Red - My Uncensored Life In Rock Part 5

VOA with "I Can't Drive 55" really took off when it was released in August 1984 and made my business ridiculously big. "I Can't Drive 55" was not my biggest hit, by any measure, but it means more than any song I've ever written. At the time, "55" only went to number twenty-six on the charts. It wasn't even a Top 10 hit, but it was the one that really sold the records and kicked my concert business into the stratosphere. with "I Can't Drive 55" really took off when it was released in August 1984 and made my business ridiculously big. "I Can't Drive 55" was not my biggest hit, by any measure, but it means more than any song I've ever written. At the time, "55" only went to number twenty-six on the charts. It wasn't even a Top 10 hit, but it was the one that really sold the records and kicked my concert business into the stratosphere.

The tour for VOA VOA was my most successful. I sold out arenas everywhere, two, three, or four nights some places, one of the top-five grossing tours in 1984-right up there with Van Halen, who broke at the same time with "Jump" and all that. I remember getting an award in Portland, Oregon. I sold out two nights and got the Show of the Year. Van Halen was runner-up. We were neck-and-neck on the road. They had a much bigger record. My alb.u.m was 1.6 million, but they ended up selling 10 million records. was my most successful. I sold out arenas everywhere, two, three, or four nights some places, one of the top-five grossing tours in 1984-right up there with Van Halen, who broke at the same time with "Jump" and all that. I remember getting an award in Portland, Oregon. I sold out two nights and got the Show of the Year. Van Halen was runner-up. We were neck-and-neck on the road. They had a much bigger record. My alb.u.m was 1.6 million, but they ended up selling 10 million records.

My records were never up to my box office. There would be a guy like Greg Kihn or Tommy Tutone, who had his moment where he sold as many records as I ever did, maybe even more. But they could never sell out arenas, and I could go out and do multiple arenas. I was a live performer who came up as an opening act. My alb.u.ms were just ways to get me back out on tour, until I met John Kalodner and Geffen, who got my records going.

Kalodner and Geffen also got me doing music videos, which pushed my VOA Tour even more. The video to "I Can't Drive 55" was huge on MTV, doubled or tripled my box-office business, and did for me instantly what radio never did. It made me a star. The all-music cable channel started in 1981, but it took a few years for the idea to catch on with local cable companies and the public. Once MTV did catch on, it had incredible power, and making videos was almost as important as making records. "Three Lock Box" had been my first video in 1982, and I'd noticed it changed me from being relatively anonymous to anyone but my fans to someone that old ladies recognized walking through airports. But the "I Can't Drive 55" video took everything to a new level.

Kalodner put me together with director Gil Bettman, who had done great car scenes as director of the TV series Knight Rider Knight Rider. It was like shooting a movie-quarter-million-dollar budget, four-day shoot, twelve-hour days, at different locations all over Southern California. We rented a wing of an old hospital in Los Angeles and built a jail, put up bars, and a courthouse, where the judge sat and the old lady hit me with the umbrella. We used real California Highway Patrol officers in one shot, where they wrestled me down on the hood of the car. I got to drive my Boxer 512 flat-out. We went out in the desert by Palmdale, where I could go 170 miles an hour. Gil dug holes in the ground and put cameras in them to drive over.

That song changed my relations.h.i.+p with the California Highway Patrol. At that point in my life, I'd had thirty-six tickets. My license taken away three times. I was paying $125,000 a year for car insurance, because I had all these hot cars. I'd been to traffic school. I had hired attorneys. I erased as much as I possibly could, legally and financially, and I was still in bad shape. "I Can't Drive 55" changed everything. Since I wrote that song, I've maybe had two citations. I've been pulled over at least forty times, stopped and let go.

Some of the stories are cla.s.sic. I was driving my Ferrari one night from San Francisco to Malibu with Betsy-this was later, during my first year with Van Halen-and was rolling between 150 and 160 all the way down Highway 101. As I approached Santa Barbara in the Ojai area, where there are all these speed traps, I decided to cut my speed. I had been checking my rearview mirror the whole way and couldn't see anything behind me.

Up ahead is a roadblock, two California Highway Patrol cars. I didn't think there was any way this was for me when I pulled over. About the same time, a helicopter lands, and three other Highway Patrol cars pull up. They had been chasing me for a while. I just didn't know it. Those little five-liter Mustangs are good for 140 miles an hour, max. I was blowing them off so bad I couldn't see them in the rearview mirror.

