WEBVTT - Van Halen Pt. 2: Pulling a Gun on Fred Durst, Racing Ferraris and Lambos, and Rock ‘n’ Roll’s Most Faithful Servant 0:00:00.440 --> 0:00:17.680 Disgraceland is a production of Double Elvis. This is a 0:00:17.720 --> 0:00:21.320 story about a modern day warrior, a man with a code, 0:00:21.880 --> 0:00:24.800 a man out of time, a musician with a take 0:00:24.880 --> 0:00:28.479 no shit violent streak, a beretta to the head of 0:00:28.560 --> 0:00:33.240 Limp Biscuits, Fred Durst, a military assault vehicle tearing ass 0:00:33.280 --> 0:00:37.360 through the tony streets of Beverly Hills. It's about an Alex, 0:00:37.560 --> 0:00:40.920 a Michael, a Sammy, even a Dave. And of course 0:00:41.600 --> 0:00:45.600 it's about an Eddie. This is a story about Van 0:00:45.680 --> 0:00:48.680 Halen and one of the four guitarists who belongs on 0:00:48.720 --> 0:00:51.960 the Mount Rushmore of guitar playing. It's about a band 0:00:52.200 --> 0:00:56.560 who made great music. Unlike that music I played for 0:00:56.600 --> 0:00:59.760 you at the top of the show. That wasn't great music. 0:01:00.400 --> 0:01:03.319 That was a preset loop from my melotron called let 0:01:03.320 --> 0:01:07.960 me get some of that Podcake MK one. I played 0:01:07.959 --> 0:01:10.240 you that loop because I can't afford the rights to 0:01:10.319 --> 0:01:13.960 these dreams by Heart, And why would I play you 0:01:14.000 --> 0:01:18.120 that specific slice of authentic sibling cheese? Could I afford it? 0:01:19.319 --> 0:01:22.800 Because that was the number one song in America on 0:01:22.920 --> 0:01:26.200 March twenty fourth, nineteen eighty six, and that was the 0:01:26.240 --> 0:01:29.639 day the Van Halen released their seventh studio album, fifty 0:01:29.680 --> 0:01:33.120 one fifty, their first with new lead singer Sammy Hagar, 0:01:33.640 --> 0:01:36.520 an album that allowed the band to reach new commercial heights, 0:01:36.560 --> 0:01:41.080 while unresolved problems continued to bubble unseen beneath the surface. 0:01:42.720 --> 0:01:47.640 On this episode Anthemic Sibling Cheese a military assault vehicle, 0:01:48.000 --> 0:01:52.800 a baretta, a code and Van Halen, I'm Jake Brennan, 0:01:53.640 --> 0:02:23.680 and this is dis Graceland. Eddie Van Halen jammed his 0:02:23.720 --> 0:02:27.240 combat boot down on the gas pedal. The assault vehicle 0:02:27.320 --> 0:02:30.840 he recently bought at auction roared to life, tearing ass 0:02:30.880 --> 0:02:34.760 down the quiet streets of upscale Beverly Hills. There was 0:02:34.800 --> 0:02:37.240 no weapon in the machine gun mouth, but that didn't 0:02:37.240 --> 0:02:41.520 make the vehicle anymore street legal. This decommissioned slab of 0:02:41.560 --> 0:02:45.959 government steel was very much illegal, but Eddie didn't care, 0:02:46.800 --> 0:02:48.920 just like he didn't care about the gun he was holding. 0:02:49.360 --> 0:02:51.680 He was on a mission, and to carry out that 0:02:51.760 --> 0:02:56.680 mission he required a certain level of comfort. Beverly Hills 0:02:56.680 --> 0:02:59.760 made him uncomfortable, and that's not because he wasn't welcome. 