Sept 2002 Gary Cherone Interview

[Vince G.]

The interview is far too long for me to cut an' paste, it'll take up too much space, so here's the link:

http://www.classicrockrevisited.com/interviews.htm

[subway]

Great Interview.

Gary really is and was a great guy! I would love to hear all tose follow-up songs they recorded after VH3.

[JWS_5150]

Excellent, excellent interview. [img]graemlins/thumb.gif[/img]

[Sweet William]

I would like to add something to one of Gary's statements:

"The brothers are running the ship up there . . ."

... up there ... away up there ... on Howdy Doody Mountain.

(It works best if you kind of sing it to yourself nursery-rhyme style)

[ September 23, 2002, 01:41 PM: Message edited by: Sweet William ]

[dirtymovies]

The VH stuff...

Jeb:I have read this in an interview with you before and I NEVER read this about you before you were in Van Halen…. You kind of sound like Sammy Hagar.

Gary: Never in my life was I ever compared to Sammy until I was in Van Halen. The Hagar years were 85-95. Sam or Dave did not influence me. Extreme used to do Van Halen songs at sound check and I used to go get a drink because I didn’t know any of the songs!

When I was in Van Halen I was hitting notes that were out of my range. I never went for those registers before until Eddie pulled it out of me. Now, I do try to hit some of those notes, whether I sound like Sammy or not is purely coincidence. I saw him in Boston the other day and he pulled me onstage to sing a couple of Van Halen tunes. You have got to hand it to him, he sings his ass off for a guy his age. There is no moss on that stone.

Jeb: I didn’t hear about this.

Gary: Sam and Dave came into Boston. I met Sammy on the phone about six months ago. I actually called him up and asked him if they wanted a warm up band because Tribe of Judah would have loved to do it. He said no but he told me that I was welcome on his stage anytime. Six months later he calls me and says he is coming into Boston the next week. We did “When It’s Love” and “Dreams” and “Rock N Roll” by Zeppelin. We had a ball. He was great. It was the first time I had met him and he was very gracious. His show rocked. Dave was distant and a little standoffish. Sammy was great to me. Michael Anthony came on. He flew into Boston. It was kind of a reunion.

Jeb: What is it about him? He is the guy that gets along with everybody.

Gary: Michael Anthony is the Diplomat of Rock N Roll. He gets along with the brothers; he gets along with Dave and he gets along with me. He is the regular guy. Have you met him?

Jeb: With all the Van Halen stuff going on I have been told I have to wait and wait and wait for an interview. Eventually I hope to get to sit down and talk with him but I haven’t yet.

Gary: Michael plays the music. He is there. He never misses a note and his vocals are vintage Halen. The brothers are running the ship up there. Jeb: I know Carol Kaye as well. She has her own firm, Kayous Productions, but she does stuff for Spitfire as well.

Gary: I know Carole. We went on about the past. She called me up and I told her I knew her. She was involved with Extreme. We have some mutual friends. She is great. Carol Kaye is a veteran of this business. I am excited about this project. It has been two years since I left Van Halen. I can’t wait to get out on tour and play some old stuff and some new stuff. I am very proud of the band and some of the things we are doing.

Jeb: Why did it take you two years?

Gary: It is relatively fast. It is not as easy as one would think finding the right people. Coming out of Van Halen I knew I didn’t want to put a three piece together as that is what I did with Van Halen and Extreme. So I knew I wanted to try some new stuff and that is where the keyboard came in. I tried to also stick with what I knew best which is writing rock n roll songs and melodies. I am back with Pat Badger, Extreme’s bass player. I am with some new guys and with some old familiar faces. I am as passionate as I was when I was 20. When Tribe goes out on the road we will do theaters and we will do clubs. I don’t care if they are 200 seaters or 500 seaters. I am excited. It has been a while.

Van Halen was almost a dream. It was surreal. In rehearsals I would get calls from friends and family who had heard I was playing with Eddie. I would go, “He’s great. We’re friends.” I didn’t know when it was going to end and I didn’t want to open my eyes. It was fun while it lasted but it never seemed real to me. I could not believe I was in Van Halen.

Jeb: How did you actually join the band?

Gary: Connecting the dots, I guess it would be that Van Halen, at the time was managed by Ray Daniels, who also managed Extreme. They had a falling out with Sammy Hagar and I remember management going, “Gary, pack your bags. You are going to LA to audition for Van Halen.” I remember going, “Get outta here!” Extreme was breaking up at the time. Finally they said, “What do you think?” and I said, “All right. At least I will have a story to tell my friends.” I went there that week and me and Eddie really hit it off as songwriters and also as just people. It lasted three years and I don’t regret one moment. They were great to me. I made some new friends. I made a record that fell short as far as the preconception of what people think Van Halen is but I think going into the project there was a target on my head.