The cop got out of his car, shaking, with his gun in his hand. "Get out of the car," he said.

I got out. "You better have a good excuse," he said.

"Sir, I do not have a good excuse," I said. "I was just having a good time. I have a fast car. I've been to driving schools and taken racing car courses. I didn't think I was in danger. I was not reckless-driving."

He backed off and holstered his gun. He walked off, took off his hat and wiped his brow, replaced his hat and came back. "Okay, how fast were you going?" he asked.

"I was really going fast," I said. "Probably around 150."

He threw his hands in the air, and marched back to his car to the other guys to confer. Everybody was worked up. "My life was in danger," one of the other cops kept yelling at Betsy. Finally the cop with the gun sent everybody else away. They took off.

The guy took his hat off again and pulled me over to the hood of my car and leaned against it. He started telling me his troubles. He had looked at the license and knew who I was.

"You know, I've got kids and this is a really stressful job," he said. "And here you are, a rock star, your life's in your hands. You've got anything you want. I was chasing you down the road thinking, 'I want to kill this guy when I pull him over.' And then you sit there so calm. You tell me how fast you were going. You didn't lie to me."

He sat there forever, singing the blues to me about his life. At the end, he stood up, put out his hand, and said, "Nice to meet you." The wackiest pull-over ever.

Just recently, I was blasting down 101 in Marin County, going to rehea.r.s.e with my new band, Chickenfoot, driving my Boxer 512 from the "I Can't Drive 55" video, doing about ninety, when I flew past a cop under the freeway. Sure enough, he pulls me over. I came to a stop on the side of the freeway and rolled down my window. He came up and squatted down, his dark visor down on his helmet. He held up his radar gun, pointed it at my face, and it was flas.h.i.+ng "55-55-55-55." He pulled off his helmet and he has the biggest s.h.i.+t-eating grin on his face.

"I've been waiting for you, man," he said. "All the fellows told me you're around here and they see you all the time. I'm the biggest fan you ever had. I just got out here from the South. I've been on the force for two months now, and I'm telling you, man, I've been looking for you. And I got you!" You write a song like that, and no telling what happens. I wish I was smart enough to say I'd done it on purpose.

Even though I made a lot of money on that tour, I came home from it ready to take a year off and figure things out. Betsy was on my a.s.s all the time; she wanted me off the road and we'd just had Andrew. I told her we would buy a house out in the country. I went and looked at this place in Nicasio as well as a property in Big Sur. We were really going to go remote, try to get off the grid. I had been reading this book The Coming Hard Times The Coming Hard Times by this guy who said the banks were going to collapse, everything was going to fall apart, the bottom's going to come out of society, and gold was the only thing that would be valued. Paper money would be worth nothing. I really believed this s.h.i.+t. by this guy who said the banks were going to collapse, everything was going to fall apart, the bottom's going to come out of society, and gold was the only thing that would be valued. Paper money would be worth nothing. I really believed this s.h.i.+t.

I was looking for a cabin in the woods with a hundred acres. I was stocking up food. I got guns. I had all my ammunition, not to kill people, but to eat. I learned how to kill animals. I went hunting all the time. I learned how to kill a deer and skin it, how to cure it and eat it. I was going to go Ted Nugent on everybody. I was going to hunt and fish. I was going to put a racetrack on the spread and have all my cars.

The more I thought about things, the more I decided to stop the grind-alb.u.m/tour, alb.u.m/tour, alb.u.m/tour-for my wife and family. I was burned out. I'd been on the road for more than ten years and, before that, I'd had a hard life-work, work, work. Now I had everything going. I had my bike stores, my travel agency, my fire sprinkler business. I had my apartment buildings. My business manager had done a great job for me. I was set. I didn't even need any royalties. I was at a peak, and I felt like the f.u.c.king king. I could do whatever I wanted. I had $3 million in the bank, and I could see daylight. I would do one more record and one more tour, put away another $2 million, and retire altogether. Between all the other businesses and the money I already had, it was not necessarily a lot of income, but certainly more than enough to live on.

I was ready to give up everything. Betsy was pressuring me. I was seeing things her way, and then Eddie Van Halen called.

