Biker|Geek

http://www.qctimes.com/articles/2007/10/24//news/local/doc471f778352130557367503.txt

Hagar talks about Van Halen
By David Burke

Being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame earlier this year wasn’t the experience that Sammy Hagar had hoped for Van Halen.

Hagar and bass player Michael Anthony accepted the award on behalf of the band, with guitarist Eddie Van Halen (who was in alcohol rehab at the time), drummer Alex Van Halen and former lead singer David Lee Roth all no-shows.

“I was hoping so bad everyone from the band — all the brothers and even Dave — would show up together and we’d go up there finally and go, ‘This is all worth this,’ ” Hagar told radio station WXLP-FM (96.9) morning show hosts Greg Dwyer and Bill Michaels last month.

“Of course, if Van Halen ever did it right, something would be wrong,” he added.

Hagar brings his tour to the i wireless Center in Moline on Tuesday night, playing a combination of his solo hits, Van Halen songs and material from his first band, Montrose.

“It’s gonna be so much music and so many great songs in our lives,” he told Dwyer & Michaels.

The concert is three hours long, Hagar said, with only a 10-minute break.

“As old as I am and as hard as I think, to go out and do that isn’t fair to me,” said Hagar, who turned 60 this month. “But I’m a givin’ kind of guy.”

Hagar told the morning show hosts he saw Eddie Van Halen’s downfall because of alcohol abuse during his years with the band.

“Everything was so good for nine, 10 years when I was in Van Halen,” Hagar said. “We were the tightest, funnest people together and all of a sudden … Ed went nuts.”

Hagar told about finding bottles of alcohol hidden throughout the Van Halen studio, next to the house Eddie shared with his then-wife, actress Valerie Bertinelli.

“When he was sober, we did some of the greatest things in the world together,” Hagar said. “We made some of the best music I’ll ever make in my life together.”

The band crumbled during its 2004 tour, he said.

“Some nights were magic and some nights were the worst I’ve ever heard a band play,” he said.

Hagar’s concert tour is a party, complete with palm trees, dancing girls and margaritas, he said.

“It becomes a situation where it’s not really work. You’re out there pleasing yourself,” he said. “I’m out there having the time of my life.”

Ex-Van Halen bassist talks about ouster

It was bad enough for Michael Anthony that he was replaced as the bass player on Van Halen’s current tour.

But to add insult to injury, every visual reference to Anthony on the band’s Web site was replaced by Wolfgang Van Halen, the new bass player and 16-year-old son of guitarist Eddie Van Halen.

“That really zapped me,” Anthony said in a telephone interview from Dallas. “I was part of the history, and it was sad to see them think otherwise.”

While Van Halen criss-crosses the country on its own tour — bringing back original lead singer David Lee Roth — Anthony is on tour with Roth’s onetime replacement, Sammy Hagar.

That tour stops Tuesday night at the i wireless Center in Moline.

Anthony, 53, said he checked out reviews of the re-formed Van Halen’s early shows, but he hasn’t looked at them lately.

“It’s not like I’m reading reviews thinking, ‘I hope they suck, I hope they’re bad,’ ” he said.

A combination of factors — Eddie Van Halen wanting his son to join the group and Anthony’s allegiance with Hagar — were the likely causes of his being snubbed, Anthony said.

He said the 2004 tour, which came to the former Mark of the Quad-Cities, ended in disharmony.

“I can’t for the life of me understand why he’d be mad because I’d never do anything to degrade the band or tarnish the band’s name,” Anthony said of Eddie Van Halen. “I’m not going to talk smack about him. It is what it is.”

The current tour finds the bass player stepping into the lead singer’s role for 30 minutes a night as the frontman for the Mad Anthony Express.

The three-man band plays some early Van Halen music and “covers of stuff we really like,” he said.

The band first played together on Hagar’s annual cruise. Anthony said he didn’t want to be just a backup for Hagar and put together his own band.

“It went over so well that Sammy just wanted to roll that into part of the show,” he said.

Anthony said it’s different to be a lead singer instead of a backup player.

“It’s more work,” he said. “You’ve got to pace yourself a little bit better because you’re not just playing an instrument and singing background. You’re lead vocals now and you’ve got to take care of yourself a little bit better.”

Songs in the set include “Running With the Devil” and a few Van Halen album cuts. That comes from the David Lee Roth years, but Anthony doesn’t do an imitation of the flamboyant lead singer.

“I feel comfortable singing Dave’s stuff, but some of this stuff — let’s face it — Dave’s the only guy who could sing it,” he said. “I don’t even want to touch those songs.”

The Mad Anthony set is followed by Hagar and his band, the Wabos, with Anthony returning sometime later in the night alongside his former bandmate.

“After that, anything goes. I hover around the stage because you never really know what’s going to happen,” he said. “That’s what makes it great. You’re never gonna see two of the same show on this tour.”

The tour, which is set to continue well into next year, is a re-creation of Hagar’s 60th birthday party at his Cabo Wabo Cantina in Cabo, San Lucas.

“The only thing we’re missing is the sand and the ocean,” Anthony said.

Anthony said he does not think the split with Van Halen, the band he was a member of for 25 years, will divide fans. But he recognizes that there may be a choice of buying a ticket for one concert or another in many markets.

“In this day and age, with ticket prices and the whole bit, it’s not like everybody can afford to go to every show,” he said. “Dave and Ed haven’t been on stage for 20-plus years, so I know a lot of fans are wanting to know what that’s all about.”

Anthony said the split is indefinite, but it may not be permanent.

“At this point, I really do not see myself playing with those guys again,” he said. “But The Eagles have shown us all that hell freezes over, so you never know. I’ve always been the never-say-never guy, but I’m not going to hold my breath.”