The show that ended with Eddie Van Halen fighting David Lee Roth: “Separate us”
Every rock band in the world has had to deal with a common case of Lead Singer Disease once in a while. It might not be an uncommon affliction, but once a frontman gets diagnosed, their image as one of the most important members of the group is borderline impossible to break free from. Then again, Van Halen belonged to Eddie Van Halen for a reason, and once David Lee Roth decided to make a fool of them at the MTV Awards, Eddie had to be restrained so he wouldn’t kick the singer’s ass.
Then again, expecting Roth to be anything but animated onstage is like telling a fish not to swim. Roth was born to wow audiences by any means necessary, but there’s a time and a place for that, and it was not in the background when presenting an award to Beck.
Looking back on the awards show, though, it seemed like everything was set to go off without a hitch. The only thing that Van Halen promised was hinting that there might be some new songs on the way with Roth behind the microphone, but if you listened to what ‘Diamond Dave’ was telling the press junket, you would have thought that everyone had finally buried the hatchet and we were going to get the 1990s answer to 1984.
Once everyone took to the podium, Eddie had to tear Roth away from the mic because of how much he had to say. Roth continually drew attention to himself even when Beck was giving his acceptance speech. When Eddie told the press afterwards that he was going to have to see what the future held for Van Halen, though, Roth ended up throwing down the gauntlet.
As Eddie recalled later, Roth turned into the equivalent of the middle school bully when insisting that he not talk about his medical issues, saying, “I said, ‘Fine, Dave. The next month, you, Alex, Mike [Anthony], and I will answer questions for it, and I will not mention my hip, and he looked at me and said, ‘You better not!’. And I was [livid]. Roth’s manager almost had to separate us, because I was ready. I said, ‘You ever speak to me like that again, you better be wearing a cup.’”
Despite songs like ‘Me Wise Magic’ eventually getting recorded, there was a slim chance that anyone was going to kiss and make up, with Eddie later hiring Gary Cherone for Van Halen III. He may have finally been happy; it’s just a shame that the music was anything but listenable, complete with some of the most needlessly complicated songs of their career.
Even though Eddie made up with Sammy Hagar long enough for a reunion tour, he was still hurting, leading to many shows where it was clear that he had fallen off the wagon and was not taking care of himself. Just when he got into rehab and cleaned himself up for good, the impossible happened when Roth joined for a tour and their final album, A Different Kind of Truth.
While it was a shame to have to lose Anthony in the chaos, the final Van Halen project probably wouldn’t have existed without Eddie’s son, Wolfgang, subbing in on bass, since he was the one who prodded his old man to resurrect some of his old tunes. Van Halen were finally back in action like they were in the 1980s, and even if they weren’t as much in their prime as they used to be, there’s a good chance Roth didn’t need any cup protection for those dates.
