“He’s not working with us”: The one Van Halen album David Lee Roth didn’t want people to hear
All great rock and roll albums only work through the power of compromise. Not everyone is going to be happy that their favourite part didn’t make it onto the final product, but it’s much better to have a dialogue and see what works for the album rather than pleasing everyone in the studio. But in the case of Van Halen, everything got a bit tense when talking to both David Lee Roth and Sammy Hagar.
Because looking at the way that both frontmen operated, they were the ones who helped with the style and structure of the tunes. Both versions of the band sounded completely different for a reason, and that’s partly because they were able to funnel Eddie’s ideas from different pieces of guitar brilliance into bite-sized songs that people wanted to hear. And during the Roth era, they hardly wasted a single note whenever they played.
There were many instances where the ‘Van Hagar’ era could suffer from a little bit of bloat on their records, but since over half of Roth’s time in the band clocks in around 40 minutes on every single album, it’s not like he was looking to stretch things out. He knew to get in, get out, and make sure that the listener was left with a big smile on their face whenever they got finished with the record.
But when Roth returned to the group, songs started to get a little longer. Despite the fact that songs like ‘Me Wise Magic’ were supposed to be Hagar songs, hearing ‘Diamond Dave’ sing songs that were almost six minutes in length felt more than a little bit strange, considering how meticulous he could be. So when he came back on a permanent basis in the 2000s, he wasn’t going to make a big fuss when they decided to make one last record.
After all, no one would have wanted a record as scattershot as Van Halen III as their swan song, and A Different Kind of Truth helped remind people of the glory days all over again. It was nowhere near as powerful as the old days, but hearing unearthed tunes like ‘Chinatown’ and ‘She’s The Woman’ did feel like going through old high school photos of the group, albeit with Roth’s voice being a little more squawky than normal.
“[Roth] doesn’t like it and he’s not working with us to get it back up there. So I hope people who like it have a physical version of it.”
Wolfgang Van Halen
Fans were satisfied enough, but according to Wolfgang Van Halen, Roth felt that the record wasn’t good enough to be on streaming services with their body of work, saying, “”I hate to say it, because people will think I’m making stuff up, but it’s, like, man, I’d love to have the record back up there, but [Roth] doesn’t like it and he’s not working with us to get it back up there. So I hope people who like it have a physical version of it.”
Even if fans got the physical copy of the record, it’s not like Roth was expected to have the same squeals he did back in the day. He was a much more seasoned veteran of the entertainment industry, and even if his voice had taken a few hits over the years, most people were happy to see him working with the rest of the band again than wondering whether every note was perfectly in tune.
While A Different Kind of Truth might get a certain amount of ridicule from Roth and even a handful of critics, it was never supposed to be the grand resurrection that most people were looking for. It was simply a way for the band to rediscover their love of playing again, and as Eddie’s final record, it’s always nice to hear him having fun getting new sounds out of his guitar that no one had ever heard.
