Thursday April 21, 2022 “Dance the Night Away” Van Halen
Today we are dancing the night away with David Lee Roth, Michael Anthony, and Eddie and Alex Van Halen in the band ironically named as Van Halen by Roth, not Eddie or Alex.
When Van Halen first appeared, there was a rumor that the group were actually members of KISS without their makeup and costumes. If you take a close look at early pics of them, maybe David Lee Roth resembled Paul Stanley, perhaps Eddie Van Halen resembled Ace Frehley, Michael Anthony might have looked a bit like Gene Simmons and Alex Van Halen could have been Peter Criss without makeup…and at that moment who knew what the KISS band members actually looked like out of costume
This rumor had likely been fueled by the fact that Gene Simmons was closely associated with Van Halen’s beginnings, having discovered the group, and coinciding with the fact that Van Halen had appeared right around the same time KISS had taken a break from touring and recording.
KISS put an end to that rumor when those band members each released solo albums and it was clear that none of them were members of Van Halen.
When David Lee Roth left Van Halen in 1985 to embark on a solo career, Eddie offered the lead singer position to former Montrose lead vocalist Sammy Hagar after a recommendation from their mutual Ferrari mechanic. According to Hagar their mechanic suggested to Eddie that Sammy Hagar would be great in the band and Eddie asked on the spot, “Do you have his number” and called him from the garage.
Darryl Hall has said that Eddie Van Halen also offered him the job as lead singer but he turned it down, now that could have been an interesting collaboration.
Hagar’s Van Halen association would last from 1985-1996 when Hagar read in Rolling Stone that he had been fired from the band, not hearing it directly from Eddie.
Always a battle as to which version was better, David Lee Roth’s Van Halen or Sammy’s Van Hagar. Here’s Van Halen by the numbers: Roth wins the Van Halen total album sales with 57 million sales worldwide to Hagar's 27 million worldwide sales. However, it took seven albums for Roth to reach that number while Hagar hit his mark with four albums. So on a per album basis their numbers are pretty close. And of those four Hagar albums, all four hit #1 while the highest charting Roth-led Van Halen album was a #2.
So the choice is yours, if you need to make one.
Stay safe and well…and although I haven’t read many complimentary things about David Lee Roth, he was, as you will appreciate from this video, an amazing frontman and Van Halen always delivered a great live performance.