What was the difference between David Lee Roth’s and Sammy Hagar’s Van Halen?
If any band was going to continue after losing their lead singer, it would be one named after their lead guitarist. Van Halen were lucky enough to have not one but two of the defining voices in 1980s rock fronting them: their original singer, David Lee Roth, and his replacement, Sammy Hagar. The real draw, though, was Eddie’s absolutely ludicrous work on his Frankenstrat. In their heyday, they could’ve had John Prescott up front and still pulled a crowd.
On the other, Van Halen were absolutely not a cult band for guitar anoraks but were one of the biggest bands in the world. They were a full-on, chart-topping pop act in their day, and they couldn’t have gotten to that level without an absolute fireworks display of charisma up front. The former deputy PM of the United Kingdom was otherwise engaged, though, so they had to settle for someone only slightly less magnetically charismatic, ‘Diamond Dave’ himself. Roth was born to be a rock star and was obsessed with the band being as big as they possibly could be.
His version of the band was arguably the most radio-friendly version of it. Sky-scraping choruses, catchy riffs and an absolute minimum of self-indulgent soloing, at least on record. This was the same guy who made the band record a number of covers for their 1982 record Diver Down on the logic that, in Eddie’s words, “If you covered a successful song, you were halfway home”. While the band’s name was made by covering The Kinks’ ‘You Really Got Me’, it was the band’s own material that would launch them into the stratosphere.
Ironically, for a band so defined by internal struggles for control, the band hit their commercial peak with the best example of their collaboration. 1984 was as commercial a sound as Roth could have possibly wanted, adding synths to their sound better than basically any other hard rock band of their time. However, it was all guided by Eddie’s musicianship. The iconic synth line of their number one single ‘Jump’ was written by the guitar wizard in 1981 before it was actually rejected by the band.
Roth left the band in a cloud almost immediately after the tour for 1984 concluded. Hagar, his replacement, was an already successful solo artist who, in true stadium rock style, met Eddie because they had the same Ferrari mechanic. The ’80s were a different time. Hagar was more of a musician than Roth had been, with a more versatile, powerful singing voice and some guitar chops to match. Roth’s creative input was the lyrics, which made sense given his voracious reading habit.
This meant that the music they started making with Hagar had a heavier edge to it. The new arrival was more willing and able to rock out than the more literate, commercially-minded Roth actually could. A 2024 interview with Michael Anthony, who played bass for the band at the time, illustrated the difference the band found working with the two singers. Anthony said, “When Sammy joined the band, Sammy being a guitar player, his knowledge of chord structure and stuff like that brought a different element to Van Halen.”
He went on to say, “Where Dave focused mainly on his lyrics and trying to do a melody for that, Sammy would be like, ‘Well, what if we try this chord or try this progression?’ So, it was a different experience between the two.”
In the end, both singers had moments of genuine triumph with the band, with the first Van Halen album released post-Roth, 1986s 5150, being a smash hit just like its predecessor. In the end, perhaps the Van Halen story shows better than most bands the value of genuine collaboration, no matter whose name is on the marquee.
