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The Van Halen debate has been raging for nearly 40 years. Ask a room full of rock fans who the better lead singer was, and most will immediately say David Lee Roth. He was the original singer, the flamboyant showman who defined and influenced a decade of frontmen, and the face of the band during their unprecedented rise to superstardom. But if the question is who was better for Van Halen in the long run, the answer isn’t nearly as obvious.
When Sammy Hagar joined in 1985, the Mighty VH was coming off the biggest album of its career, 1984, and their first No. 1 single in “Jump.” They had also just lost one of music’s most recognizable frontmen. But instead of fading away, the former SoCal backyard-party band arguably got bigger. The group scored its first chart-topping album with 5150, followed it with three more number ones, expanded its audience, and enjoyed what many consider its most commercially successful period. Could they have done that with David Lee Roth? That’s the real debate.
Roth Was a Huge Star When He Left Van Halen
If Van Halen owned 1984, David Lee Roth was expected to have the following year all to himself. And for a while, it seemed to be trending in that direction. Coming off the band’s blockbuster album, there wasn’t a bigger frontman on the planet than Diamond Dave. He kicked off 1985 co-hosting MTV’s 4th Annual New Year’s Eve Rock ‘N Roll Ball with VJ Martha Quinn, a program which also served as an infomercial for his upcoming solo EP of covers, Crazy from the Heat.
The singer did mention at the top of the broadcast that he had a message from the rest of Van Halen for viewers to make resolutions before the clock struck midnight. But as the evening wore on, and the drinks flowed, talking about the group was the last thing on his mind; he had something else to promote, and it was obvious just how separated he had gotten from his soon-to-be ex-bandmates. However, Roth reassuringly added that his hands were also full with Van Halen goings on, and they would be heading into the studio in January 1985. Those sentiments were echoed the first week of the new year when he appeared as a guest on Late Night with David Letterman, days after the video premiere for “California Girls” at midnight on MTV.
But the more press he did, and the more numbers Crazy from the Heat put up, the further speculation was fueled that Roth was striking out on his own. It wasn’t just in the tabloid rock magazines like Circus and Hit Parader, which for years intimated the band were falling apart. This time felt different. Even the go-to industry publication Billboard ran a headline that screamed “Van Halen’s Roth: Maybe It’s Over,” though the corresponding article hardly indicated such.
Yet as 1985 wore on and Roth’s star kept rising, reports were getting to inescapable levels. The singer had certainly shown he was bankable as a solo artist. “California Girls” was a massive hit on MTV and the single ended up going to No. 3 on the Billboard Top 100 in March. The “Just a Gigolo”/“I Ain’t Got Nobody” medley did similarly, peaking at No. 12 in June. The EP itself had sold a million copies by summer and made it to an impressive No. 15 on the Billboard 200. Roth appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone. Then he revealed he’d struck a $10 million movie deal with CBS, also set to be titled Crazy from the Heat.
Finally, the dispatches started stating as fact that the unthinkable had happened: David Lee Roth had left Van Halen. And despite persistent claims to this day that the news broke on April Fool’s Day 1985, there was no official announcement. In fact, it was first reported as an aside in the Random Notes section of Rolling Stone that landed on shelves in late July that year, where Eddie Van Halen said, “The band as you know it is over. Dave left to be a movie star… Me, I’m lookin’ for a new lead singer, ’cause I’ve got so much material ready to go – stuff Dave probably wouldn’t have wanted to sing. It’s a little too melodic for him. If he can’t scream over it, he has trouble.”
Van Halen Flourishes as Roth Unravels
Popular as David Lee Roth was throughout the bulk of 1985, the wheels began to come off that September at the second annual MTV Video Music Awards. Not only was the singer up for a record eight nominations in six categories, but, as part of the hype machine leading up to the show, the music channel also chronicled a stunt in which the singer drove nonstop from Los Angeles to New York City in just three days to arrive at the awards program.
Of course, it was all for show. The vehicle, a 1951 Mercury lowrider seen in Van Halen’s “Panama” video, had been transported across the country on a flatbed while Roth took a budget airline incognito to meet it on the East Coast for the final leg of the trip to New York.
Notably, this was when word had begun to get out that Sammy Hagar was the new frontman for Van Halen. Roth addressed a question about it at the press conference in Los Angeles ahead of the journey. Then, the new lineup appeared in public for the first time at the VMAs, with Alex Van Halen telling a reporter, “This is the actual version of Van Halen. The other one was just, kind of, a tester model – so to speak.”
Hagar, the singer for Montrose in the early ‘70s, had also been a successful solo artist, with songs like “I Can’t Drive 55” and “Your Love Is Driving Me Crazy” modest radio hits, with the former landing in heavy rotation on MTV. He was a known commodity, and linking up with VH would only serve to raise his profile.
To add insult to injury, while his former bandmates were parading his replacement around the VMAs, Roth was completely – and somewhat shockingly – shut out at the awards ceremony. Still, he remained upbeat, touting the movie deal and saying he was looking for a new crop of musicians to back him. Then, CBS did away with its movie production division, effectively nixing any hopes of a film. Suddenly, the frontman was in damage control, attempting to shift the narrative to the music, and saying that he was successful in finding a backing band for his upcoming solo record.
