As we celebrate the life of Eddie Van Halen, it's hard to avoid the endless drama and
ever-changing lineups that existed alongside the record-breaking success of his band, Van Halen.
Perhaps the most notorious Van Halen situation was the recurring disappearance and reappearance
of lead singer David Lee Roth. David and Eddie had a famously fractious relationship;
the lead singer always wanted to be the rock star at the center of everyone's attention,
while the guitarist was more about the music than the trappings of fame.
Tensions ramped up between the two during the making of the 1980 album Women and Children First,
particularly when it came to shooting the album cover and inset photos with
provocative fashion photographer Helmut Newton.
Per Cuepoint, the Van Halen brothers, quote, "viewed this whole episode as an effort by Roth
to hijack the band's image for the new album" and disliked working with Newton. Another photographer
ended up shooting the cover and insets, but a Newton portrait of Roth was made into a poster
that was tucked into the first million copies of the album. The rest of the band was displeased.
Despite the dust-up over the photography for Women and Children First, the band seemed to know that
it had something special going on, creating two more albums before their most iconic of all,
1984's 1984. By the time the band was ready to record,
Eddie Van Halen had finished constructing his personal music studio with engineer Donn Landee,
which he named 5150 Studios. Eddie was unhappy with the number of cover songs on the 1982 album
Diver Down as well as the influence of producer Ted Templeman, per Ultimate Classic Rock.
He reportedly wanted more control and to, quote, "show Ted that we could make a great
record without any cover tunes and do it our way." According to Van Halen, 1984 was,
"me showing Ted how you really make a Van Halen record."
Eddie was the driving force behind the single "Jump," which is probably Van Halen's most
beloved, well-known song, as well as their only number one hit. Eddie was particularly keen
on the song's synthesizers, which David Lee Roth disliked. According to Van Halen,
"When I first played ‘Jump’ for the band, nobody wanted to have anything to do with
it. Dave said that I was a guitar hero and I shouldn’t be playing keyboards."
Roth then later tried to respond by "enforc[ing] his personality on the band's videos,"
wanting to make a video for "Jump" featuring him "in a wide range of rock-star moments,"
reports Ultimate Classic Rock. It didn't happen. Roth directed the video, but it simply features
the band performing onstage. Despite the success of the album, video, and single, Roth was unhappy,
as the success of the album seemed to put Van Halen in creative control of the band.
Roth left Van Halen after a 1985 "summit meeting" in which he announced that he
couldn't work with the band anymore. Eddie responded by announcing,
"I'm looking for a new lead singer ... it's weird
that it's over. Twelve years of my life putting up with his bull----."
Little did he know that it was far from over and that he and Roth would
spend many more years breaking up and getting back together.
Per Ultimate Classic Rock, Sammy Hagar replaced David Lee Roth and stayed with Van Halen for
11 years, during which the band had its first number one album on Billboard with 1986's 5150,
followed by the successful OU812 and For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge.
The Van Hagar era came to an end when Hagar either quit or was fired from Van Halen.
"The tour ended, I walked off stage and went that way,
Eddie went that way, Mike went that way, Al followed Eddie."
The band teased a Roth reunion at the 1996 MTV Video Music Awards,
but he only returned for two new songs for 1996's Best of — Volume 1. For a brief moment it looked
like Mitch Malloy would step up to the mic, but instead Extreme's Gary Cherone took the lead
singing position for two years and one album, 1998's Van Halen III. After Cherone was let go,
Sammy Hagar came back for his own two-song reunion in 2004 as well as a tour. The tour went badly,
and Hagar was out again. The final version of Van Halen came together in 2007, with David Lee
Roth once again getting back behind the mic and Eddie's son Wolfgang Van Halen stepping into the
bassist role that had previously belonged to Michael Anthony since 1974. The band
recorded the album A Different Kind of Truth in 2014 and toured for the last time in 2015.