Michael Anthony was standing there with me. Pow, pow, pow, pow Pow, pow, pow, pow-Al opened them all first and then drained them, one at a time. How can you even hold that much in your belly? I thought, "Oh, no, this day is over." Al walked out into the driveway, big belch, and grabbed a broomstick. "My dad used to do this," he said. "You ever see anybody do this?"

He was standing on the asphalt in the driveway, holding the broomstick out in front of him with both hands. I looked at him and wondered, "What the f.u.c.k's he doing?"

He's going to jump over the broomstick while holding it in his hands.

At that moment, Claudio pulled around the corner in my car. Just as Claudio could see everything clearly, Al jumped over the f.u.c.king thing, caught his feet, of course-drunk, just shotgunned ten cans of malt liquor-and went down, face-first. He didn't let go of the broomstick. We had to take the broom out of his hands. He hit the ground facedown and lay there, out cold. Claudio jumped out of the car, screaming. "Call an ambulance," he said. "Oh, my G.o.d, he's dead."

He did hit hard. The momentum of trying to do it catapulted his head into the asphalt. When we picked him up, he had a pizza face. They took him away in an ambulance.

I went home, took the next day off, and, the day after that, I came in. Al was lying on the couch, his head wrapped up like a mummy. I laughed at him so hard, but he couldn't laugh-that only made it hurt worse. He really did some pretty good damage to his face. That was just starting to make the record. You could only imagine what the tour was going to be like.

When it came time to actually record the alb.u.m, we needed a new producer, because Ted Templeman, who was producing David Lee Roth's solo alb.u.ms, had supposedly been bad-rapping us to Warner Bros. behind our back, so we weren't going to work with him. Despite Mo Ostin's positive reaction when he'd heard us at 5150, and the fact that they weren't paying much for it, Warner Bros. was hardly enthusiastic about the project. I suggested Mick Jones from Foreigner. I'd known him from the Montrose days, when he was still with Spooky Tooth. So Mick came on board and produced the alb.u.m with us.

One day toward the end of the project, Mick and I were walking on the beach when he turned to me and said, "Give me one more song." That was "Dreams." He just sort of pulled it out of me. I didn't know what key the song was in. I started singing in that register. Mick got really excited and helped me learn how to sing in this supersonic range that I'd never done before. He pushed me into a range that was an octave above where I normally sang. Mick got me to do things I didn't know I could do.

We cut the alb.u.m quickly, no more than a month, but we got hung up mixing. It took longer to mix than we expected, because Eddie's studio really wasn't a great place to mix. We would do the mixes, take them home, and not like what we heard, so we'd have to do it all over again. We had to cancel dates we planned at the start of the tour in Alaska and Hawaii. We wanted to start in some remote place, because we were really concerned about how the people were going to respond to the new material.

There was also the issue of the Van Halen catalog. I told the guys that I didn't want to be in a cover band. I was not going to go do any shows until we had an alb.u.m, and when we did, I didn't want to play too much of the old s.h.i.t. They were totally down with that. We all decided to go out and make a stand.

In the end, we were so late delivering the tapes that the alb.u.m couldn't come out until a week after the first scheduled date on the tour. Rather than start in some faraway place, we began it all in Shreveport, Louisiana. Even though the alb.u.m was late, we went ahead with the show, because it had already sold out and we didn't want to cancel or postpone it. The single "Why Can't This Be Love" was out on the radio, so people had heard something, but they hadn't heard the alb.u.m.

We went to Shreveport, Louisiana, to do that first show, March 27, 1987, and I was a wreck. I don't think I've ever been more nervous before a show. We came out and opened with "One Way to Rock," one of my songs. The barricade went down. The audience went crazy. It happened in an instant, a flash. It was killer. We knew we were on top of the world at that moment.

The ironic thing about that date is that it had been predicted a couple of years before by a psychic named Marshall Lever. I met him through this acupuncturist I'd been seeing and went to visit him at his home in Sausalito for an appointment sometime during the recording of VOA VOA. This was after I had severed my ties with the girlfriend and was happy with the new baby, Andrew, but I still knew things weren't right between Betsy and me. I felt the need to talk to someone. I needed some spiritual advice.