There are a few moments on that record that I am very proud of. On some of it, the production of the songs fell short. I thought the tour was fantastic. That is where the band shines. If I had had a chance to tour with Van Halen before the record then I think it would have been a different record.

Jeb: That is interesting.

Gary: There is no substitute for jamming and getting to know each other on the road. If anything, the record was the result of the studio. It was a studio creation. It might be subtle differences but you can tell the difference between songs that were created in a garage and songs that were created in the studio.

Jeb: I don’t think anyone ever came out and said that Van Halen 3 was not good because of you. Every band has those fans…..

Gary: Die hards.

Jeb: They hated Sammy.

Gary: They hated Sammy for 12 years and they hate him to this day.

Jeb: I don’t mean any disrespect but it was not one of my favorite albums that you have done.

Gary: It is not one of my favorite albums that I have done. Again, some moments on the records, if they were finessed, produced or arranged a little bit better could have fell into that Van Halen sound or a new chapter of Van Halen. “Once” or “What I Want” were songs that I thought were good seeds. They ‘could have been’ if we could have spent more time together, maybe we could have developed a character.

Jeb: Personally, when the album didn’t sell well was it hard to take or was it okay with you?

Gary: Great question. The perspective for me, coming out of Extreme -- to sell 500,000 records ain’t bad. But for Van Halen, who was used to platinum or double platinum…. Their records were slowly not selling as well. I think it was a victim of the age. Balance didn’t sell as much as FUCK. When 5150 came out rock was king. Post Nirvana and Pearl Jam 1996 is a different story. I am not using that as an excuse but there is a different backdrop. When it didn’t sell the writing was on the wall.

When we were on tour we brought out the old catalog and the majority of the fans did appreciate it but in the end, they wanted their Dave. That is what it was. I know for a fact that they did get together after I left and did some songs. I don’t think anything came out of that stuff. I don’t think it worked. Egos and personalities, you know.

Jeb: What was it like being in that soap opera?

Gary: I had two rules. The first rule was don’t get caught up in the he said/she said bullshit. What am I going to do? Prop myself up as a better singer than Dave and Sammy with the back catalog they have? I was younger. I could see the tension between Sam and Dave. Sammy had a career before Hagar and people hated him out of their loyalty to Dave. Dave thought he was bigger than Van Halen the band. So there was this catfight going on for ten years. Eddie and Alex were cat fighting with those guys and I didn’t know the story. What was I going to do? Go in there and prop myself up as the savior? It was a gig to me. It was one record. I had my own history. I was fighting going into every town on tour with DJ’s saying, “Here’s the “More Than Words” guy. He can’t rock n roll blah blah blah.” 9 times out of 10 they would come up and apologize after the show because the show did rock and the music did rock. They had that preconception of me sitting on a stool singing “More Than Words.” Rule two was shut up and prove it on stage. That’s what I did.

Jeb: It is ironic that the album didn’t do so well but the tour was a huge success.

Gary: That is the bittersweet thing. If there was another opportunity now… I would say more than anything, it has been two plus years since Van Halen has been on tour. I wonder if people are regretting the fact that at least with me or with someone else they would have their Van Halen out there. At least with me they could have toured. I certainly had no problem singing the old catalog.

Jeb: Were you a little responsible for the setlist on that tour?

Gary: They came up to me and they asked me if I would do the old stuff. I told them that it would be no problem. I put the tour together. I did some research and tried to pull out some old, classic Van Halen that they had not played in 10 or 15 years. Songs like “I’m The One,” “Romeo’s Delight” and “Unchained.” I think that was Sammy’s mistake. I understand that he was older and that he didn’t want to do the Dave stuff but for me, if I refused to do the old stuff then I truly and rightfully so would have been hated. I thought, if anything, that would please the fans. Even with Extreme, there is nothing like singing a song that 20,000 people know and are singing back to you. I had two catalogs of smash hits to choose from so I wasn’t bitching about that. When I was singing “I’m The One” or “Jamie’s Cryin’” people were actually going out of their mind because it was the first time that they had got to see Eddie, Michael and Alex play those songs. That was a thrill for me. That was one of the reasons the crowd embraced me live. Hopefully the majority said, “It ain’t Dave and it ain’t Sammy but I am getting to hear the mighty Van Halen do “I’m The One.” I had no problem doing that. That was a thrill.

Jeb: Eddie is always saying over and over that he does not want Van Halen to be a nostalgic act.