7.

5150.

I came off the tour, I was fried crisp. I cut off all my hair. I canceled the last four dates on the tour after I hurt my foot-twisted my ankle in Connecticut and couldn't walk on it. I tried to do one show like that, gave up, and went home. We had done ninety shows that year. came off the tour, I was fried crisp. I cut off all my hair. I canceled the last four dates on the tour after I hurt my foot-twisted my ankle in Connecticut and couldn't walk on it. I tried to do one show like that, gave up, and went home. We had done ninety shows that year.

My Ferrari 512-the car from the "I Can't Drive 55" video-was sitting in Claudio Zampolli's shop in Van Nuys, where I'd bought it. He was an Italian mechanic, who doubled as a salesman (he's actually the guy I'm talking to at the beginning of the "I Can't Drive 55" video). He didn't run a dealers.h.i.+p or anything, but he'd buy a car for you. He used to work for Ferrari as a test driver. It took nine months to get the 512 after I ordered it. they made, like, twelve that year. Anyway, after I'd had the car for a little while, it needed a tune-up, which, on these special cars, is a very big, expensive operation. It's really a race car, and a tune-up can cost as much as an ordinary new car. I went home without picking up my car.

Eddie Van Halen drove a Lamborghini, a Countach, and Claudio worked on his cars, too. Eddie saw my car at Claudio's and asked him about it.

"Hey man, nice car," he said. "Whose car is that?"

"Sammy Hagar," said Claudio. "You should call him and get him in the band."

Everybody knew that vocalist David Lee Roth had left Van Halen a couple of months earlier. He quit the band almost as soon as his little solo single, "Just a Gigolo," started to do something. It was too soon to say they were floundering, but their predicament was public knowledge.

"You got his number?" Eddie said.

At my house, the phone rang. It was Eddie Van Halen. "Hey man, what are you doing?" he said.

"I just came off tour and I'm just kind of nursing my foot," I said.

"Would you like to get together, come down and jam," he said, "and maybe join Van Halen?"

"Not really," I said. "I'm burnt. I'd love to meet you, but..."

I'd only met Eddie briefly a couple of times. We'd done a couple of big festivals together, and he'd come to my dressing room. "I'm such a big Montrose fan," he had said. "What a nice guy," I thought, "so humble and sweet." When you shook his hand, he was always holding yours with both his hands and adding in a little bow.

"How about tomorrow?" he said.

"No, man, I can't," I said. "I'm burnt. A couple of days, at least. Let me call you back."

We exchanged numbers and hung up. I started thinking. Maybe if they're broken up, I could get Eddie in my band. I could use a gunslinger like him. Or maybe I'll just write some songs with him and get him to play on my next record. I was a big fan.

But I hated Dave. The guy rubbed me wrong. I'm sure I rub all kinds of people wrong, so it's not like I'm putting him down. The guy was a great front man, great att.i.tude in rock, and had an image from h.e.l.l, but I just couldn't stand the guy. He was the opposite of what I believed in and what I am. First of all, the guy's not a great singer and he acts like he's the coolest, hottest guy in the world, when to me, he looks gay. The guy was never believable to me.

The call didn't come as a complete surprise. Ted Templeman had been the one to tell me that Roth had split a few months earlier, and at the time, I'd told Betsy, "They're going to call me, you watch." Who else were they going to get? There was Ozzy Osbourne, Ronnie James Dio, and me. When Eddie did call, I was sitting there with goose b.u.mps on my arm. I went down to see him a couple of days later.

I walked into their place in Studio City. Alex Van Halen took one look at my short hair and started laughing. "You look like somebody put a doughnut on your head and cut it off," he said. I had the sides shaved and left just a little bit on top. I was taking a year off. Alex was drunk on his a.s.s. He was drinking a case of tall malt liquor cans a day. He pounded them, too. He could shotgun like n.o.body. He always wanted to have contests. He would pa.s.s out a couple of times a day, wake up and shotgun two or three beers, crack one more, and walk out of the room. Eddie drank all day, too. They both woke up, grabbed a beer, lit a cigarette, and that was the way they started their day. Midday, around four o'clock, they would take a nap. They were both big nap-heads.

