to tour behind their live album, Tokyo Dome Live in Concert, they kicked things off at Jimmy Kimmel’s place. The Jimmy Kimmel Live performance was marred by 60-year-old David Lee Roth whacking himself in the nose with a twirling microphone stand before singing his first note.

    But it was the on-stage chemistry. or lack thereof, between Roth and Eddie Van Halen that stunk up the joint. Gone were the rock-bro posturing and back-to-back crowd-pleaser poses of yesteryear. It was more like watching an over-enthusiastic stripper called in for a Bar Mitzvah, with the poor embarrassed lad just praying the dance would be over.

    Eddie Van Halen has never been shy when it comes to speaking the truth about his relationship with Roth. Fans had hoped that maybe the two old me might have buried the hatchet this time. But Eddie has spoken again, and it sounds like third verse, same as the first.

    “He does not want to be my friend,” Eddie Van Halen told Billboard of Roth. “How can I put this: Roth’s perception of himself is different than who he is in reality. We’re not in our 20s anymore. We’re in our 60s. Act like you’re 60. I stopped coloring my hair, because I know I’m not going to be young again.”

    Not only is Eddie, a father whose son is in the band with him, not comfortable with Roth’s exuberant Peter Pan act, but the two don’t even like the same music.

    “It’s hard, because there are four people in this band, and three of us like rock and roll. And one of us likes dance music,” Eddie Van Halen said. “And that used to kind of work, but now Dave doesn’t want to come to the table.”

    Then again, Eddie also said he doesn’t listen to any music other than his own, most of the time. For decades, he’s been talking about Peter Gabriel’s So album, particularly the track “Red Rain.” Turns out that was the last album he ever bought.

    So why put up with it all? It comes down to the fact that the Van Halen brothers want to play. They’ve burned their bridges entirely with their most successful-selling vocalist Sammy Hagar, who is rich enough to never have to put up with anyone’s crap ever again. They couldn’t make it fly with anyone else. So they’re back to eating and smiling about Roth’s crap.

    “You make music for people. Otherwise, just play in your closet. And how do you reach the most people? By giving them the band that they know. To do it any other way would be selfish.”

  • Sammy Hagar: Red Rocker as Business Tycoon

    Sammy Hagar has made the news lately because of a libel lawsuit that has been dogging him for years. Lawyers have managed to keep more serious issues away from the Red Rocker, but a twist of Iowa state law is pulling the rock star closer and closer to court.

    The whole thing stems from statements Hagar made in his autobiography “Red: My Uncensored Life in Rock”, where Hagar admits to bedding an unnamed former Playboy Bunny while he was married to his former wife. According to Hagar, the woman claimed she was then pregnant with Hagar’s child, but the baby died within five days of birth and no paternity test was performed.

    Hagar doubted that the baby ever existed. And even though he never named the woman in his book, the fact that even a handful of people know who he is referring to means that he must face the libel suit.

    But make no mistake, Hagar comes to this issue with more than the usual rock star retinue of attorney coverage. Sammy Hagar is a businessman who could go toe-to-toe with the acumen of a Gene Simmons and come away smelling like a rose.

    For example, Hagar owns multiple restaurants and nightclubs. He developed and later sold his interest in Cabo Wabo Tequila in a deal that netted him a cool $91 million.

    But restaurants, clubs, and even booze are par for the course for a rock star with scratch to invest, right? Well, how about a fire sprinkler company? Hagar’s done that, too. In his autobiography, he tells the tale of starting that company.

    “Shortly after we’d started building the apartments, the fire department came to my brother-in-law and said he needed to put a fire hydrant in front of every apartment building. He told the fire department that his plumber could put fire sprinklers in the building that would be more effective for about the same price. The insurance companies went along, because sprinklers put out fires before fire departments could even get there, but the fire department needed some convincing. We staged a demonstration for them. We bought one of my old houses, sprinkled it, and then lit a fire in a trash can. We waited for the neighbors to call the fire department, which was parked, waiting, right down the street, and, by the time they got there, the sprinklers put everything out. The house was still totally cool. Fire sprinkling is amazing. It really saves lives. The city passed an ordinance and gave us some money. Before long, we had 180 employees and ran the second-largest fire sprinkler company in America, Fire Chief Inc.”

    Hagar’s business sense also played along the lines of “a penny saved is a penny earned”, learning how to write off business travel by starting his own travel agency.

    “I started a travel agency because I was traveling so much for tours that I was paying my travel agent a small fortune. I decided to start my own, Steady State Travel in Mill Valley, hired the two ladies that used to work for the old travel agency, and gave them a piece of the action. It didn’t make a lot of money, but it also didn’t cost me anything when I went on tour.”

    How does Hagar keep up with all this while still living the life of his dreams as a rock star father?

    “I always had other people doing everything,” Hagar says. “It was my palate and my concept. I would go in taste and say, ‘Leave this in the barrel a little bit longer.’ That was my job. I could do that right before I went on stage. That’s a perfect time to do it, as a matter of fact!”