His wife met me, this red-lipped woman, very goofy, who showed me into the room. This heavyset gentleman walked in, sat down in a rocking chair, leaned back, and closed his eyes. His wife asked if I wanted to record the session and slipped a ca.s.sette in a tape recorder. His dog followed them into the room, lay down on the floor, and started snoring. Over the years, I've been to see this guy twenty times and this was the routine. That dog is snoring on every one of my tapes.

He started by telling me that I was involved in a relationship that I was just finishing. "She was your sister in your past life in Greece," he said. "You were separated when she was nine and you were eleven, and your parents were killed in a boating accident in the Greek islands. They put her in a convent and you went out on a fishing boat and never returned. You never saw her again, and you missed her. When you saw her and you smelled her"-he's talking about the smell, this chick drove me crazy with her smell-"when you smelled her, you realized who she was and you didn't ever want to be away from her again."

He went on to tell me about Betsy. "Betsy was also your sister in a past life," he said, "and you lived in Spain. Neither one of you ever married. You were in love but you never had s.e.x because she was your sister and you lived together your whole life. Betsy was your big sister. Your mother died giving birth to you. Betsy cooked for you, just like your wife, but you never had s.e.x even though you were madly in love. You were an instrument-maker named Crulli, C-R-U-L-L-I." He spelled it out. "And your instruments can be seen in a museum in Barcelona."

He turned his attention to Betsy. "When you met your present wife," he said, "you had an extremely strong s.e.xual relationship and it's really what keeps you tied." That's really what we really had. Our s.e.xual relationship was fantastic, even twenty years into it. How did he know all this?

"In eighteen months," he said, "you're going to go on a brand-new adventure, very much like what you're doing now, but different. More powerful, bigger, more like 'this is it.'"

That's when he gave me that date. He said it was going to start on that date.

I refused to sing "Jump." It was just hard for me. I write my own songs. "Jump" was tough for me lyrically-"Can't you see me standing here, I've got my back against the record machine, you know what I mean, you know what I mean? I might as well jump." That was hard for me. I couldn't sing the song with any heart and soul. I've got to sing something that I mean.

"Hey, hey, hey you, who was it? Hey, baby, how you been?" I just couldn't sing that s.h.i.t, great as it was. The first night, in a moment of panic, I pulled a guy out of the crowd to sing it. The audience went nuts. The band thought it was great. When the guy got to "I might as well," I'd spring in the air like a maniac. It worked. We kept it. On the entire tour, I sang "Jump" maybe twice.

Before I joined the band, Van Halen didn't have a particularly tight show. Roth would talk. They'd do another song. Ed would play a twenty-minute guitar solo. They would do another song. Roth would talk some more, another song, Al would do a drum solo for thirty minutes. On the 1984 Tour, they told me they were doing eight songs in a two-hour show. And they ended every song the same way. They had the cla.s.sic heavy-metal ending-four crashes, a crescendo...one, two, three. At the end of that, Al would usually do something, smack this, clang that, just because he was quirky. I decided we needed a new ending.

"Great idea," said Eddie, as always. So, pounding beers, Al learned a new ending. Good. The next day at rehearsal, back to the same old ending again. If he learned it, he learned it for one day maximum. Nothing stuck. We kept the same ending on the tour.

On the road, the crew worked around Al carefully, trying to figure out ways that he wouldn't pa.s.s out during the show. Al would sleep right up to the time before we went onstage. I would come to the dressing room from the hotel-I never did the sound checks to save my voice-and the two of them would be asleep on the couch or in a chair. They never went back to the hotel for their naps. Everybody tiptoed around them.

"Shhh, let them sleep," they would say. "Don't wake them up or Al will start drinking too soon."

They would wake up Al about twenty minutes before show-time. There was always a case of tall Schlitz cans. He would shotgun three or four beers and get his buzz on. He would walk out onstage with a couple more cans in his hands, pound those, and drink the rest of the case during the two-hour show. The crew would put out these big rubber trash cans for him to p.i.s.s in during the show. After practically every song, he'd p.i.s.s in the trash can, pound a couple of beers, and start playing again. Sometimes he'd really be f.u.c.ked up. In the middle of a song, he'd just get up off the drums to take a p.i.s.s or chug a beer. Eventually he started wearing one of those helmets with beer holders on the side, and straws. At the end of the tour, he needed some help.

