History Trivia / VanHalen

** Both Hagar and Anthony expressed hopes that the band could reunite with them in a May 2020 [[https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/sammy-hagar-van-halen-tour-1001675/ interview]], which had it happened, would've marked the first time in which all five members of the classic era would've performed together. Eddie's death sadly ended any potential from happening.

** Both Hagar and Anthony expressed hopes that the band could reunite with them in a May 2020 [[https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/sammy-hagar-van-halen-tour-1001675/ interview]], which had it happened, would've marked the first time in which all five members of the classic era would've performed together. Eddie's death sadly ended those plans.

** Music/OzzyOsbourne [[https://www.nme.com/news/music/ozzy-osbourne-eddie-van-halen-once-asked-him-join-van-halen-2796460 revealed]] that Eddie offered him to become the new lead singer after Hagar left the band in 1996.

** Before Sammy Hagar replaced Roth, Daryl Hall from Music/HallAndOates and Scandal frontwoman Patty Smyth were tapped as potential replacements. Hall turned it down, not wanting to end his duo and Smyth turned it down, feeling that the band were planning to bring in Hagar to replace Roth anyway.

** Eddie said he would have loved to make an appearance in ''Film/BillAndTedsExcellentAdventure'' to tie in to the gag of their ridiculously assuming they could get him to join their band, but unfortunately he had no idea about it and no one asked him.

* HostilityOnTheSet: Simply put: Eddie Van Halen is an asshole. A talented one, but almost universally regarded as a complete dick, mostly since he's trashed Sammy and Michael Anthony publically for over a decade while not speaking a word to the guys themselves, trashing Roth while he's ''in'' the band, and generally having a bad attitude about any-and-everybody that doesn't have "Van Halen" as their last name. Says something things eventually got so fiery with both singers they wanted to take a rest, and Michael Anthony also didn't like being sidelined (to the point he only joined the 2004 reunion because Sammy wanted him there).

** Eddie has said he would have loved to make an appearance in ''Film/BillAndTedsExcellentAdventure'' to tie in to the gag of their ridiculously assuming they could get him to join their band, but unfortunately he had no idea about it and no one asked him.

** After ''Balance'', the band was tapping Glen Ballard to produce their next record with Hagar. Due to behind-the-scenes manipulation though, Eddie had Glen (a prolific songwriter himself) rewrite lyrics that Sammy wrote, which made Sammy absolutely furious. Ballard didn't take kindly to being lied to like that, obviously, and quit on the spot after finding out.

* WhatCouldHaveBeen: Singer-songwriter Mitch Malloy almost became the lead singer for Van Halen after Sammy's departure in 1996. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pfFErkwbFA This is the only existing demo they recorded together, but it doesn't sound half-bad.]]

** ''Humans Being'' nearly destroyed the band. To begin with, the guys were supposed to be on break in the first half of 1996 due to Eddie and Alex needing surgery, and Sammy Hagar about to have his third child. But Ray Danniels, their manager, convinced them that contributing to the Twister soundtrack would make them enough money to get them through the rest of that year. Originally, the two songs Sammy and Eddie wrote were ''The Silent Extreme'' and ''Between Us Two''. According to Hagar, the two songs were recorded, and he was about to head back home in Maui to his wife until Eddie informed him that ''Between Us Two'' wasn’t going to be used. Multiple clashes between Hagar and the Van Halen brothers ensued over lyrics, with Alex changing the title to ''Humans Being'', Sammy flying back and forth between home and work so much that he straight-up moved to San Francisco (against his wife’s wishes), and had to have the baby there. At one point, Sammy got so steamed about the lack of compromise that he and Bruce Fairborn rewrote their lyrics in 15 minutes ''on the hood of a car'', recorded his vocals in less than 2 hours, and then angrily walked out. This explains why Twister's ending credits song, ''Respect the Wind'', was an instrumental credited to only Eddie and Alex. Ultimately this lead to Sammy Hagar quitting Van Halen because of what he saw as unfair treatment by the Van Halen brothers. All of this is detailed in a particularly ugly interview from the [[http://www.vhlinks.com/pages/interviews/sh/gw0497.php April 1997 edition of Guitar World]], which suggests the issues at the time go as far back as 1994 with problems rising up from a greatest hits package of Sammy's solo work.

* TroubledProduction: The video for "Jump" was badly affected by David Lee Roth's ego and his clash with the rest of the band. The other 3 members didn't want to be around him and asked director Robert Lombard if they could be filmed separately. Lombard hated the idea but buckled down with the exception of a few shots. Cameraman Pete Angelus didn't know how to operate a 16 mm camera properly, resulting in all footage he shot being unusable. Roth demanded that he be filmed doing a bunch of crazy stunts. Lombard wanted to cut out Roth's stunts and make the video a performance video to keep it personal, claiming it would make the video more successful. The other 3 members agreed to this, resulting in Lombard changing the video's format. Roth got word of this and demanded Lombard be fired. Lombard never again worked with Van Halen, Roth's stunt footage would surface in a future video, and "Jump" won the award for Best Performance Video at the first MTV Video Music Awards. It's also seen as one of the most memorable music videos ever made and helped cement the band's already monumental popularity even further.

* ThrowItIn: Most of David Lee Roth's speaking breaks, combined with CrowningMomentOfFunny. "Eruption" also started initially as a warmup before Templeman convinced Eddie to record it and put it on the album. The rain in the background of "Could This Be Magic?" is actual - the band opened the studio's door during a rainy day because it was hot and poorly ventilated, and the effect got caught on tape.

** Some mocked the band reworking old demo tapes for "A Different Kind of Truth", but most of that came from Wolf digging in the archives and making suggestions for new songs. Being the son and nephew of founding members, he knew exactly what fans would want.

* SimilarlyNamedWorks: "Right Now" has nothing to do with the Music/{{Korn}} song of the same name.

* ThePeteBest: The two bassists who preceded Michael Anthony.

** By the way, the person saying "c'mon, Dave... gimme a break!" in "Unchained" is Templeman himself, telling Dave to stop before his talking got out of hand.