Gary: I would agree with Eddie that you don’t want to go out and do a greatest hits tour and not have anything vital to say. I think he was saying that if he was going to tour that he was going to have some new material. He wasn’t opposed to playing the old hits. The funny thing was that when I pulled out the songs he had to go, “I’m The One” huh? I don’t play like that anymore. I know I can do it but I am going to have to learn it again.” It was great to see him learning it. I am sitting there in rehearsal and they are hacking through “Beautiful Girls” and I am saying to myself, “Man, would the fans really like to be a fly on the wall hearing all this shit!”

Jeb: You always hear about Eddie the alcoholic and Eddie getting divorced and Eddie has cancer but it seems we forget what a brilliant musician Eddie Van Halen is.

Gary: What separates Eddie Van Halen from the other wannabe guitar heroes that followed him is the songs. He played great leads and he shredded and played melodies but he always did it within the song. “Why Can’t This Be Love” came out in 1986 and here is Eddie Van Halen with a brand new effect on the guitar [hums opening] den na ba dum bem bemp da bum… He hasn’t lost a step.

I think there is some incredible guitar work on the VH3 record. There is some great acoustic work on it. I think some of the arrangements and production on the record fell short. That’s my opinion. If you can sit through some of the long arrangements then you see he is just as sharp as ever.

Jeb: Is VH3 a Van Halen album with Gary Cherone on vocals or is it a Gary Cherone album with Van Halen backing him?

Gary: The funny thing is that when that thing first came out the Van Halen crowd was saying, “That’s Eddie trying to make Gary sound like Sammy.” Extreme fans would go, “That is Van Halen trying to sound like Extreme.” I was like wait a minute: Extreme came out after Van Halen Nuno would be the first to admit Eddie is an influence and a hero. The thing was that Eddie’s familiar guitar and my less familiar but still familiar voice is what they heard. They heard a combination between the two. Sometimes it sounded more like Van Halen and sometimes it sounded more like Extreme. Sometimes it sounded like neither and that seemed to disappoint everybody.

[JMJ]

kills me that ed had to relearn some of his shit...classic!

even cherone says sammy should have sang more classic vh tunes

hopefully if sam does come back, they'll dig into that catalog as well this time around

JMJ

[Brett]

Best part of that interview:

The funny thing was that when I pulled out the songs he had to go, “I’m The One” huh? I don’t play like that anymore. I know I can do it but I am going to have to learn it again.” It was great to see him learning it. I am sitting there in rehearsal and they are hacking through “Beautiful Girls” and I am saying to myself, “Man, would the fans really like to be a fly on the wall hearing all this shit!”

That's really funny. [img]smile.gif[/img]

[Hissing Cobra]

Boy, it sounds like the band got a great manager, huh? He basically got Sammy out of the band, and then, how convenient, got his other band's lead singer into the Van Halen camp. I love Gary as a singer, I love Extreme, and I did like what he did on VHIII. I'm not knocking Gary at all. Gary, you're great and have a bitchin voice. My bitch though, is the fact that is seems to me that ZERO thought went into picking a new lead singer. After reading Chapters 19-20 in Sammy's book, it sounds like this guy knew nothing about anything. He fucked up the band by alienating Sammy, and then when his other band is breaking up, he gets both together. I'm sure this is all done so that he could continue to RAPE the brothers, and at the same time look like a hero for combining the two. How can a TOP ROCK act fall apart so quickly? This just baffles me.

[dka5150]

Gary is a classy guy.
[img]graemlins/thumb.gif[/img]

[ September 23, 2002, 03:11 PM: Message edited by: dka5150 ]

[Vinnie Velvet]

Originally posted by Brett:
Best part of that interview:

The funny thing was that when I pulled out the songs he had to go, “I’m The One” huh? I don’t play like that anymore. I know I can do it but I am going to have to learn it again.” It was great to see him learning it. I am sitting there in rehearsal and they are hacking through “Beautiful Girls” and I am saying to myself, “Man, would the fans really like to be a fly on the wall hearing all this shit!”

That's really funny. [img]smile.gif[/img]

You see that was the problem with Ed in the post Roth years.

Eddie should play like that MORE often.

[Brett]

VV EVH just evolved as a player over the years. His style just changed after time, learning different techniques, etc. I don't think it was a conscious thing at all, he just grew as a player.

[mr.jimbo]

I agree with you Brett. His playing evolved and got better as he learned more & more over time.

Gary is a class act all the way. He's very conscious of the fans and always ready to engage with them. Very polite guy.
I'm very excited & ready to hear the full TOJ record.

Peace

[GMAN5150]

[img]graemlins/thumb.gif[/img] Great Interview....Gary is class act.He was just the wrong singer for the wrong band at the wrong time ....He never had a chance...

[Raldo]

Thanks for posting the parts about Van Halen. Gary did his best and that's all I could have hoped for. It was difficult enough trying to follow in the footsteps of Dave and Sammy.

[Crmlcrm216]

Interesting stuff [img]graemlins/devil.gif[/img]