This was the golden era of arena rock. I had been doing arenas since 1982 and Standing Hampton. Standing Hampton. I was raised on arena rock. Montrose opened for everyone in arenas. I never played nightclubs and theaters. I wouldn't even know what it was like. I was used to going out with the big moves, hands as far as you could stretch them, running across the stage, jumping as high as you could to get to those people at the back of the giant arenas. I was raised on arena rock. Montrose opened for everyone in arenas. I never played nightclubs and theaters. I wouldn't even know what it was like. I was used to going out with the big moves, hands as far as you could stretch them, running across the stage, jumping as high as you could to get to those people at the back of the giant arenas.

Van Halen was the cla.s.sic arena-rock act. At the end of our run, arenas had gone away. People started playing amphitheaters for more money. Arenas were smaller and more expensive. You couldn't bring a giant production into the amphitheaters. When we first started doing arenas, Ed Leffler and I came up with a way to streamline production and stage design so that we could sell an extra two thousand seats in the back, behind the stage. Those seats were pure profit. We didn't put a canopy on top of the lighting, so people could see the stage. We raised the PA system. We learned all the tricks and invented a few of our own. When we were running through arenas after VOA, VOA, we made more money than the other bands, because they weren't selling those last twenty-five hundred seats. When I joined Van Halen, they had been draping off the back of the hall, cutting their capacity in half and walking away with a few thousand dollars. On the 5150 Tour, we designed the stage so we could be seen from everywhere. we made more money than the other bands, because they weren't selling those last twenty-five hundred seats. When I joined Van Halen, they had been draping off the back of the hall, cutting their capacity in half and walking away with a few thousand dollars. On the 5150 Tour, we designed the stage so we could be seen from everywhere.

The arenas were so big and grand, and had roofs all the way to the back. You could extend your production as far back as you wanted and you could have as many as fourteen spotlights. When you came out, it was big-time rock. It was loud. It was inside a building and sound didn't just disappear like it does outdoors. The sound was contained in the hall. It was ma.s.sive and thunderous and the audience felt it in their chests. You could darken the entire building and, then, pow, pow, hit these four little guys up there with four ma.s.sive spotlights apiece. Arena rock is how rock stars became rock G.o.ds. hit these four little guys up there with four ma.s.sive spotlights apiece. Arena rock is how rock stars became rock G.o.ds.

For the 5150 Tour, we built this giant stage with steel gratings that went up to another stage about eight feet higher, which went all the way to the back. That way, I could work the crowd in the back. We had an eight-foot lift, where the drum riser was, that was like another stage. I would go up there and Eddie would go up there. Mike would go up there. You could be closer to the rear sections than the front row, even exchange high fives with the crowd.

We had two other platforms on each side. Our stage was ma.s.sive. We had these trusses of lights that I had been using since the Three Lock Box Tour, with catwalks on them. It came down as an X across the front of the stage at a point in the show, and I went up there and out over the audience twenty or thirty feet above their heads. We carried the show in fifteen trucks, a huge amount of production, some special effects, but mostly sound, staging, and lighting.

I was one of the first to use the headset mike so I could run around all over the place. We were all wireless. We used to come out on this ma.s.sive stage, and we wouldn't see one another again for ten minutes. Eddie would be running one way. Mikey would be jumping off in another direction and I'd be somewhere else. Only Al was stuck where he was. Sometimes I'd put my hand up over my eyes so I could see where Eddie was on the stage. We kept our monitors out of sight, under grating on the stage, so the stage was clean except for the tall amps. And they were loud. If you went in front of either of the amps, you'd better hold your ear. Van Halen played loud. The PA had to be so loud because it was coming off the stage that loud. That was arena rock-Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Rush, Van Halen. Rock stars.

