Would VH w/ DLR have survived the Grundge Era?

**Edeble Ed** · 08.20.00, 04:42 PM

i wrote about this in my "defense of sammy post. but i wnated to get some thoughts. i dont think they would have survived if dave led the band in the direction he took with his solo career. the spandex, and big hair is kinda what grundge rebelled against, and vh with sammy had already disassociated itself from the 80's by 91. but dave kinda stayed in that mode till 94 with "your filty little mouth" but by then it was too late to amass the record sales. thats not a crack on roth, just the facts. but then again, guns and roses remained intact through that period. they remained popular cuz they wrote kick ass rock songs/. so i guess if roth and vh kept that same formula they would have remained in the spotlight.

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Only adventures that I regret are the ones I missed - DLR

**Fat Tone** · 08.20.00, 05:25 PM

I think they would have been as big or bigger.
Look at Aerosmith,they fucking thrived during the grunge years,after evolving into a bit of a newer sound.
VH would have done just the same with Dave.
The songs on 5150 were originally gonna have Dave on vocals,so regardless of the singer that record was a newer direction for the band.
I think that they may have gotten stupid big doing nothing but stadium tours without a Monster's of Rock lineup.
VH was really pissed when Dave left because they were on the verge of such HUGE international success.
They were already on top,but the next record with Dave would have sent them higher than U2.IMHO.

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"I Got Myself a Brand New Oakland Scarf right here I say"

**AbeVanHalen** · 08.20.00, 06:06 PM

Let's be honest about Aerosmith here; Sony signed them to a huge prepaid deal, so they promoted the hell out of them. MTV became so influential in the '90's that music didn't matter more than 1/10th of what image did. And what was Aerosmith's image? ALICIA SILVERSTONE. If it wasn't for her, I doubt their videos would have been so big, and without video in the '90's, if you weren't a cult band, you didn't stand a chance. So it's not really fair to use the Aerosmith resurgence-they were the exception, not the norm.

I think VH with Roth would have never survived grunge, more based on Roth than anything else-he held on to his '80's image, and that was the kiss of death for countless bands. When rock/metal bands tried to embrace the grunge movement (bowel movement?), like Queensryche, the 'new' generation pawned them off as phonies, and the old fans were disappointed in their deviation from their established style.

Another case in point: WINGER!! Now, I don't like Winger at all (although I think Kip's solo record was actually refreshing), but look what happened to them. When that Stuart guy on Beavis and Butthead had their name on his shirt, within 2 WEEKS their sales and concert attendance plummeted. Anyone from Pittsburgh knows what happened to Reb Beach after that, and it wasn't kind. The record Winger had out at the time was much less 'corporate' than before, more 'legitimate', so to speak, but it didn't matter. Their reputation killed them, despite the reality of it all.

Not that I'm putting Winger on VH's level, but they would have probably suffered the same fate. I was a performing musician when grunge took over, and I had to put up with a LOT of grunge/punk kids, who thought heroin was cool and Eddie Van Halen's SOLE contribution to music was that 'cheesy, lame-ass finger-tapping bullshit'. I honestly don't think they stood a chance.

Then again, neither did the Roman Empire...

[This message has been edited by AbeVanHalen (edited August 20, 2000 at 05:08 PM).]

**Panama Jack** · 08.20.00, 06:10 PM

VH with DLR absofuckinglutely would have survived grunge.

**madden** · 08.20.00, 06:29 PM

Survived grunge? They would have KILLED grunge!Peace out. Now let me explain why:VH=classic music,Grunge=catchy tunes. Van Halen is forever great, while grunge is 5 minutes great.Peace out.

**Glenn** · 08.20.00, 06:52 PM

I'm not sure you can say that Dave stuck to the same spandex attitude until 1994. His 1991 album A Little Ain't Enough is a very blues based album, and in my opinion his strongest solo album by far. I'm not 100% sure of all of the reasons that ALAE fell below Dave's usual record sales standards, but it certainly wasn't because Dave was beating his spandex clad rock god image into the ground.

**Glenn** · 08.20.00, 07:15 PM

Let me add another thought here because it seems relevant (at least to me

).

I'm as big a VH fan as anyone, but it's crazy to think that VH would have kept going at the clip they were on if Dave had stayed in the band in 1985. Every band in history has it's down-time where they get off track from their expected level of success. Even with Dave, that surely would have happened to VH too.

**madden** · 08.20.00, 07:16 PM

I know why Glenn. Because he wasn't with Van Halen. DLR makes some pretty fucking great music on his own. But, with Edward at his side the music is CLASSIC! DLR/VH would have slaughtered Grunge! I have no fucking questions about it. I just know it!Peace out.

**Fat Tone** · 08.20.00, 08:02 PM

Hey Abe VH,
That was a good point about Sony signing Aerosmith to that deal and promoting the shit out of them,but mostly I was bassing my point on VH's potential growth w/ Roth after 1984,on the great success that they had with Sammy.
5150 went to number 1 without even having a released video for MTV(excluding the Blue Angels Dreams vid which came well after 5150 was released and the record was already Number 1)
If I'm wrong about 5150 going No.1 let me know,regardless they still gained an even bigger audience after 1984 even after losing some die hard Roth fans.
The fact that they did well during the grunge era alone tells me that they would have fucking ruled with Roth!

**Bostonian** · 08.20.00, 08:18 PM

Personally I think they would have burned out around 1989 or 1990, if they continue right when the whole Nirvana/Pearl Jam thing started to begin. Remember right before that those two "break through" albums, the whole state of rock was kinda a joke of itself. It was almost like Spinal Tap. People were getting sick of the same old 80's music cliche. Remember VH was never about dark music (with the exception of fair warning)... People's taste changes.

Look at the album sales with Sammy in the band. After FUCK, there was a MAJOR shift in the music scene. No longer was it cool to have chicks, beers, sex, cars and etc in music. I remember in an interview with Janey Lane saying before Nirvana, they were the biggest artist on their label. They were promoted like crazy with that Cherry Pie album. But then they were yesterday's news.

Ultimately, I think VH would have suffered the same fate with Dave that Aerosmith has happened to them. They would have evolved with the times, and in order to regain popularity would have changed their sound slightly with each new album. It should be interesting now to see how the public responds to bands like Aerosmith, and VH (which I think the industry calls dinosaur rockers).

Another factor with the New VH album should also be, will the public actually care. The longer you're out of the news, the higher the stakes are. Will they be able to entice everyone? I think if the band didn't fuck up in 1996 and released an album after the MTV fiasco they would have sold a hell of a lot of albums. But people are tired of this whole VH soap opera. and while the hard core fans are out there, they don't make the sales... It is the overall public that does.

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"Let your house be a meeting place for sages; sit in the dust of their feet; and drink their words thirstily."

Pirkei Avos 1:4

**Steven B** · 08.20.00, 08:58 PM

Hmmm...

DLR/VH probably wouldn't have been together
during the grunge era anyway. Cuz if Dave hadn't quit in '85, Eddie maybe would have quit the band himself a year or two later.
He said himself he wanted to quit during Fair Warning.

Otherwise they would've been like Led Zep in the late '70's-still doing allright but not the main focus of attention

**YankeeRose** · 08.20.00, 10:06 PM

I thought VH did survive the grunge era!!!
F.U.C.K. was a huge success!!!
I also remember that Balance got a TON of play! I also remember seeing the video's of Can't Stop Loving You, Not Enough, and Don't Tell Me a lot!! I disagree with anyone saying they would've done better with Dave.
Anyway this topic is more suited for VH Opinions, i'm moving it there.

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