  • Sammy Hagar: What He Said About the Playboy Bunny That Got Him Sued

    Rocker Sammy Hagar has been fighting a lawsuit from an unnamed former Playboy Bunny who claims that she had his baby. The current incarnation of the lawsuit is mainly focused on what the Jane Doe considers libelous statements made about her by Sammy Hagar in his autobiography Red: My Uncensored Life in Rock.

    We’ve reported on the specifics of the case before. Now we’ll show you exactly what Hagar said that has led to this lawsuit.

    You’ll notice that he never names the woman in his book. The problem is that, even if 99% of the people who read Hagar’s book don’t know who this woman is, there is a number of people who are familiar with her who do know.

    The Jane Doe now lives in Iowa. Circuit Judge Myron Bright explains how that plays into the case against Hagar.

    “Under Iowa law, an accusation that a person is a liar is defamatory as a matter of law,” Bright wrote. “Indeed, Hagar’s statements regarding Doe’s criminality, dishonesty, and sexual exploits have a natural tendency to provoke Doe to wrath or expose her to public hatred, contempt, or ridicule within the community of individuals that recognize her as the subject.”

    The important phrase here is “within the community of individuals that recognize her as the subject”. Even if only a handful of people — perhaps even people she has told — recognize that the following passages were about her, that is enough to trigger possible culpability on the part of Hagar.

    Hagar is an astute businessman who knows how to handle himself.

    Without further ado, here is the passage that got Sammy Hagar sued, in its entirety, which will be presented as evidence in this case.

    On the tour, there was a former Playboy bunny from California hanging around, who used to see one of the other guys in my old band. Somehow she hooked up with [Hagar’s manager, Ed] Leffler, although she had always been after me. She was good-looking, but there was just something about this chick that was not to be trusted. She saw my name on Leffler’s rooming list and came knocking at my door in the middle of the night in Detroit. I answered the door without any clothes—I sleep naked—and she pushes the door open, throws me on the bed, and starts blowing me. That’s kind of tough to get up and walk away from. “Son of a bitch,” I was thinking, “I’m fucked now.” And sure enough, I was.

    About ten days later, Leffler gets the phone call. She’s pregnant. I smelled a setup. I was so pissed off. Betsy would commit suicide. We hired an attorney and started dealing with her. I knew it was not my baby. It was extortion.

    She wanted an apartment in New York and anything for that kid that my children would have. I didn’t want to pay a penny, but Leffler convinced me the smart thing to do was give her the money until the baby was born and see what happened at that point. She was living with her boyfriend, a musician in New York, in the apartment when she had the baby. She called Leffler from the hospital. “Tell Sammy to call me,” she said. I didn’t want to talk to her, but Leffler talked me into it. She tells me the baby is so cute, looks just like me, she’s madly in love with me, she’s so sorry, shit like that.

    A couple days later, Leffler gets another call. The baby died. I don’t believe that she ever had a baby. She may have had an abortion early on. Marshall Lever, my psychic with the sleeping dog, told me about it. “It’s not your baby,” he said. “She’s living with her boyfriend in New York. She has a boyfriend that’s a musician and this is probably an extortion case. Don’t worry, just relax, and once she has the baby, it’s all going to go away.”

    I never heard from her again. Obviously, it wasn’t my baby, and they knew it. They just extorted me as long as they could. No one ever saw her again. — excerpt from Red: My Uncensored Life in Rock, Chapter 7, “5150”, by Sammy Hagar.

  • Sammy Hagar, Lawsuits, and the Playboy Bunny’s Baby

    The Red Rocker, Sammy Hagar, has seen his share of ups and downs in life. He was tapped by the Van Halen Brothers to replace David Lee Roth after he left the band. Hagar took the Van Halens to their first number one single and album.

    Eventually, Hagar and the Van Halens had a falling out, tried to make it work, but eventually gave it up for lost. Van Halen is now back with Roth and rocking well.

    But during those years, and even in his years prior with Montrose and solo, Hagar had one adventure after another. The man is an entrepreneur, investing in fire sprinkler companies, a tequila, and a nightclub, among other ventures. And he’s had his share of the ladies.

    One lady was an unnamed Playboy Bunny that Hagar allegedly met in the 80s. This woman claims that she became pregnant with Hagar’s child in 1988. She reportedly told Hagar that the baby was his, but it died five days after being born. The thing is, Hagar was married at the time.

    Hagar told his side the whole story in his autobiography “Red: My Uncensored Life in Rock”. He said he was not the baby’s father, that there was no paternity test, and that he was encouraged by his manager to pay the woman to keep quiet. Read exactly what Sammy said about the woman here.

    But this is one woman who was not going away. She has been trying to sue Hagar ever since the book came out, demanding restitution for libel, invasion of privacy and breach of a confidentiality agreement.

    It turns out, the woman has moved to Iowa. Circuit Judge Myron Bright explains how that plays into the case against Hagar.

    “Under Iowa law, an accusation that a person is a liar is defamatory as a matter of law,” Bright wrote. “Indeed, Hagar’s statements regarding Doe’s criminality, dishonesty, and sexual exploits have a natural tendency to provoke Doe to wrath or expose her to public hatred, contempt, or ridicule within the community of individuals that recognize her as the subject.”

    What this all boils down to is that the legal fight rolls on for Hagar.