On the tour, there was a former Playboy bunny from California hanging around, who used to see one of the other guys in my old band. Somehow she hooked up with Leffler, although she had always been after me. She was good-looking, but there was just something about this chick that was not to be trusted. She saw my name on Leffler's rooming list and came knocking at my door in the middle of the night in Detroit. I answered the door without any clothes-I sleep naked-and she pushes the door open, throws me on the bed, and starts blowing me. That's kind of tough to get up and walk away from. "Son of a b.i.t.c.h," I was thinking, "I'm f.u.c.ked now." And sure enough, I was.

About ten days later, Leffler gets the phone call. She's pregnant. I smelled a setup. I was so p.i.s.sed off. Betsy would commit suicide. We hired an attorney and started dealing with her. I knew it was not my baby. It was extortion.

She wanted an apartment in New York and anything for that kid that my children would have. I didn't want to pay a penny, but Leffler convinced me the smart thing to do was give her the money until the baby was born and see what happened at that point. She was living with her boyfriend, a musician in New York, in the apartment when she had the baby. She called Leffler from the hospital. "Tell Sammy to call me," she said. I didn't want to talk to her, but Leffler talked me into it. She tells me the baby is so cute, looks just like me, she's madly in love with me, she's so sorry, s.h.i.t like that.

A couple days later, Leffler gets another call. The baby died. I don't believe that she ever had a baby. She may have had an abortion early on. Marshall Lever, my psychic with the sleeping dog, told me about it. "It's not your baby," he said. "She's living with her boyfriend in New York. She has a boyfriend that's a musician and this is probably an extortion case. Don't worry, just relax, and once she has the baby, it's all going to go away."

I never heard from her again. Obviously, it wasn't my baby, and they knew it. They just extorted me as long as they could. No one ever saw her again.

Three weeks into the tour, we were sitting in Atlanta and Ed Leffler called a meeting.

"Billboard, number one," he said. number one," he said.

It was the first number-one record for any of us. The alb.u.m sold 600,000 the first week and another 400,000 the next week. It was on fire. It went platinum faster than any record in Warner Bros. history. Every one of our records did. When I was in the band, Van Halen was a huge, quick seller. Every alb.u.m went to number one. It was an un-f.u.c.king-believable run.

8.

MONSTERS OF ROCK.

As soon as we finished the first tour, I had to make the solo record for Geffen. That was the deal he'd made with Warner Bros. We were worried about Eddie and his drinking and drug problem, but first we had to deal with his brother. We put Al in rehab as soon as the tour was over. His wife staged an intervention. I didn't even know what an intervention was.

It was hairy. I cried. It broke me down and I wasn't even the guy under the gun. They went and got him out of bed, six o'clock in the morning, before he had another drink. He was getting up at four o'clock in the morning, chugging a bottle of vodka, and going back to bed. He wasn't a sipper. He wasn't a nurser. He just plowed himself to the point of pa.s.sing out.

We put him in a hospital. He took the oath and never drank again. I love Al. He is the strongest guy, but weird. He's a chain-smoker, but he'd quit smoking every Monday, for the one day, just to torture himself. Al's the kind of guy that I'd call every day, just to bulls.h.i.t.

Once Al cleaned up, Eddie didn't have anybody to drink with. Al still smoked. Al would drink coffee and Eddie would drink beer and do a few other things. It was Leffler's idea to have Eddie coproduce my solo record and play ba.s.s. He always played ba.s.s with Van Halen, two or three songs on practically every record. He was a great ba.s.s player. Eddie's a great musician, period.

So off we went into the studio, with Jesse Harms on keyboards, David Lauser on drums, and Eddie on ba.s.s. I played guitar. That way, we'd keep Eddie busy. We cut that record at these brand-new studios A&M Records built in Hollywood, where Tom Petty, John Cougar Mellencamp, and Stevie Nicks all had been working. Pink Floyd was in the room next door, without Roger Waters, doing "Learning to Fly." Eddie and I would ride in together from the beach every day in a different car. I had about seven Ferraris down there. The Pink Floyd drummer, Nick Mason, is a big Ferrari collector. The guitarist David Gilmore owns Ferraris, too, but he's not in Nick Mason's cla.s.s as a collector. Mason owns one of the original Ferrari GTOs, a car probably worth 30 million bucks. They didn't have their cars with them, so they'd be waiting on the sidewalk every day to see what I was going to be driving. David Gilmore is one of my all-time guitar heroes and it was really cool, having those guys admiring my cars every day. I was showing off. After I'd run through all the cars I had down south, I sent Bucky back up to Mill Valley, to swap out a couple more cars.