Eddie lived in a very humble house with his wife, Valerie Bertinelli, the actress. It was actually Valerie's house-Eddie just moved in with her. She also had another place, sort of a beach house in Malibu, and they split their time between her two homes. The main one though was up in the hills off Coldwater Canyon. It was just an ordinary two-bedroom house with a garage that he'd converted into a studio. They called the studio "5150," after the police code for picking up a crazy person. It was not a rock-star home, and the studio was a dump. They were recording through a homemade board that could have come out of a Cracker Jack box, built by engineer Donn Landee. Landee could make the board sound brilliant, but he was a genius and knew how to work it. To anybody else, it was like model airplane gear.

The studio was filthy. Beer cans everywhere, ashtrays full of cigarettes. Donn Landee had to blow away the cigarette ashes just to plug something into the board. The place smelled like the worst bar on the planet. I don't think it had ever been cleaned. Eddie's guitars were lying on the floor. Nothing on racks, nothing in cases, just on the floor, on chairs, leaning against amps, against the wall, a pile of them in the corner. It was beautiful, but I'd never seen anything like it.

Eddie walked in, wearing a pair of those shades with louvers in them. He'd been up all night, drinking, trying to write some music. I didn't know these guys. I didn't know what their routine was. But they were beat up. Eddie was wearing a pair of wrinkled pants. When I went into their house later that day, I saw why. He and Valerie were living out of their suitcases. They had been off the road for a few months, but they didn't have their stuff hanging in their closets. It was sitting in their suitcases on the floor. There were piles of stuff everywhere. It was weird. They could afford maids, but they didn't have them. They were kids. If you really look at it, they had been out on the road for five years and had only recently come home.

Eddie never bothered to unpack. He was always pulling clothes out, finding something halfway clean but wrinkled. I found all this kind of humorous, like, "Far out, these guys really don't care." I thought that was pretty cool. I came from a different world, Betsy's world. My clothes were pressed. My socks were ironed, folded, and put in the closet. I was actually wearing a suit-Armani linen jacket and slacks, T-s.h.i.+rt, and tennis shoes, kind of Miami Vice Miami Vice. I ate in good restaurants and drank fine wine. Eddie would throw a hot dog and bun out of the freezer in the microwave, nuke it, plow it into his mouth, and chug it down with a beer. There were old pizza boxes lying around. The refrigerator was full of frozen burritos.

Al was the crazy one. He was obnoxious, drunk, making comments, laughing about stupid things, smoking cigarettes. "Here," he would say, "shotgun this beer." I don't drink beer.

When I got there, they'd been up all night writing. They had what became "Summer Nights" and what became "Good Enough." Eddie, Al, and the ba.s.sist, Mike Anthony, had stayed up jamming. I arrived at about noon, and they still hadn't been to bed yet. And they were ripped. They had been drinking the whole time. I went down to check out Eddie. In my head, there was no way I was joining Van Halen.

We started playing, and the engineer Donn Landee recorded everything we did. I made up the first line on the spot-"Summer nights and my radio." It just popped into my head the first time I heard that riff. The rest of the song I scatted my way through. I did the same thing with "Good Enough"-I really had my scat together. Eddie couldn't believe it. Dave apparently didn't have good rhythm and wasn't a great singer, didn't have any range. I was singing Eddie's guitar licks with him. After five hours, they were freaking out.

"We've got a band," they kept saying.

"I don't know," I said to them. "It sounds great, but let's talk about it. Maybe I'll come back next week or something."

They wanted me to stay, but I went home and took a ca.s.sette. We jammed a blues song and we had the other stuff that we worked up. After dinner, I put the tape on my stereo. I got the goose b.u.mps all over my body. I heard it. I realized it was Cream all over again-my favorite rock band ever. There was something about it that was slow, confident, almost majestic. My rock had always been more intense. They were relaxed into this groove thing, even if it was up-tempo. Alex lay back, like Ginger Baker always did. Eddie played the way Clapton played, deep in the pocket. He didn't speed up anything. I'd never played with guys like that before.

I called Ed Leffler and told him, "I'm doing it." He told me I was crazy. He thought the Van Halens were nuts and that I was crazy to even think about doing it. Then he went right to work. "Let me see what I can do," he said.

