While David Lee Roth recently declared Van Halen ‘finished’ in a recent radio interview, he discussed his 1985 split from the band in a new Design Matters with Debbie Millman interview. He appeared to blames wives in part for that first split, as Eddie Van Halen was married to Valerie Bertinelli at the time. Sammy Hagar made a stunning Van Halen reunion comment yesterday.
Why did you leave the band?
All rock bands are always on the verge of breaking up at any given time. There’s a lot of fury, a lot of competing egos, there’s always going to be something that is a determining misdirective factor.
Sometimes it’s alcohol, and sometimes it’s your wife. The wives started going, ‘You know what, you’re the important one, you’re the one the audience loves, not your brother.’ And they started listening.”
Sammy Hagar recently responded to a fan asking if Eddie Van Halen is really sick. Roth told 96.3 KKLZ’s The Mike & Carla Morning Show that Van Halen was not responsible for the glam hair metal 80’s look.
“It is true. And spandex [was] what they came up with as something visual. I started off in leather with the same haircut that Bono and [Bruce] Springsteen and guys in Metallica had. It’s a famous haircut. If I had that haircut today, it’d have its own Instagram. But Van Halen was a ’70s band — we started off in 1972, and our first two albums were in the ’70s.
We sold our first 10 million records before the ’70s were over. We spawned a whole lot of imitators who resorted to gimmickry and trade crap. It’s easier to imitate a haircut and a kind of pants and to exhibit bad behavior as a way of… I’m probably on your station 14 times a day unless it’s Halloween or New Year’s.”