Pink Floyd was auditioning drummers for a shuffle they couldn't nail, even with their drummer Nick Mason there. They had Omar Hakim trying out, fresh from Sting's band, but they didn't use him on the track. I did. He overdubbed drums on a couple cuts on my alb.u.m. Pink Floyd was so particular about that shuffle, they were still working on it by the time I finished my entire alb.u.m.

MTV did a whole "Name the Alb.u.m" promotion, because I couldn't go on tour. I was just going to call it Sammy Hagar, Sammy Hagar, but some fan submitted the t.i.tle but some fan submitted the t.i.tle I Never Said Goodbye, I Never Said Goodbye, with a note saying, "Sammy's left his solo career but he never said goodbye." The record went platinum immediately. "Give to Live" and "Eagles Fly" off the alb.u.m were big hits. I did a three-week promotional tour around the world-San Francisco to j.a.pan to Germany, came home and went straight into the studio to start the new Van Halen alb.u.m, with a note saying, "Sammy's left his solo career but he never said goodbye." The record went platinum immediately. "Give to Live" and "Eagles Fly" off the alb.u.m were big hits. I did a three-week promotional tour around the world-San Francisco to j.a.pan to Germany, came home and went straight into the studio to start the new Van Halen alb.u.m, OU812 OU812.

As soon as I came back home, I flew down to Los Angeles from San Francisco. Eddie and Al met me at the airport. I hadn't seen them for a couple of weeks. I was really happy to see them. When we got in the car, Eddie and Al lit up cigarettes in the front seat and snapped a ca.s.sette in the player.

"We want you to hear something," Eddie said. They played me the keyboard part for "When It's Love." I was covered in goose b.u.mps. That was almost the inspiration for the whole alb.u.m. We knocked that song out and knew we had something.

The songs were not my best stuff lyrically. "Black and Blue" was kind of quirky, cool groove and phrasing, but the lyrics were a little too eighties. "Source of Infection," ugh. The last song we wrote was "Finish What Ya Started." It was toward the end of the project and we needed another song or two. Ed was the best at taking an idea you gave him and turning it into something special, something unique. I told him we should do something like the Who's "Magic Bus," something with a lot of rhythm and acoustic guitars. Van Halen hadn't really done anything with acoustic guitars.

I was in Malibu, lying in bed with my wife, about to get some, when I heard Eddie outside my door. Not even my front door, but the beach entrance directly under my bedroom deck. I could see him out there, cigarette glowing in the dark, no shirt, acoustic guitar around his neck, bottle of Jack Daniel's in his hand.

"Ed, what?" I said.

"Come on, man. I've got this idea," he said.

"Ed, it's two o'clock in the morning," I said. "I'm tired."

"The old lady kicked me out," he said. "Come on, man. Let me in."

I went down. Betsy was p.i.s.sed, but what could I do? He was my best friend and creative partner. She turned out the light. I wouldn't let him in, because he's got his cigarette, so we sat on the porch. He started playing me the riff for "Finish What Ya Started" and right away, I got excited. I went and got my acoustic and started doing my Tony Joe White thing. I was still thinking about going back upstairs and getting laid and started singing, "Come on, baby, finish what you started." It never happened. Eddie and I saw the sun come up and I threw him out, but we had written just about the whole thing. I was imagining what was going to happen to me when I went back upstairs. That song is about unfulfilled s.e.x.

It took a while to do OU812, OU812, more than it probably should have. Sober, Al played different. It was really weird. He wasn't as good. When he was drinking, Al was always a radical drummer. He'd hit hard and do crazy fills. Drunk, he was off the hook, but sober, he was a lot more conservative. His timing was better, but he wasn't as radical. In the end, it was easy to put aside things like that, because everybody was still getting along really good. The only problem was that I was starting to burn out, getting a little crispy around the edges. more than it probably should have. Sober, Al played different. It was really weird. He wasn't as good. When he was drinking, Al was always a radical drummer. He'd hit hard and do crazy fills. Drunk, he was off the hook, but sober, he was a lot more conservative. His timing was better, but he wasn't as radical. In the end, it was easy to put aside things like that, because everybody was still getting along really good. The only problem was that I was starting to burn out, getting a little crispy around the edges.

