Van Halen: News, History & Updates

Van Halen Biography by Steven Rosen, author of Tonechaser

Exclusively for Alternative Nation

There are very few bands or I should say extremely successful bands who have been able to weather the chaotic transition of changing singers. AC/DC comes to mind but they were not a household word when Bon Scott passed and Brian Johnson came in as replacement so even they aren’t a true example. The reason so few bands can ever get past that hurdle is the singer is the face of the band. Not the guitarist or the drummer.

So Van Halen’s ability to change singers at perhaps the highest point in their career at the time, was mindblowing.

I won’t go into othe pros and cons of David Lee Roth and Sammy Hagar. That has been done to death and after the dust has settled, all that really matters is they both brought a unique texture to the band and created their own identities.

With Dave, Edward was an explorer. He was flexing his muscles as a composer and guitar player. His approach was more organic than what it would morph into with Hagar. When Sammy joined, he was able to incorporate more keyboards, bigger compositions in terms of harmonic content, a more refined approach. Because the ex-Montrose singer was also a guitar player, Edward was able to speak to him in a musical language Roth probably didn’t understand nor wanted to.

Is the first Van Halen album better than the 5150 album? Maybe…maybe not. How do you define “better?” Cooler guitar riffs or more interesting lyrics or faster grooves? It’s all so much fluff at the end of the day because better is truly only defined as “Which singer do you like more?”

You can’t quantify it or measure it, which is why all the debates and arguments about who was better are meaningless.

I would venture to say that if the first Van Halen album you heard was a Roth-era recording and not a Hagar-era record, then you were probably a fan of Dave’s and vice versa.