New Lead Vocalist for the Band

[glockner99]

Now that Ed has proclaimed himself 100% healthy, and Sam and Dave are obviously embarking on a career ending tour, maybe it's time for all the Linkers to accept a possible new vocalist for the Band. Let's face it, Dave's career has been a joke since Vai left...Thats over fourteen years ago for god sakes!! Sammy just ended any credability with his by agreeing to go on tour with Dave...The only way that Van Halen will ever gain respect in mainstream music again is by taking a different direction vocal wise...and lets face it...All we want is some great music to talk about anyway! I was also in favour of a Dave Reunion...Not any more with the "Sam and Dave" sideshow taking place! I'm all for a new Lead Vocalist and some new tunes from the boys...It's all about the Music!!

[Canyon Carver]

I'm the first one to line up and buy tickets to the Sam & Dave show, but I have to admit that it sounds more like a swan's song than anything else. Next thing you know, these two will be playing at a county fair near you (and I admit that I might be there to see them too).
But Van Halen needs to move the fuck on, and PRONTO!

[John Ashcroft]

I'm all for a new Lead Vocalist and some new tunes from the boys...It's all about the Music!!

I'm all for kids staying off the crack!

[z28girl]

I would still like to see a solid reunion with Dave, but I understand the sideshow he's creating is not something I'd want to see with Van Halen and it's not something that Ed ever said he liked either. If Dave comes out on this tour and does a great rock performance and steers clear of the circus freaks and that sort of stuff, a reunion may still be possible. But again, there has to be some good music with that and it remains to be seen whether Dave can come up with an album's worth of viable lyrics.

I am a Van Halen fan and listened to III with an open mind and really thought there were some good tunes on it, although, I think Edward made a mistake in taking the whole thing on by himself. Van Halen is only best in the sum of all its parts - Ed, Mike, Al, lead singer. Since I thought Gary was great with Extreme, I thought he'd lend a funky sound to the band, which would be new and interesting and I thought Without You and Ballad & the Bullet (I think that's it) captured a bit of that. I wonder whether the album failed because fans were not going to accept a new third singer and if so, will the same fate fall upon the next album if there's a fourth new singer?

Face it, Van Halen's days of Runnin With the Devil and Panama are over. Ed wants a song with more substance and in a way I agree. A 40-something year old guy singing about getting funny in the back of a car isn't as cool as a 20-something. It's kind of sad and perverted. Not that I never want to hear Van Halen bring out those tunes in concert, but a new song needs a new twist. I don't want them to get all Pearl Jam on us either, so that's all I have to say about that.

[Pabs]

If a new vocalist is/was the answer, then why isn't Cherone still in the band??

[DLR=VH]

What do you want Dave to do? Wait for Eddie and Alex to get off their butts and do something? Gimme a break, the world does not revolve around Eddie and Alex..

[FORD]

Originally posted by John Asscrotch:
I'm all for a new Lead Vocalist and some new tunes from the boys...It's all about the Music!!

Don't you realize that by saying things like that you are aiding and abetting the terrorist enemies of this country.

Van HALEN reunion - do it for America!!

[Dance The Night Away]

I don't care who sings, as long as we get some music from these guys. I am sure they have some good music ready for us. They have had 4 years now to right new music.

[AVH Blues]

Explain how Sammy touring with Dave destroys Hagar's credibility but a VH reunion wouldn't destroy VH's credibility?

Just because Gary didn't work out and no one thought he would, including Eddie at first, doesn't mean that another singer wouldn't. I was in LA the year all that crap took place and I remember an radio profile on VH (i'm sure was played in other places) and Eddie says when he was first told about Cherone they all laughed and said they didn't think it would work until he came and jammed with the band.

Let's face it- almost everything about III sucked and I wouldn't hardly lay the blame on Cherone. The lyrics were not VH lyrics as we know it but the music wasn't either. The biggest slap in the face about III was the note that this cd is dedicated to the fans. Which fans? Sammy fans who's guy was fired or DLR fans who's guy was just fired (though never rehired) or Extreme fans. Maybe that era should be XVH, Extreme Van Halen.

The year of the MTV music awards fiasco I was on my way to a KISS show at The Great Western Forum and the rumors where that VH featuring David Lee Roth were going to play before KISS came on. Well, it never happened.

[Glenn]

My thinking is along the same lines as Pabs' ( ). If they don't want Dave or Sammy, why did they get rid of Gary? Not that VH III was a flawless record, but a lot of that seemed to come down to Gary not having any power in the band. Gary strains so bad on some of the songs it seems impossible to imagine that he heard the playbacks and wasn't horrified. If he'd had any power in the situation, certainly he would have insisted that they alter the tracks enough that he could sing without bursting a blood vessel.

I don't think the songs on III are that bad at all, it's the execution ('execution' and 'III' in the same sentence, have fun with that ) and the recording that kills it. I think they could have done quality work with Gary, but I guess there wasn't enough mutual respect to do it.

I'm not really hung up on names too much, it's all Van Halen to me to this point. But if the core of the band is going to continue without either Dave or Sammy, I really think the Van Halen name needs to be retired.

Good topic for the Opinions forum, so I'm going to send it over there now. [img]smile.gif[/img]