Betsy, on the other hand, was losing it. I'd come off the VOA Tour, jumped into 5150, 5150, did the alb.u.m and the tour, did my solo record, went around the world on the promotional tour, and straight back into the studio for did the alb.u.m and the tour, did my solo record, went around the world on the promotional tour, and straight back into the studio for OU812 OU812. And now we were going back on the road. She was crying, depressed all the time. Life was not good at home. I was not ignoring it any longer. Now I was concerned.

I went to Ed Leffler and suggested we do stadiums. We were in the biggest band in the world, and as it was, we were selling out four nights in arenas anywhere. Stadiums would allow us to go out for a couple of months instead of a year, and if things went right, we'd end up making way more money. Leffler thought it was a gamble, but worth taking.

We put together a bill. Kingdom Come was a new band from Germany that everyone thought was going to be big. The Germans sounded exactly like Led Zeppelin, but they told interviewers they never heard of the band. So they were history before they were out of the blocks. But they opened. Metallica, who went on second, had been my choice. They were a new band from the Bay Area, young and hip. Dokken, the third act, were ready to break up when the tour started, and following Metallica every night finished them. They broke up at the end of the tour. The Scorpions were also on that tour and they meant a lot. We called the tour Monsters of Rock and did twenty-seven shows between Memorial Day and the end of July 1988.

We had fifty-six trucks, three complete stages, and production systems that had to be put up all at the same time so that we could go out and play three shows a week. It cost $350,000 per show and it was easy to lose money. The shows broke even at forty-four thousand tickets and the tickets were expensive.

But the fact that OU812 OU812 went straight to number one made selling tickets easier. It went on to sell 4 million records and had the big hits "When It's Love" and "Finish What Ya Started." Meanwhile that tour made a lot of money, even if it didn't do so hot in some places. We sold out two Detroits. We sold out two Texxas Jams. Sold out Candlestick Park in San Francisco. We sold out a couple of New Yorks. But, in Miami, we did around 25,000 people, and a hurricane blew in and ripped the concert to shreds. We had to stop in the middle. Big loss. We played a couple of other markets where it didn't do so good and we ended up giving a lot of money back to the promoters. It wasn't a disaster, far from it, but it wasn't the home run we expected. went straight to number one made selling tickets easier. It went on to sell 4 million records and had the big hits "When It's Love" and "Finish What Ya Started." Meanwhile that tour made a lot of money, even if it didn't do so hot in some places. We sold out two Detroits. We sold out two Texxas Jams. Sold out Candlestick Park in San Francisco. We sold out a couple of New Yorks. But, in Miami, we did around 25,000 people, and a hurricane blew in and ripped the concert to shreds. We had to stop in the middle. Big loss. We played a couple of other markets where it didn't do so good and we ended up giving a lot of money back to the promoters. It wasn't a disaster, far from it, but it wasn't the home run we expected.

On the first song, opening night, I fell on a metal step. Everything had been running late and we didn't have a full production run-through the day before like we normally would. The stage was done barely in time for us to play on it. I didn't know the stage. I tripped and landed right on my tailbone, spent the whole night after the first show in the hospital. I was getting steroids shot into my a.s.s every day for my broken tailbone. I was getting ma.s.sages, and I had to sit on ice packs. I had a grapefruit on my lower vertebrae.

On days off, I flew home to see my doctor. On one of those trips back, I hobbled into the waiting room and there was Miles Davis sitting in a chair. The doctor opened the door and out comes Sting and his wife, Trudy. "Look. It's Sammy Hagar," Sting said. They left and the doctor said, "Sammy, have you met Miles?"

f.u.c.king Miles Davis sitting there, dressed like a woman in his shiny, crazy-a.s.s clothes, skinny corn rows in his hair. Miles puts his hand out, without standing up, and as I reach to shake his hand, he reaches out with his other hand around my forearm, and he pulls himself to his feet. He's using me to get up out of the chair. I almost went down with him.

