“It stunk”: The Van Halen album Sammy Hagar thought was terrible
No former band member is supposed to have warm feelings about their old bandmates. It might be fun to look back on the memories now and again, but there’s normally a reason why they left in the first place, and that emotional energy leads to many musicians cracking under pressure and wanting out of a group. Although Sammy Hagar didn’t like the idea of being fired from Van Halen in the 1990s, he was probably glad he wasn’t around to see this album come out.
Because while Van Halen seemed to be lost without Hagar, it didn’t seem like the worst idea in the world. They had already done the impossible by getting Hagar after superstar David Lee Roth left, so there was no point in thinking that they couldn’t get the job done one more time, right?
Well, yes and no. While Hagar did steer them through some of the greatest musical highs of their career, he wasn’t operating at a position of strength when he left. Balance was considered a bit of a disappointment, and when Hagar was fired, he mentioned that he felt stifled by what Eddie was trying to do with the songs whenever he was working on new material.
Although the need for fresh blood in Van Halen led to them picking Gary Cherone, it wasn’t exactly a perfect fit. Cherone definitely had chops as a singer, and his partnership with fellow guitar god Nuno Bettencourt in Extreme at least gave him some experience with that expertise, but when Van Halen III hit stores, something felt incredibly off from the minute that opening single, ‘Without You’, started.
Even though everyone still seemed to be getting along great, Cherone’s voice wasn’t really suited to the group’s sound. Outside of every song going on for way too long, Cherone seemed instructed to blend the sounds of Roth and Hagar together and ended up with a delivery that felt like a dying cat in some respects.
Although Hagar was more than happy to continue on with his solo career, he was brutally honest when he said that the record was nothing but garbage to him, saying, “It stunk. It was terrible. It was horrible, and it wasn’t Gary Cherone’s fault. He’s a decent singer. It was just an Eddie Van Halen solo record. He is the problem. He changed at the end of our era. He flipped out, and I don’t know what happened.”
While the album is not nearly as reprehensible as Hagar makes it sound, it certainly does read as an Eddie Van Halen solo outing. Half of the tunes go on forever as if Eddie is trying to get every lick he can into the mix, and even on the tune that he sings himself, ‘How Many Say I’, nothing seems to be working as it should be.
Despite Eddie’s pedigree as one of the biggest stars in the world, the fact that something like Van Halen III exists is at least a reminder that he was still human. He had given us more than our fair share of guitar hero moments, but being this spotty on record was a good way of showing him as someone who could strike out on occasion.
