The singer who became Eddie Van Halen’s delusional nemesis: “Act like you’re 60”
Inter-band feuds and fallouts are nothing new, and while having multiple members of the same family in a band can often lead to gigantic bust-ups, Van Halen were a fair example of when this wasn’t so much of a problem.
The brotherly duo at the core of the group, guitarist Eddie and drummer Alex Van Halen, very much operated as the backbone of the group, and while they would have had plenty of disagreements over the years they shared in the famed heavy metal group, it was never as a result of their interpersonal dynamic that the band endured periods of tension.
Unlike the incessant bickering between Liam and Noel Gallagher in Oasis, which miraculously came to a halt after almost three decades when they realised they could make a quick buck from touring, and the constant attempts between Ray and Dave Davies of The Kinks to outdo each other and prove their status as the better brother, the Van Halens have always remained relatively solid in their familial bond.
That doesn’t, however, account for the rest of the band, and while the brothers remained a tight unit, the band cycled through a number of vocalists over the years due to their inability to see eye to eye with the rest of the band, and some severe clashes of ego led to tempers boiling over to a point where things became unsalvageable.
The original frontman, David Lee Roth, initially departed from the band in 1985 after an 11-year stint at the helm, citing concerns over the fact that Eddie was contributing to more music outside of the band and providing himself with distractions from the main goal at hand. His replacement, however, proved to be even more of a handful, with his spell in the band leading to an even greater amount of tension and a departure in 1996 over creative differences.
Roth returned for a matter of months before the forgettable tenure of Gary Cherone lasted just three years, at which point Hagar returned, only for Roth to return a third time in 2006. This ongoing carousel of frontmen hopping on and off the board was nothing but chaotic for the band to have to deal with, and each spell that they spent in the band led to an increased amount of disputes.
By 2015, it would appear that Eddie Van Halen had had enough of Roth once again, and when the two began to butt heads once more because of creative differences, Van Halen left Roth out in the cold because he was unable to accept that the band weren’t what they once were. In an interview with Billboard, Van Halen went as far as to say that the two were not on good terms and that little should be expected of the band moving forward.
“He does not want to be my friend,” he bemoaned. “How can I put this: Roth’s perception of himself is different than who he is in reality. We’re not in our 20s anymore. We’re in our 60s. Act like you’re 60. I stopped colouring my hair, because I know I’m not going to be young again. It’s hard because there are four people in this band, and three of us like rock and roll, and one of us likes dance music. That used to kind of work, but now Dave doesn’t want to come to the table.”
With Roth and Van Halen seemingly at loggerheads on where to take the direction of the band after over 40 years of on-and-off collaboration, it was evident from the fact that they’d gone their separate ways multiple times that some partnerships aren’t built to last. Forget sibling rivalry, Van Halen’s biggest problem was their frontman recruitment process.
