AVH Book?

[Brett]

And again, Al is completely full of shit. If he had a good relationship with Sam, he wouldn’t say that. It’s his childish way to make Sam irrelevant. To lump him in with Cherone (laughably idiotic btw) by saying “we’ve had other singers,” is just petty, emotional bullshit.

I find it ironic in the book that he says several times that Ed was more emotional, when he is in fact exactly that when it comes to situations inside the band. It’s all emotion.

[Darkness]

Al was on good terms with Sammy at the end of 2004, you can tell from his interviews at the time he really wanted it to work. Sammy also said Al called him before the RRHOF to explain why they wouldn't be coming, and this was March 2007. It was obviously the book. Not saying he wasn't resentful about Cabo, the $80,000, and the 2015 audit, but I don't think any of these were the unforgivable sin. It was the book. The podcast insider also said Al blamed himself for the book because he was the one who pushed for the reunion.

[Hamnerhead]

Well, like I said, he clearly does have a problem with Sammy and has for a long time. Somehow it's different with him than it is with Roth, having had years-long rifts with both, and only they know why.

I still don't think it's crazy that he's come to realize late in life which lineup meant the most to him personally. He's allowed, and if it doesn't match up to what fans think, so what? We don't have to agree.

[Little Intruder]

Maybe Sammy should write a follow-up to Alex's book. Too soon?

[Darkness]

Well, like I said, he clearly does have a problem with Sammy and has for a long time. Somehow it's different with him than it is with Roth, having had years-long rifts with both, and only they know why.

Al and Ed fired the first shots at DLR. They trashed him mercilessly during the 5150 press tour and continued to do so throughout the Hagar years. Al knows he would be a complete hypocrite to be pissed at that. The worst shot that Dave took at the brothers in his book was a wisecrack about wondering if Wolfie belonged to Ed or not, which is more of a shot at Val than Ed. There was nothing comparable to the awful details Sammy spilled in his book, like how Eddie's meltdowns terrified Wolfie. Al also never felt DLR stole from them in the way he feels Sammy did.

Basically, there's no reason for Al to hold a grudge against Dave the way he does against Sam. People always try to equate the sins of the singers to justify Sammy's behavior. It isn't that hard to acknowledge the facts: Sammy exploited Eddie's darkest moments to drum up sales and publicity for himself and his book. There is nothing that DLR has done in the history of the band that compares to this. This pisses off some users, but it's the truth.

[VH1986]

Al and Ed fired the first shots at DLR. They trashed him mercilessly during the 5150 press tour and continued to do so throughout the Hagar years. Al knows he would be a complete hypocrite to be pissed at that. The worst shot that Dave took at the brothers in his book was a wisecrack about wondering if Wolfie belonged to Ed or not, which is more of a shot at Val than Ed. There was nothing comparable to the awful details Sammy spilled in his book, like how Eddie's meltdowns terrified Wolfie. Al also never felt DLR stole from them in the way he feels Sammy did.

Basically, there's no reason for Al to hold a grudge against Dave the way he does against Sam. People always try to equate the sins of the singers to justify Sammy's behavior. It isn't that hard to acknowledge the facts: Sammy exploited Eddie's darkest moments to drum up sales and publicity for himself and his book. There is nothing that DLR has done in the history of the band that compares to this. This pisses off some users, but it's the truth.

Fuck Al.

[I Coulda Hada VH]

Fuck Al.

No, thanks.

[Van Squalen]

Al and Ed fired the first shots at DLR. They trashed him mercilessly during the 5150 press tour and continued to do so throughout the Hagar years. Al knows he would be a complete hypocrite to be pissed at that. The worst shot that Dave took at the brothers in his book was a wisecrack about wondering if Wolfie belonged to Ed or not, which is more of a shot at Val than Ed. There was nothing comparable to the awful details Sammy spilled in his book, like how Eddie's meltdowns terrified Wolfie. Al also never felt DLR stole from them in the way he feels Sammy did.