I had an ear infection. I had a sinus infection. I had a broken tailbone. That whole tour, I couldn't sing because of my sinuses. Every night, I couldn't sing. It was too big of a deal to cancel because it was so expensive.

We got to Texas, standing out in front of sixty thousand people at the Cotton Bowl, and I couldn't sing. I was about to cry onstage. Texas was my country. I owned Texas. I was a headliner there long before Van Halen. I stopped in the middle of the first song.

"I can't sing," I said. "I promise you, Van Halen will come back and do a free concert for Dallas."

We cut the show short, and the brothers went nuclear on me afterward. They crucified me for that. It was three years before we made good.

Earlier that day at the Cotton Bowl, we'd had an opening band called Krokus, who were handled by Butch Stone, a Southerner I knew from Montrose days when he managed Black Oak Arkansas. They planned to broadcast their set live on the radio, but Ed Leffler pulled the plug on them. Butch was really upset. There was a screaming match. That night at the hotel, after the bar closed, somebody jumped Leffler in the elevator and beat the s.h.i.t out of him, knocked out a couple teeth, broke some ribs, really busted Ed up. He spent two weeks in the hospital.

Still we rolled along. I told Betsy I was only going out for one month, but we came back and Leffler started talking about going back out to hit the other markets. The band had me in the backseat of a car coming back from some press function-Ed and I were drinking and doing c.o.ke-and they started drilling on me. With Al sober, he couldn't sit around the house all day.

"I need a life," he told me.

Eddie liked to be on the road, too. He and his brother would have played seven nights a week, if they could. They were really pressuring me.

"I just can't do it," I told them. "I love you guys, but I'm going to lose my marriage. I'm going to lose my family. It isn't worth it to me." It wasn't like a fight, but we were bickering.

"We got you in the band, we thought you were committed," Alex said. "If we would have known this, we would have gotten somebody else."

Alex sober was a head-tripper. Drunk he was just tripped out. Eddie would always back him, no matter what. You could not come between those two guys in a million years. They're not just brothers. They came from another country, didn't speak English when they got here, and were tight. They'd fight like a cat and dog, but don't get between them.

The brothers decided that Mike Anthony wasn't making enough of a contribution to continue earning a full share of the music publishing. Truthfully, Mikey didn't write. Ever. He basically played on ba.s.s what Eddie would tell him. He was a quick study and he would add to what he was given. Mike was a creative ba.s.s player. He had an incredible background voice that made a big difference in the sound of Van Halen. But the brothers needed money.

Al was almost broke. We were making tons of money, but Al was many million dollars in debt. Leffler helped consolidate his bills and arranged a five-year window with him just paying interest. He had a little real estate crash. He'd bought a $2 million house that he sunk even more millions into for rock-star junk like a rubber room, and then sold it for a big loss. He was making really bad deals.

We held a meeting and took a vote on reducing Mike's partnership to 10 percent. Leffler and I voted no, but Mikey sided with the Van Halens and voted against himself, 3-2.

"I understand what you're saying," he said, "and I'm okay with it."

I knew going back out was inevitable. We spent fall 1988 on the road. We didn't do as hard a tour. We went back to some of the markets that we'd canceled. We went to some of the secondary markets we missed, trying to keep the record alive and make up for the bad press from the Monsters Tour. Everyone thought it bombed. It really didn't. We made a lot of money, and we took care of everybody. No one lost money. But attendance wasn't what it was supposed to be.