0:03:00.480 --> 0:03:03.160 It was two thousand and one, after all, and Eddie 0:03:03.200 --> 0:03:06.720 Van Halen, the guitar player of his generation, the one 0:03:06.760 --> 0:03:09.600 in the same who just decades earlier, had reinvented the 0:03:09.680 --> 0:03:13.839 instrument and in many ways revitalized a genre, was very 0:03:13.919 --> 0:03:18.519 rich and very famous. It was the pretension that bugged him, though, 0:03:19.080 --> 0:03:23.600 the vulgar display of one's wealth, status, and power. Eddie 0:03:23.600 --> 0:03:27.000 didn't play that game. He wasn't a star. He's just 0:03:27.000 --> 0:03:29.760 a regular guy, a kid stuck in a grown man's 0:03:29.800 --> 0:03:32.680 body who liked to play guitar. But if you went 0:03:32.720 --> 0:03:35.800 and did something dumb like keep one of his guitars 0:03:35.840 --> 0:03:38.680 locked up in your fancy mansion and then did something 0:03:38.800 --> 0:03:41.800 equally dumb like not answer his phone calls to arrange 0:03:41.800 --> 0:03:43.680 a time for him to come pick up that guitar 0:03:43.800 --> 0:03:46.880 like a normal person, that kind of Beverly Hills bullshit 0:03:46.960 --> 0:03:50.640 lit a fire under Eddie van Halen's regular ass. So 0:03:50.800 --> 0:03:53.920 Eddie van Halen tore ass in his military assault vehicle 0:03:54.040 --> 0:03:55.920 through the nine two to one on a zip code 0:03:55.920 --> 0:03:59.160 with no shirt on. His tattered pants were being held 0:03:59.240 --> 0:04:01.280 up by a piece of rope while he drove, and 0:04:01.680 --> 0:04:04.280 the boots on his feet, the ones that were managing 0:04:04.360 --> 0:04:06.280 the gas pedal on the break at the moment, those 0:04:06.320 --> 0:04:09.000 were wrapped up in duct tape. And his long hair 0:04:09.160 --> 0:04:11.400 was up in a bun as a samurai in feudal 0:04:11.480 --> 0:04:14.880 Japan centuries ago would have worn it. And just like 0:04:14.960 --> 0:04:20.000 the samurais of old, Eddie van Halen sought enlightenment, believed 0:04:20.080 --> 0:04:24.920 in salvation, and lived by a code. Enlightenment came through 0:04:24.960 --> 0:04:29.120 his music, Salvation came from within, and his code was 0:04:29.160 --> 0:04:34.560 governed by three points honor, discipline, and morality. This was 0:04:34.600 --> 0:04:37.200 how he lived his life, or how he tried to 0:04:37.240 --> 0:04:40.599 at least. And God rewards those who seek him and 0:04:40.920 --> 0:04:45.040 all that. Eddie van Halen was a seeker, a searcher, 0:04:45.480 --> 0:04:48.880 just like that other iconic American, John Wayne, a man 0:04:48.880 --> 0:04:52.279 who made westerns about anti hero cowboys that often borrowed 0:04:52.279 --> 0:04:56.120 from Japanese samurai films, the same ones who wore their 0:04:56.160 --> 0:05:01.800 hair like Eddie was now wearing his samurais Cowboys, John Wayne, 0:05:02.080 --> 0:05:06.600 Eddie van Halen. It was all connected. And now, at 0:05:06.600 --> 0:05:09.559 forty six years old, with the days of routinely putting 0:05:09.640 --> 0:05:13.120 up hits on the billboard charts seemingly behind him, Eddie 0:05:13.200 --> 0:05:15.760 van Halen's purpose was more elusive than ever. In a 0:05:15.760 --> 0:05:21.159 shifting landscape of grunge new metal in Britney, Spears Eddie 0:05:21.160 --> 0:05:25.200 sow more than just his signature tone. He was looking 0:05:25.279 --> 0:05:28.320 for yet another new singer for the band that bore 0:05:28.360 --> 0:05:32.159 his name van Halen, a band which had famously or 0:05:32.279 --> 0:05:35.440 infamously burned through three vocalists over the course of its 0:05:35.440 --> 0:05:38.800 story career. Now gets all that in a minute. And 0:05:38.880 --> 0:05:42.360 he was looking for meeting too, after recently separating from 0:05:42.360 --> 0:05:45.599 his wife of