Leffler looked over their situation. Those guys were in bad shape financially-they had made a lot of money, but they had spent it all. They had overhead like crazy. When Leffler found out how much the guys made the year before, he told me I was going to have to take a pay cut to join the band. But once we started playing the music, I knew it was all going to happen.

EDDIE WAS A man of few words. His favorite line was "Yeah, yeah, yeah." All he cared about was getting some rest, having a couple of beers, some cigarettes, and playing music. Eddie wasn't really a driven musician. At one point, making the first alb.u.m, I grew nervous with his nonchalance, his lack of concern for the whole thing. It wasn't like he was the musical genius telling everybody what to play. Al played the way he wanted, Mike was playing what he wanted. Eddie didn't even know what the lyrics were. He was just concerned about his guitar part. That's all he paid attention to. man of few words. His favorite line was "Yeah, yeah, yeah." All he cared about was getting some rest, having a couple of beers, some cigarettes, and playing music. Eddie wasn't really a driven musician. At one point, making the first alb.u.m, I grew nervous with his nonchalance, his lack of concern for the whole thing. It wasn't like he was the musical genius telling everybody what to play. Al played the way he wanted, Mike was playing what he wanted. Eddie didn't even know what the lyrics were. He was just concerned about his guitar part. That's all he paid attention to.

When I wrote the song "Love Walks In," his wife, Valerie, was so in love with the first ballad they'd ever done, she made him listen to the lyrics. He got all choked up. "Wow, I never listened to lyrics before," he said. He couldn't sing you one song. He didn't even know what f.u.c.king Dave was singing about. He was listening to his guitar and the groove and making sure that his part was okay.

Mike was my Ed McMahon, always ready to back the play, whatever it was.

Eddie and Al were tight as nails. They didn't get too far from each other. Pa.s.sed their cigarettes back and forth. One wouldn't light one without lighting one for the other guy. They only needed one match. They never walked into the room with just their own beer. They always had a beer in their pocket for the other guy. It was beautiful unless they'd start fighting, then it was terrible. When they were both drinking, they'd fight at least once a week. I mean, go at it. Fistfights. Mike and I would try to pull them apart. We'd break them up and leave, Al would drive back after we left and they'd go at it again. The next day we'd come to the studio, the winds.h.i.+eld would be busted out of the car, the trash can turned over.

I didn't see much of Eddie's wife, but Valerie, wow, what a cool chick. I pulled into the driveway one time and Valerie and Eddie were sitting on the hood of one of Ed's cars, drinking a beer. I thought that was so cool. My wife would never do that. Valerie could hang with the boys. She wasn't around a lot, because she was working. She pretty much always had a gig, some kind of little movie or TV part. She also spent a lot of time at their beach house.

The sense of family ran strong in Van Halen. When I first joined, their father, Jan, was always there, drinking and smoking. Mike Anthony was the most loyal dog on the planet. He was the flag-bearer. From the start, they trusted me and I became the motivator. They loved that and they rallied behind me. It was very family, very close. Us against the world. This is our place. We're working on our record. We didn't argue about nothing. It was a dream come true.

Still, there was a lot of doubt about Van Halen. At the time, no one seemed to have confidence in the band's future. Roth had split with the road crew, the management, and he looked like he was going to launch big-time on his own and leave the band in his dust. People were suggesting that we call it Van Hagar, which was a terrible idea. (Funny though, I didn't know it at the time-Dad always claimed to be Irish-but we were actually Dutch and our family name may have really been Van Hagar once upon a time.) In spite of the doubt, we already knew it was going to work, because we were the ones in the studio working up the 5150 5150 record and we knew we had some killer tracks. We had "Why Can't This Be Love." However, n.o.body but us had heard any of this, because we couldn't tell anyone that we were even in the studio together. record and we knew we had some killer tracks. We had "Why Can't This Be Love." However, n.o.body but us had heard any of this, because we couldn't tell anyone that we were even in the studio together.

Everything had been taking place in secret, because I was signed to Geffen and Van Halen were on Warner Bros. Although we didn't know it, Geffen and Warner Bros. were already b.u.t.ting heads. As Geffen's distributor, Warner Bros. was taking 50 percent of Geffen's earnings and I was Geffen's biggest artist at that time. Elton John hadn't worked on Geffen's label. Neil Young was a disaster-Geffen ended up suing him. Donna Summer didn't have any hits for him. There was me; Don Henley, who had one big alb.u.m; and John Lennon, who died shortly after giving Geffen his first alb.u.m, although it did sell millions after he was shot. Geffen wasn't likely to let his biggest act walk across the street just because he wanted to sing with another band.