Basically, there's no reason for Al to hold a grudge against Dave the way he does against Sam. People always try to equate the sins of the singers to justify Sammy's behavior. It isn't that hard to acknowledge the facts: Sammy exploited Eddie's darkest moments to drum up sales and publicity for himself and his book. There is nothing that DLR has done in the history of the band that compares to this. This pisses off some users, but it's the truth.

Lol. There’s another easier phrase for all that gaslighting. He told the truth.

And I guess you’re conveniently forgetting Alex literally just revealed Dave cocked up an Eddie tribute cause it wasn’t gonna be about him. Also, Dave had a radio show for a while, did u know? In that show, he made plenty of jabs, and revealed plenty of dirt. And nobody stole shit from them.

Geez, Dave ain’t paying you enough, man.

[Brett]

The idea that DLR has never said anything terrible about the brothers is laughably incorrect.

[M-C-Z-D]

The idea that DLR has never said anything terrible about the brothers is laughably incorrect.

Yeah and no one posted that he never said anything terrible either. It's all relative compared to others. But keep doing your LOL-type rebuttals and strawman nonsense.

Lol. There’s another easier phrase for all that gaslighting. He told the truth.

And I guess you’re conveniently forgetting Alex literally just revealed Dave cocked up an Eddie tribute cause it wasn’t gonna be about him. Also, Dave had a radio show for a while, did u know? In that show, he made plenty of jabs, and revealed plenty of dirt. And nobody stole shit from them.

Geez, Dave ain’t paying you enough, man.

It must be hard to spend so much time on a VH forum and see so many people who are clearly either Dave incognito, or on Dave's payroll, or showing the 'bias' you're always crying about. I know a lot of people just put up with and acquiesce to your antagonistic BS because you and Brett post more than anyone on here and go in lock-step on everything, so it's hard to argue with the sheer volume.

But do you not ever get tired of people daring to say that the Dave era may have been better or more culturally relevant? Or that Alex in his old age, with the benefit of hindsight and distance, might actually just believe that too? Or that maybe Sammy actually was a classless dick with his book and his repeated attempts to use VH to keep himself semi-relevant?

It just seems that hearing those fairly sane and normal opinions or observations is kind of hard for you, and that you think they can only come from people on Dave's payroll or from lunatics with BIAS. So maybe it might be nice for you to take a break from it? Just a suggestion.

[M-C-Z-D]

Yeah. I know it's seen as disrespect for the later eras of the band in some quarters, but I don't think he's doing that, or at least doesn't mean to.



For a man who has more years behind than ahead, who has been through therapy, I don't find it controversial at all that maybe he finally realized that all of the rancor with Roth was coming from a place of undealt-with grief from losing the original band. He says as much in the book, that the only thing worse to him than Dave leaving was Ed dying. I mean, think about that. Arriving at that is an epiphany for him, I gather.

So he told the more important story to him, where he felt the "magic" was.

And I'm not saying he doesn't have issues with Hagar, he clearly does. But it also sounds like hindsight is 20/20 and he doesn't feel it for the Hagar years the way he does for the original incarnation. I think it's telling he doesn't seem to have as much enthusiasm for the 2007-2015 Roth/ADKOT/Wolfgang years, either-- he left that out, too.

Agree with every word.

[bf5150]

New post on the VH Reddit from pyro tech John Watkins on Alex's behavior in the 80s. Seems to back up what others have said here that Alex was not a nice guy back then

https://old.reddit.com/r/vanhalen/co...chnician_john/

[Van Squalen]

Yeah and no one posted that he never said anything terrible either. It's all relative compared to others. But keep doing your LOL-type rebuttals and strawman nonsense.



It must be hard to spend so much time on a VH forum and see so many people who are clearly either Dave incognito, or on Dave's payroll, or showing the 'bias' you're always crying about. I know a lot of people just put up with and acquiesce to your antagonistic BS because you and Brett post more than anyone on here and go in lock-step on everything, so it's hard to argue with the sheer volume.