two decades, Valerie Burton Nellie, and he 0:05:45.680 --> 0:05:48.000 was looking for a cure for the cancer that was 0:05:48.080 --> 0:05:51.919 growing in his tongue. But at this very moment, what 0:05:52.080 --> 0:05:55.440 Eddie van Halen was really looking for was his guitar, 0:05:56.279 --> 0:06:00.520 and he knew just where it was held captive inside 0:06:00.600 --> 0:06:04.560 the Beverly Hills home of one Fred Durst, that backwards 0:06:04.560 --> 0:06:08.120 red hat enthusiast and lead vocalist of Limp Biscuit, the 0:06:08.160 --> 0:06:11.160 band which just two years earlier had incited a riot 0:06:11.200 --> 0:06:16.000 at Woodstock ninety nine with their macho fucko anthem break stuff. Today, however, 0:06:16.440 --> 0:06:19.240 it was Eddie who was doing the inciting. He drove 0:06:19.320 --> 0:06:22.479 his self vehicle onto Fred's well manicured front lawn put 0:06:22.520 --> 0:06:24.719 it in Parker. However, you get those things to stop 0:06:24.839 --> 0:06:27.520 and let it idle nice and loud, He jumped from 0:06:27.560 --> 0:06:30.240 the driver's seat, pulled the gun from his waistband and 0:06:30.360 --> 0:06:32.560 made a bee line for the front door of the house. 0:06:33.040 --> 0:06:36.719 He knocked. Red Hat answered, Eddie wasted no time. He 0:06:36.800 --> 0:06:39.320 put his gun to that stupid fucking lid sitting on 0:06:39.360 --> 0:06:42.240 top of Fred Durst's stupid fucking face, and said, Hey, 0:06:42.760 --> 0:06:50.200 where's my shit? Motherfucker. Twenty four hours earlier, the vibe 0:06:50.360 --> 0:06:54.440 was way different. Eddie was hanging out with Fred, the 0:06:54.520 --> 0:06:56.960 man he'd only just met, and he was hanging out 0:06:57.000 --> 0:07:00.920 with him inside of Fred's house, jamming with Limpiscus minus 0:07:00.920 --> 0:07:04.840 guitarist Wes Borland, who had recently left the group. Now, 0:07:04.880 --> 0:07:06.760 if you know anything about Eddie van Halen and about 0:07:06.800 --> 0:07:10.559 limp Biscuit, you're probably thinking what the fuck? And yeah, 0:07:10.880 --> 0:07:13.840 even Fred Durst himself, when a mutual friend suggested he 0:07:14.040 --> 0:07:17.640 audition Eddie for lymp Biscuit's new lead guitarist, said, and 0:07:17.720 --> 0:07:21.040 I quote that would be hilarious. The greatest guitar player 0:07:21.080 --> 0:07:24.040 ever jams with the worst band ever. Again, that's a 0:07:24.080 --> 0:07:28.920 Fred Durst quote, But also consider this, Eddie van Halen 0:07:28.960 --> 0:07:32.360 hadn't actually bought a new record since Peter Gabriel's album 0:07:32.560 --> 0:07:36.560 so which came out in nineteen eighty six. That's fifteen 0:07:36.680 --> 0:07:39.720 years before this scene that I'm describing to you took place. 0:07:40.280 --> 0:07:43.200 So it's entirely plausible that eddievan Halen had no idea 0:07:43.240 --> 0:07:45.120 what he was getting into when he agreed to jam 0:07:45.160 --> 0:07:48.880 with lymp Biscuit. Maybe in this vulnerable moment of searching 0:07:48.920 --> 0:07:52.800 for something new, maybe Eddie was just open to an opportunity, 0:07:52.840 --> 0:07:55.480 any opportunity, just like he and Van Halen were once 0:07:55.560 --> 0:07:59.000 upon a time open to crazy opportunities as well, like 0:07:59.080 --> 0:08:02.360 jamming with Joe Caer or Ozzy Osbourne and even Daryl 0:08:02.400 --> 0:08:05.360 Hall to fill their lead singer's empty shoes. No shit, 0:08:05.680 --> 0:08:08.960 look it up, but the insane pipe dream of Limp 0:08:09.000 --> 0:08:12.200 Biscuit with Eddie Van Halen on lead guitar was not 0:08:12.320 --> 0:08:14.600 meant to be. Eddie knew it as soon as he 0:08:14.600 --> 0:08:17.120 walked inside was hit by a cloud of marijuana smoke. 