Leffler and I went to see David Geffen. As we expected, he did not like the idea and wanted to talk me out of it.

"Why would you want to be in that band?" he said. "You're as big as them on your own." He was baffled. He was sitting on his desk, his hand on his head. "I don't understand this," he said. Like a lot of people, he thought David Lee Roth would be an impossible act to follow, and he said so.

After a few minutes of talking it through, he s.h.i.+fted his tone suddenly. "I would never stop an artist from doing what they want to do," he said. "I'm David Geffen. I stand up for the artist. I'm for the artist. Number one, it's about you and your life." He said he would talk to Mo Ostin, the chairman of Warner Bros. Records.

With Warner Bros. over a barrel, Geffen told them he would let them have me for one alb.u.m, if he could have a Sammy Hagar solo alb.u.m immediately following. He wanted 100 percent of the solo alb.u.m and 50 percent of the Van Halen records on Warner Bros. Warner's chief Mo Ostin came to Eddie's 5150 Studios to talk things over. He was, let's say, cautious. He suggested changing the band's name, and he also liked the Van Hagar idea.

Eddie and I powwowed about it and decided, no-we're Van Halen. We loved each other. There was no animosity, no egos, no nothing. They wanted me to be in this band and I wanted to be in it, because we were making the music and we knew we were good. Mo asked if he could hear something, so we put on our instruments, and, while he sat there, we played "Why Can't This Be Love" for him, live and in-person. He put his finger in the air and smiled.

"I smell money," Mo said.

By the time we got the green light from Warner Bros. and Geffen, we were already halfway through the record. After that, we went full-force, and things started happening fast. Eddie and Al had a lot of music left over from what would have been the next Van Halen record before Roth split. They had a lot of sort of semi-formed ideas when I walked in on it. I had to write all the lyrics and melodies. I worked on their jams, picked them apart, and made songs out of them. I was kind of behind the eight ball on the lyrics.

We would jam in the studio for hours. I would have a handheld mike and headphones and would just sing and experiment. When something was good, I'd point at the engineer to tell him to make a ca.s.sette. I would take the ca.s.settes of the parts that I wanted to keep with me when I drove back to Malibu, which was about an hour's drive. I would drive home, ears bleeding, and listen to the songs.

Both Ed and Al smoked in the studio like chimneys. Those guys would be lighting them up, setting one down, light up another, put it in an ashtray. They would have three or four cigarettes going at one time. They were chain-smokers, lighting a cigarette off the other cigarette, letting the filter burn in the ashtray. Never put them out. Dropping them on the floor. I'd have these terrible headaches when I'd get home at three o'clock in the morning and go straight to the shower, because I stank like cigarette smoke.

One night, on the drive home, I was listening to this tape where Eddie had written the music and noodled the verses on guitar. He was trying to show me the phrasing of the verses, but he couldn't, because he couldn't play the rhythm and the lead at the same time. I didn't get what he was doing. But, on the way home, I heard the rhythm of the thing, and I started singing it in the car. We didn't have a chorus, and I just busted out with it, "Best of Both Worlds." It hit me hard, right when I was pulling in the garage. Bang. The chorus. .h.i.t.

I went in the shower, but I kept coming out to dry off and write some more lyrics on a notepad. Then I'd get back in the shower...and get right back out to scribble down some more. The song came to me like a flood.

I don't know about lyricists. Lyricist Bernie Taupin once told me that it's the easiest thing in the world for him. Once he has a t.i.tle and a concept, he can just go bam-bam-bam-bam-bam, bam-bam-bam-bam-bam, it's done. This song was coming at me like a tidal wave. I couldn't even take a shower. Usually I get pieces that I can remember. I just keep singing them over in my head, and write them down later. I wrote the whole song while I was still taking the shower. I went in the next day and sang it. Everybody was blown away. That was "Best of Both Worlds." it's done. This song was coming at me like a tidal wave. I couldn't even take a shower. Usually I get pieces that I can remember. I just keep singing them over in my head, and write them down later. I wrote the whole song while I was still taking the shower. I went in the next day and sang it. Everybody was blown away. That was "Best of Both Worlds."

