Tommy2Tone84 wrote:David_Lee_Halen wrote:
I heard it from one of Dweezil's drummers at the time who was at the house. The New York drummer played with some big people too. He got to be friends with Eddie from them being backstage at each other's concerts starting around '84. Valerie was friends with some of the same artists too. It was through the New York drummer that I got Eddie to sign a picture for me, which was a big deal to me at the time, and I still have the pic framed on my wall.
Damn, that must have been a real trip to hear at the time. Did you know much about the goings on with Dave and the Best of recordings or was that kept real quiet? I think Valerie claims in her book that she cheated on Eddie first, with some drummer friend of his. I tend to think she is a little naive there but who knows.
Yeah they were. I in fact did know about the goings on with the recording of the greatest hits album about 8 weeks before the public did, from Eddie himself. I've told the story here before, but long story short, I worked at a bike shop in Santa Monica during that time in '96. There was an AA meeting place next to the shop. One of my co-workers pointed out a car to me and said that it was Jon Bon Jovi's car and he goes to AA meetings next door. It was a Maroon Porsche 911 carerra (I think) parked on the street behind my truck. I thought it was cool, and while I'm a moderate fan of Jon, it wasn't gonna change my day knowing that.
Then, that same co-worker came up to me and said, you know how I said that was JBJ's car? I made a mistake. It's Eddie Van Halen's. right at that moment, I looked at the car just in time to see Eddie hop in and drive away.
I made a mental note of when he was there, hoping that I could predict when he'd be there again and somehow talk to him. Monday morning from 10-11. Shortly after that on another Monday, I saw his car there again but missed him. Then Sammy publicly announced that he was no longer the singer of VH, and that they were recording 2 new tracks with Dave in mid June.
There were lots of rumors floating around town, but none of them confirmed that Dave was permanently back in, unlike what MTV was reporting. The rumors were that they were looking for a singer. Sebastian Bach's name came up as the possible new guy. That's the only name that I remember coming up as the new singer. About the last week of July, I saw Eddie's car parked on the street at the 10:00 hour of a Monday morning, and then saw him walk into the AA meeting place. I knew that he had to walk through the shop parking lot to get to his car when he left, so around the 11:00 hour I made sure to be helping customers load or unload their bikes from their car in the parking lot.
Eddie came out and walked through the parking lot. I said " Hey Ed" as if I knew him personally. He started looking at me as if he was supposed to know me, and then realized that I was just a fan. He then replied with a knowing nod and smile, "hi". I followed with "how is the band?" He replied "great. Whe just finished 2 new tracks with Roth, and we're looking for a singer." Then he stopped for a second and said, "it was cool and all," then he looked me in the eye and said "but the guy can't sing?" Then he followed with "it took him 2 weeks to record what should've taken him 15 minutes," to which I replied "bummer" as Ed walked away. Bittersweet.
I had the scoop right from Ed's mouth about 8 weeks before they went public with them announcing that Dave wasn't in and Cherone was.
Then, the MTV awards happened with Dave coming out with VH, confusing everybody into thinking Dave was really back, including me. The following Monday, I was working, and Ed tapped me on the shoulder. I turned around, and to my surprise, it was Ed. I said "hey Ed." He replied "hey man, how ya doing?" I said "good." He said "hey can you do me a favor? can you give me change for the meter?" I said "sure, no problem." I then asked "how's the singer search going?" He replied, "we found one! The guy sings with elephant balls, and best of all, he doesn't have LSD." then he replies "lead singers disease. We're thinking of not telling anybody and just coming out with the album with him on it." I asked him if he was well known. He replied "yes, he's fairly well known." I said "cool" and he fed the meter to his parked Lamborghini and went to his meeting. It looked a lot like this one:
After his meeting, he went to his car with headphones on his head and what looked like a small ADAT player. By now, co-workers were standing on the sidewalk looking at his car. Ed signed some autographs, showed us the engine, and someone noticed that the car didn't have a stereo and ed had his headphones on for music. They asked " why doesn't the car have a stereo?" Ed replied " with an engine like this, you don't need a stereo!" Another co-worker asked "what was up with Dave on the MTV awards show?" Ed replied "the guy's from another planet!" and that's my main Ed story. I saw him at NAMM a few months later, but he was sitting at a table signing pictures with a line a mile long, so I didn't bother.