0:08:17.720 --> 0:08:19.920 Eddie didn't do weed, but when it came to Eddie's 0:08:19.920 --> 0:08:23.720 stimulant and depressant of choice, that'd be cocaine and alcohol, 0:08:24.080 --> 0:08:26.080 and there were tools to help him work, he thought, 0:08:26.160 --> 0:08:28.720 not something he used to unwind and party with the guys, 0:08:29.440 --> 0:08:33.320 Eddie told Fred thanks, but no thanks. He bounced fast, 0:08:33.600 --> 0:08:35.320 said he'd be back for his guitar and gear the 0:08:35.320 --> 0:08:38.920 next day. That next morning, he called Fred to schedule 0:08:38.920 --> 0:08:41.000 a time to go pick up his stuff, but Fred 0:08:41.040 --> 0:08:44.800 never answered, and Fred never called him back. Fred Durst 0:08:45.040 --> 0:08:49.360 gave Eddie van Halen the brush off, And now Fred 0:08:49.440 --> 0:08:53.040 Durst was regretting that decision, that in action, that lack 0:08:53.080 --> 0:08:56.360 of respect, or so Eddie van Halen would like to think, 0:08:57.080 --> 0:08:59.560 the greatest guitar player ever was standing on the lawn 0:08:59.600 --> 0:09:02.360 of the front man the worst band ever, still aiming 0:09:02.400 --> 0:09:05.280 his gun at that stupid fucking hat while some clowns 0:09:05.320 --> 0:09:08.120 on Fred's payroll load a gear into Eddie's assault vehicle. 0:09:08.960 --> 0:09:10.800 And this was such a bad idea that Eddie thought 0:09:10.840 --> 0:09:13.920 to himself there was only one musician he was compatible with, 0:09:14.080 --> 0:09:17.000 and I mean compatible in the eternal mind mild kind 0:09:17.040 --> 0:09:20.200 of way, and that was his big brother, Alex van 0:09:20.240 --> 0:09:25.040 Halen's drummer. No other musical relationship ever lasted, not with 0:09:25.160 --> 0:09:28.120 David Lee Roth, van Halden's original lead singer, who, depending 0:09:28.120 --> 0:09:30.199 on who you ask, either quit or was fired from 0:09:30.200 --> 0:09:32.439 the band back in nineteen eighty five, and definitely not 0:09:32.559 --> 0:09:35.160 with Gary Charon, the guy from Extreme whose tenure as 0:09:35.240 --> 0:09:37.240 Van Halen's front man at the end of the nineties 0:09:37.320 --> 0:09:39.320 was as short as one of the cigarettes that burned 0:09:39.320 --> 0:09:41.880 down to the filter in the headstock of Eddie's guitar. 0:09:42.520 --> 0:09:44.760 Then there was the one they called the red Rocker, 0:09:45.200 --> 0:09:48.240 Sammy Hagar. He eventually went the way of Diamond Dave 0:09:48.720 --> 0:09:51.200 out on the skids after his initial winning dynamic with 0:09:51.240 --> 0:09:54.360 the Van Halen Brothers turned sour, but not before he 0:09:54.360 --> 0:09:57.160 helped take the band higher and higher. Straight up, they 0:09:57.200 --> 0:10:00.559 climbed higher than they had ever gone before or since. 0:10:01.960 --> 0:10:04.840 Eddie wanted to go there again, not for the money 0:10:04.920 --> 0:10:08.199 or the fame he had all that. He wanted relevance. 