Before I wrote "Love Walks In," Eddie had never really played a real keyboard ballad in his whole life up to that point. With Roth, the closest thing was "Wait" off 1984, 1984, which was a synth track, but it was a rocker. It wasn't a beautiful melody. which was a synth track, but it was a rocker. It wasn't a beautiful melody.

I had been reading this book by Ruth Montgomery called Aliens Among Us Aliens Among Us. She claims to be an automatic writer. She just gets a pencil, closes her eyes, and goes into a trance, and the writing comes through her. The book was about walk-ins, aliens who come and take over your body in your sleep. A person can actually not die and still become a whole different person. They wake up one morning and can't remember who the h.e.l.l they were. I wrote about how love comes walking in and can make you a whole new person. After Valerie forced Eddie to listen to the lyrics, Eddie and I became the closest of collaborators, trusting and loving with each other from that point forward.

BEFORE I JOINED Van Halen, I'd already committed to Farm Aid in September 1985, and we decided that would be the place we would make the announcement. I wanted to really do this big-time. I rented a private plane for my band for our last show. I gave everybody a nice bonus. They'd all bought houses already, but I gave them enough to pay them off, if they wanted. I brought Eddie up to rehea.r.s.e with us. Eddie and I wrote three songs in two days while he was in town. We rehea.r.s.ed Led Zeppelin's "Rock and Roll" with Eddie for Farm Aid. It was going to be great. Too bad I screwed everything up. Van Halen, I'd already committed to Farm Aid in September 1985, and we decided that would be the place we would make the announcement. I wanted to really do this big-time. I rented a private plane for my band for our last show. I gave everybody a nice bonus. They'd all bought houses already, but I gave them enough to pay them off, if they wanted. I brought Eddie up to rehea.r.s.e with us. Eddie and I wrote three songs in two days while he was in town. We rehea.r.s.ed Led Zeppelin's "Rock and Roll" with Eddie for Farm Aid. It was going to be great. Too bad I screwed everything up.

At Farm Aid, you could only do three or four songs. Willie Nelson, John Cougar Mellencamp, and Neil Young organized the twelve-hour marathon fund-raiser that was broadcast live on radio and television, largely a country show with acts like Kris Kristofferson and Jimmy Buffett. It wasn't a rock show. Dylan was as hard-rocking as it had gotten when my turn came. I was going to open with "One Way to Rock," follow with "I Can't Drive 55," and bring out Eddie, make the announcement that I was joining Van Halen, and play "Rock and Roll." When I went out, right away, I had that stadium rocking. They loved me, were going crazy. I was scoring. It was big for me-ninety thousand people in Champagne, Illinois, one of my biggest regions. I could do two nights in Chicago, two nights in Champagne, two nights in Peoria. Illinois was my state. I was ripping it up when I stepped to the mike to introduce "I Can't Drive 55."

"Here's a song for all you tractor-pulling motherf.u.c.kers," I said and instantly they shut down the radio broadcast and turned off the live TV feed. I ruined everything. When I brought out Eddie, we were long off the air and n.o.body saw or heard a thing. He did a quick little solo, we made the announcement and went into the Led Zeppelin number. That was the first time we played together in public. Eddie was on the plane with us. We all flew back happy. It was a friendly transition from my band to Van Halen.

Many years later, David Lauser went to a cattle-call audition for drummers for Maria McKee, the former vocalist of Lone Justice, this country-rock band signed to Geffen that was going to follow us at Farm Aid. Back then, they'd thought they had the Eagles and Linda Ronstadt all rolled together, but Lone Justice was not to be. A number of years later, the singer was looking for a drummer and Lauser looked like he was going to get the job. He's down to the final interview with the lady herself, and she says, "Tell me about yourself-what have you done in the past?" Lauser says, "I've worked for Sammy Hagar all my life." She gets up and walks out of the room. I guess there was still some animosity about that. I didn't mean to do anything wrong.