The Rivalry Goes Head to Head
Van Halen had a leg up when it came to new material, as they’d begun working with Hagar in the summer of 1985, and on March 24 the following year, released 5150. It was a synth-heavy affair, showing that previous singles like “Jump” and “I’ll Wait” were just the beginning of Eddie Van Halen’s growing infatuation with keyboards. The singles “Why Can’t This Be Love,” “Dreams,” and “Love Walks In” didn’t just prominently feature the instrument; they were also decidedly more pop-oriented than most of the music they’d done previously.
Three weeks after it dropped, Van Halen had their first number one album. It drove home the point that they’d made the right move in bringing in Hagar, as did the ensuing tour, which sold out arenas two and three nights in some cities around the U.S.
For Van Halen fans turned off by the sudden influx of synthesizers and love songs, Roth offered up Eat ‘Em and Smile, released July 7, 1986. It featured what were dubbed “Van Halen assassins” in guitar prodigy Steve Vai and bass wunderkind Billy Sheehan. And while Van Halen chose not to do any videos for 5150, Roth was all too happy to provide MTV with over-the-top clips for the singles “Yankee Rose” and “Goin’ Crazy.” He even catered to the Spanish-speaking population by re-recording his vocals in the language for a version of the record titled Sonrisa Salvaje.
The fact that Van Halen producer Ted Templeman aligned himself with Roth for Eat ‘Em and Smile, and the record making a more than respectable showing on the charts by peaking at No. 4, made it seem like there was an actual contest between the two camps. But the truth became apparent as Roth hit the road in late summer, playing many of the same markets and venues Van Halen did. While the tour was praised in the majority of reviews, the singer was mainly doing one-night stands with the occasional pair of shows in any given city.
Shortly after Roth’s tour began, Van Halen finally began to distribute video clips featuring themselves, taken from the home video release Live Without a Net, recorded across two shows in New Haven, Conn. By contrast, a planned video shoot from the Eat ‘Em and Smile tour in early 1987 was cancelled. The cracks were showing, evident in an interview Roth did with Playboy that summer where the interviewer asked if there was anything he regretted about the split.
“I regret most that Van Halen saw fit to kick me when I was down, and they were on their way up,” he said. “It was unnecessary and particularly vicious, and I think they are a bunch of sick little morons for doing it. I’m angry.”
Hagar Kept Van Halen Relevant
The battle between Van Halen and David Lee Roth continued through 1988 when, once again, they released new material in the same calendar year. First up was Roth with Skyscraper, a surprisingly keyboard-centric record with programmed bass that turned off his core audience and stalled at No. 6 shortly after it came out in January. The tour to support the LP suffered from low ticket sales while the band’s lineup shifted, with Sheehan splitting before the trek and Vai departing at its conclusion.
That May, Van Halen released OU812, which also saw a marked decline in sales, was panned by critics, but still hit No. 1 in the second week of its release. More importantly, the band remained a top draw on the road, first headlining the Monsters of Rock package tour in stadiums with Scorpions, Dokken, Metallica, and Kingdom Come, then embarking on a run of arenas. On MTV, the videos for the ballad “When It’s Love” and the earworm “Finish What Ya Started” were fast-tracked into heavy rotation.
Going into the new decade, though, is when the competition stopped being close. While a Roth-led Van Halen inspired legions of imitators in the ‘80s – less talented acts with a blond singer up front that would soon be derisively known as hair metal – he was no longer a trendsetter but rather just another frontman in spandex. It was obvious when he released A Little Ain’t Enough in 1991 to stifled yawns that the rock and roll train had left the station with Roth still on the platform. More than a third of Stateside tour dates were cancelled due to a lack of interest from fans.
On the other hand, Van Halen transcended the genre with their own 1991 effort, For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge. Sure, there were many of the rock and roll clichés in songs like “Poundcake” and “Spanked,” but with the smash success of the topical and cerebral single “Right Now,” the band showed they could adjust to the incoming wave of grunge music while others in their peer group faltered. They even took Seattle up-and-comers Alice in Chains out as support on the tour for the record.
Roth, meanwhile, had grown disillusioned with the grind of album/tour/album/tour as returns harshly diminished. He lost interest in doing anything rock-related and wouldn’t tour or put out any new material for three years. And, when he did, it was the intentionally off-brand Your Filthy Little Mouth in 1994, with noted soul and R&B producer Nile Rodgers at the helm. It nosedived off the charts after debuting at No. 78.
Simply put, Roth’s time had passed. He was a shooting star from the late ‘70s through the mid ‘80s, but everything after that was a struggle. Even when surrounding himself with the best musicians available, he couldn’t sustain. Had he stuck with Van Halen, Roth’s antiquated mannerisms and musical directives would’ve likely torpedoed any chance at relevance that was achieved with Hagar.
Against the odds, Van Halen was able to do more than survive with Hagar at the microphone; they managed to evolve as a musical entity. Though he’d always been lyrically challenged, even the singer’s swan song LP with the band, 1995’s Balance, had less cringe on it than anything else prior, and didn’t sound dated at all.
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Michael Christopher
Almontather Rassoul