But do you not ever get tired of people daring to say that the Dave era may have been better or more culturally relevant? Or that Alex in his old age, with the benefit of hindsight and distance, might actually just believe that too? Or that maybe Sammy actually was a classless dick with his book and his repeated attempts to use VH to keep himself semi-relevant?

It just seems that hearing those fairly sane and normal opinions or observations is kind of hard for you, and that you think they can only come from people on Dave's payroll or from lunatics with BIAS. So maybe it might be nice for you to take a break from it? Just a suggestion.

Hmm. Let me think about it.

Nah.

Your fanboy bias isn’t rooted in facts, and your opinion isn’t equitable to facts.

[Van Hampshire]

I think it's the book. I don't believe Al will ever forgive Sam for writing that book and talking about his brother the way that he did. Doesn't matter if it was true or not, Al will never forgive him.

I would definitely say it was the book. Sammy said a lot more crap then just the 2004 stuff. He drops all kinds of digs at those guys from the moment he joined the band. Here are several direct quotes that were not even in the Samurai Hair chapter:

"Alex was drunk on his ass. He pounded them too. He could shotgun like nobody. He always wanted to have contests. He would pass out a couple of times a day, wake up and shotgun two or three beers, crack one more and walk out of the room. Eddie drank all day too. They both woke up, grabbed a beer, lit a cigarette and that was the way they started their day. Midday around 4:00, they would take a nap. They were both big nap-heads."

"Al was the crazy one. He was obnoxious, drunk, making comments, laughing about stupid things, smoking cigarettes. Here he would say, shotgun this beer. I don't drink beer."

"Eddie and I did crazy shit like that. We'd race home, me in one of my Ferraris, Eddie in one of his Lamborghinis, driving 140,150 miles an hour. He would always be drunk."

"Every day we'd go from two in the afternoon until past mid-night, unless Al passed out. Al was a bad drunk, but Eddie used to nurse his beers. He'd always be drinking but didn't get all fucked up. Al would get fucked up, puke, pass out. You'd have to slap him around, let him rest for a couple of hours, get him up, and bring him back. We would limit the amount of beer he could have and he would duck out for a pack of cigarettes, run downtown, buy a bottle of vodka, and drink it in the store."

"before I joined the band Van Halen didn't have a particularly tight show. Roth would talk. They would do another song. Ed would play a 20 minute guitar solo. They would do another song. Roth would talk. Al would do a drum solo for thirty minutes."

"They had the classic heavy metal ending- four crashes, a crescendo.... one, two, three. at the end of that, Al would usually do something, smack this, clang that, just because he was quirky. I decided we needed a new ending. Great idea said Eddie as always. So, pounding beers, Al learned a new ending. Good. The next day at rehearsal, back to the same old ending again. If he learned it, he learned it for one day maximum. Nothing stuck. We kept the same ending on the tour."

It goes on and on and Sammy makes himself out to be some big intelligent guy while Ed and Al were nothing but a bunch of drunks who could barely get out of bed, much less remember a new ending to a song. I actually wonder if Sammy ever even saw or heard how a typical 1984 show went? Alex always did his solo after HFT and it lasted probably about five minutes tops. The oddest solo on that tour was Mike's as he would actually trash his bass during it. He says they were doing 8 songs in a two hour show?? He also bags on JUMP saying that he couldn't get behind the song. I just think Sammy is full of crap most of the time and he has a need to make himself look like the better guy. I'm sure some of what he said about Alex and Edward was absolutely true in that book. Go ahead and say as much of it as you want. Just don't be surprised when Alex wants absolutely NOTHING to do with you. How Sammy doesn't understand any of this is beyond me. I mean maybe he understands now but he wrote a LOT of really hurtful and nasty things in that book. Way more than just the 2004 years. I don't blame Alex one bit for wanting absolutely nothing to do with him. Addicts can be very tough to deal with at best sometimes. You also have to understand that those periods in a person's life are likely the worst years of their lives. I just don't think it was fair of Sammy to crap on both Edward and Alex for this.