When I first went down to join Van Halen, I moved into a rented house, but then a place in foreclosure came up for sale next door to Eddie and Valerie in Malibu. They lived on a bluff, a little house in the middle, and my house. It was all brand-new, but the contractor went under and the bank had it. I made them a ridiculously low offer and got the house. I moved in next door to Eddie. It was amazing that a place would come up on Broad Beach Road, one of the most desirable spots in North Malibu, especially at bargain-bas.e.m.e.nt rates. It seemed like karma.

Betsy was grooving. She dug the house and she liked the beach. She didn't care about Malibu, but there were horses right down the street. You can rent a villa in the South of France for what we paid for her horses at the Malibu stables, but she was happy. When I joined Van Halen, it shook up Betsy bad, at first. She'd been ready for me to slow down and get out of the business. She wasn't ready for me to start over with a totally new band. But when the house came up in Malibu, she started to see things differently. I would go to work every day and come home at night. We were recording the alb.u.m and rehearsing for the tour. She was living in this beautiful beach house. She had her roses in the garden and her horses down the lane. She drove either her brand-new Jaguar or the Land Rover.

I used to drive to the studio with Eddie every day. He and I had the cars. We'd take either the Ferrari, the Lamborghini, my E-Jag, or my Cobra. On the way into the studio one day, we drove past a dealer and saw an E-Jag sitting there. I stopped. I went in and got my business manager on the phone, handed the salesman the phone, and the two of them put the deal together. I went out to get in the car and drive to the studio. I slid in behind the wheel and, wait a minute, what's with the seat? I'm not that big myself, but whoever drove this car before was one short dude. Whose car is this? It belonged to Ronnie James Dio. I loved that.

Eddie and I did crazy s.h.i.+t like that. We'd race home, me in one of my Ferraris, Eddie in one of his Lamborghinis, driving 140, 150 miles an hour. He would always be drunk.

Every day, we'd go from two in the afternoon until past midnight, unless Al pa.s.sed out. Al was a bad drunk, but Eddie used to nurse his beers. He'd always be drinking, but didn't get all f.u.c.ked up. Al would get f.u.c.ked up, puke, pa.s.s out. You'd have to slap him around, let him rest for a couple of hours, get him up, and bring him back. We would limit the amount of beer he could have and he would duck out for a pack of cigarettes, run downtown, buy a bottle of vodka, and drink it in the store.

Their father liked to drink, too. If we were in the studio at two in the afternoon, it wasn't like Eddie got up at eight in the morning, more like noon. I'd get to the studio and the three of them would be sitting there drinking, having gone through a couple of six-packs already. Their dad, Jan Van Halen, was a great guy. I felt close to him. He was a sax player. He liked my chops, liked that I could sing.

But those guys drank. Al was a drunk like my father. He couldn't stop. He drank until he pa.s.sed out, woke up, and started over again. He would find people in bars and offer them money to put out a cigarette on their arm or shave their head, while he videotaped the whole deal. Completely nuts.

When I first made their scene, they were still laughing about Al's birthday performance. Legend has it they'd all gone to a Benihana. He was already drunk when he got there. It's his birthday. He's drinking hot sake and everything else. He gets up on the table, takes his s.h.i.+rt off, and starts to dance-right on the hot grill. The guy just finished cooking dinner on it. Al pulls his pants down to f.u.c.k with the people in the place. He trips himself because he's got his pants around his ankles, and lands on the grill on his back. Ssssss Ssssss. He can't get up. He flops over like prawns. Ssssss Ssssss. Ahhh, ahhh. Sssss, Sssss, ahhh! He couldn't do anything. He was on the grill. They had to pull him off and, of course, take him to the hospital. He had burns all over. ahhh! He couldn't do anything. He was on the grill. They had to pull him off and, of course, take him to the hospital. He had burns all over.

Like Leffler said, these guys were crazy, very high-maintenance, but good-hearted. Another time, during the 5150 5150 sessions, we were waiting for Claudio to bring back one of my cars around two in the afternoon. sessions, we were waiting for Claudio to bring back one of my cars around two in the afternoon.

"I bet you I could shotgun ten beers," Al said.

He's got ten talls of malt liquor. "I bet you a thousand bucks," he said. Al's a betting man. One time he lost his BMW to me on a bet. I made him pay up, too, and gave it to our tour manager for Christmas. Al was a great guy, but just a total f.u.c.kup. I was not betting him.

"Oh yeah?" he said. "Watch this."