We were also doing whatever we could to pump alb.u.m sales, which were, again, great, but not what they were supposed to be. As a result, we started making music videos. For 5150, 5150, Van Halen made no videos. Ed Leffler figured he didn't want to compete with old Van Halen videos. Also, Warner Bros. refused to pay for the videos and they could be expensive. When we put out the first single, "When It's Love," from Van Halen made no videos. Ed Leffler figured he didn't want to compete with old Van Halen videos. Also, Warner Bros. refused to pay for the videos and they could be expensive. When we put out the first single, "When It's Love," from OU812 OU812 without a video, too, Warner started to freak out. They thought if we had put out a video with without a video, too, Warner started to freak out. They thought if we had put out a video with 5150, 5150, instead of selling 7 million, we would have sold 10 million. We were already out on tour when the second instead of selling 7 million, we would have sold 10 million. We were already out on tour when the second OU812 OU812 single, "When It's Love," came out, and Warner finally agreed to pay for a video. Leffler insisted it be a performance video. No acting. It needed to be shot on one of our off days from the tour. single, "When It's Love," came out, and Warner finally agreed to pay for a video. Leffler insisted it be a performance video. No acting. It needed to be shot on one of our off days from the tour.

They sent the Warner jet for us, flew us to Hollywood. We spent twelve hours shooting the video and I blew out my voice. At two in the morning, they loaded us back on the jet and sent us back to the next town on the tour. They had shot some B-roll with an actor and actress, and she was around for the shoot, wiping down the bar in the background of the shot or some such. We really connected, but I never even got the chance all day to take her in the back room.

The second video was "Finish What Ya Started," where director Andy Morahan wanted to shoot everybody individually. He wanted to make sure everybody looked good all the time and you can never do that with four guys all at once. Someone always gets caught with his eyes crossed, his finger in his nose, his chin doubled. Leffler insisted on another performance video again. They shot us in high-contrast black-and-white against a white backdrop. We each played the song for about three hours. When we walked in, the place looked like the men's department at Macy's, there were so many racks of clothes. We wore what we were wearing. We didn't let the stylists touch our hair or do our makeup. A lady put a little powder on and that was all. We would see all these dolled-up, blow-dried bands on MTV and laugh at the a.s.sholes. We weren't going to do that.

WE WENT AND did those extra four months' worth of shows, but by the time I came back home, my marriage was coming apart. Betsy was getting a distant look in her eye. I started worrying about her. Al's marriage was also falling to pieces, and the four months on the road didn't do that any good, either. With Al sober and Eddie still f.u.c.ked up all the time, they were fighting like crazy. We broke up fights constantly. Over stupid things. did those extra four months' worth of shows, but by the time I came back home, my marriage was coming apart. Betsy was getting a distant look in her eye. I started worrying about her. Al's marriage was also falling to pieces, and the four months on the road didn't do that any good, either. With Al sober and Eddie still f.u.c.ked up all the time, they were fighting like crazy. We broke up fights constantly. Over stupid things.

"Hey, Ed, you got a cigarette?"

"Hey, Al, why don't you buy your own f.u.c.king cigarettes?"

"Hey, f.u.c.k you, man."

"Well, f.u.c.k you."

Boom. They'd just go at it because he asked for a cigarette. There was always tension between them. When they didn't want us to know what they were arguing about, they would shout at each other in Dutch.

We didn't sell out everywhere on the second leg. We still did big business, but we were doing eight thousand out of twelve thousand seats, and twelve thousand out of fifteen thousand, instead of two or three sold-out nights. Some cities, it was always there, others we had to work harder for.

Even though the OU812 OU812 alb.u.m sold 4 million, people thought it wasn't successful, since alb.u.m sold 4 million, people thought it wasn't successful, since 5150 5150 had sold 7 million, almost twice as many. Maybe the honeymoon's over. Big pressure on me now. Now we've got to do a great record and go out and tour the rest of the world. We hadn't toured the world yet. I was resisting. I didn't want to go. That's when Betsy had her nervous breakdown. had sold 7 million, almost twice as many. Maybe the honeymoon's over. Big pressure on me now. Now we've got to do a great record and go out and tour the rest of the world. We hadn't toured the world yet. I was resisting. I didn't want to go. That's when Betsy had her nervous breakdown.

It all went down shortly after I had bought this airplane, a Merlin 3, and started spending a lot of time in Mexico. We had used it a few times, and I decided to buy it, a seven-pa.s.senger twin turbo prop, small and fast, the biggest plane you can have with one pilot. I was stretching a little bit, buying this plane. I could afford it, but it was a very big luxury. I redid the interior with all this white and beige, cream-colored leather and suede. I put in a flushing toilet. I had a seat that folded down into a double bed so that the kids could sleep.