I'll bet Mike cranged a lot when he read this thing. You would probably never hear anything like that from him, true or not. Oh and the Donnington show from the end of the 1984 tour was incredible. I was blown away with how tight they were considering how fractured they were at that time.

[VH1986]

I would definitely say it was the book. Sammy said a lot more crap then just the 2004 stuff. He drops all kinds of digs at those guys from the moment he joined the band. Here are several direct quotes that were not even in the Samurai Hair chapter:

"Alex was drunk on his ass. He pounded them too. He could shotgun like nobody. He always wanted to have contests. He would pass out a couple of times a day, wake up and shotgun two or three beers, crack one more and walk out of the room. Eddie drank all day too. They both woke up, grabbed a beer, lit a cigarette and that was the way they started their day. Midday around 4:00, they would take a nap. They were both big nap-heads."

"Al was the crazy one. He was obnoxious, drunk, making comments, laughing about stupid things, smoking cigarettes. Here he would say, shotgun this beer. I don't drink beer."

"Eddie and I did crazy shit like that. We'd race home, me in one of my Ferraris, Eddie in one of his Lamborghinis, driving 140,150 miles an hour. He would always be drunk."

"Every day we'd go from two in the afternoon until past mid-night, unless Al passed out. Al was a bad drunk, but Eddie used to nurse his beers. He'd always be drinking but didn't get all fucked up. Al would get fucked up, puke, pass out. You'd have to slap him around, let him rest for a couple of hours, get him up, and bring him back. We would limit the amount of beer he could have and he would duck out for a pack of cigarettes, run downtown, buy a bottle of vodka, and drink it in the store."

"before I joined the band Van Halen didn't have a particularly tight show. Roth would talk. They would do another song. Ed would play a 20 minute guitar solo. They would do another song. Roth would talk. Al would do a drum solo for thirty minutes."

"They had the classic heavy metal ending- four crashes, a crescendo.... one, two, three. at the end of that, Al would usually do something, smack this, clang that, just because he was quirky. I decided we needed a new ending. Great idea said Eddie as always. So, pounding beers, Al learned a new ending. Good. The next day at rehearsal, back to the same old ending again. If he learned it, he learned it for one day maximum. Nothing stuck. We kept the same ending on the tour."

It goes on and on and Sammy makes himself out to be some big intelligent guy while Ed and Al were nothing but a bunch of drunks who could barely get out of bed, much less remember a new ending to a song. I actually wonder if Sammy ever even saw or heard how a typical 1984 show went? Alex always did his solo after HFT and it lasted probably about five minutes tops. The oddest solo on that tour was Mike's as he would actually trash his bass during it. He says they were doing 8 songs in a two hour show?? He also bags on JUMP saying that he couldn't get behind the song. I just think Sammy is full of crap most of the time and he has a need to make himself look like the better guy. I'm sure some of what he said about Alex and Edward was absolutely true in that book. Go ahead and say as much of it as you want. Just don't be surprised when Alex wants absolutely NOTHING to do with you. How Sammy doesn't understand any of this is beyond me. I mean maybe he understands now but he wrote a LOT of really hurtful and nasty things in that book. Way more than just the 2004 years. I don't blame Alex one bit for wanting absolutely nothing to do with him. Addicts can be very tough to deal with at best sometimes. You also have to understand that those periods in a person's life are likely the worst years of their lives. I just don't think it was fair of Sammy to crap on both Edward and Alex for this.

I'll bet Mike cranged a lot when he read this thing. You would probably never hear anything like that from him, true or not. Oh and the Donnington show from the end of the 1984 tour was incredible. I was blown away with how tight they were considering how fractured they were at that time.

Mike wrote the Forward.