0:10:08.640 --> 0:10:12.120 He wanted to matter again. What had it been six 0:10:12.240 --> 0:10:15.720 years since Sammy left? Eddie wondered, if it was all 0:10:15.760 --> 0:10:18.640 just water out of the bridge, if you could go 0:10:18.720 --> 0:10:22.080 home again. And as he watched Fred Durrist's muscle load 0:10:22.160 --> 0:10:25.840 his gear into his illegal assault vehicle, Eddie van Halen 0:10:25.880 --> 0:10:30.400 decided to do two things pronto. Number one, get the 0:10:30.440 --> 0:10:32.719 fuck out of Beverly Hills before he was handcuffed and 0:10:32.760 --> 0:10:35.600 tossed into the back of a police cruiser. And number two, 0:10:36.160 --> 0:11:04.560 wring up his old friend Sammy Hagar. Sixteen years earlier, 0:11:04.800 --> 0:11:07.880 in nineteen eighty five, Eddie van Halen was once again 0:11:07.960 --> 0:11:10.920 behind the driver's seat. This time it wasn't an old 0:11:10.960 --> 0:11:16.720 military vehicle, but instead his equally attention grabbing Lamborghini. He 0:11:16.800 --> 0:11:19.720 pumped the clutch with his left foot down, shifted, and 0:11:19.760 --> 0:11:22.280 then let the Lambeau hug the steep curve of ahead. 0:11:23.040 --> 0:11:26.760 Then the road straightened out. This was the part Eddie loved, 0:11:28.160 --> 0:11:33.079 clutch stick gas. The Lambo swooned like one of those 0:11:33.120 --> 0:11:36.319 busty co eds riding a rail at the show, leaving 0:11:36.360 --> 0:11:38.880 Malibu in the dust and setting its sights in the valley. 0:11:38.920 --> 0:11:42.040 Over the hill and the next lane over, a jet 0:11:42.040 --> 0:11:46.640 black Ferrari suddenly appeared. Keeping pace. Eddie looked over at 0:11:46.679 --> 0:11:49.720 Sammy Hagar, sitting behind the wheel of his five twelve BB. 0:11:51.120 --> 0:11:53.920 Eddie gave Sammy that world famous ear to ear granted, 0:11:54.360 --> 0:11:56.680 the one typically reserved when he had a guitar in 0:11:56.720 --> 0:12:00.200 his hands, and was blowing even his own mind. As 0:12:00.280 --> 0:12:02.439 fast behind the wheel as he was on a fretboard, 0:12:02.760 --> 0:12:06.080 and almost as happy. The two cars shot up the 0:12:06.080 --> 0:12:09.640 open road together eighty ninety one hundred miles an hour, 0:12:10.520 --> 0:12:13.160 Eddie clearly with a new lease on life, and Sammy 0:12:13.280 --> 0:12:15.480 proving that the boast he'd made in his most recent 0:12:15.520 --> 0:12:18.600 hit single was one hundred percent authentic. He could not 0:12:19.040 --> 0:12:23.880 drive fifty five. Only now Sammy Hagar was no longer 0:12:23.920 --> 0:12:26.959 going the road alone as a solo artist, but as 0:12:26.960 --> 0:12:29.160 the new lead singer for one of the biggest bands 0:12:29.200 --> 0:12:32.880 in the world, Van Halen. Sammy could hardly believe it. 0:12:33.360 --> 0:12:36.439 For Eddie and Alex van Halen, it wasn't just believable 0:12:36.920 --> 0:12:39.760 after all the circus cheeseball bullshit that they'd endured with 0:12:39.760 --> 0:12:43.600 their original singer, David Lee Roth. It was absolutely necessary 0:12:44.200 --> 0:12:46.760 to quote Alex. At the time, we had a toothache 0:12:46.800 --> 0:12:49.400 for about eleven years, went to the dentist and had 0:12:49.400 --> 0:12:51.920 it extracted. Now we have a crown with a gold 0:12:51.960 --> 0:12:55.240 cap on him, and a gold cap crown is as 0:12:55.280 --> 0:12:59.080 a gold cap crown does so. Sammy Hagar bought a 0:12:59.120 --> 0:13:02.679 place near Eddie's second house in Malibu, and each afternoon 0:13:02.720 --> 0:13:05.000 the two would raise their fancy cars to Eddie's other 0:13:05.080 --> 0:13:09.439 house in studio in the San Fernando Valley, specifically Studio City. 0:13:10.000 --> 0:13:13.120 Work on the band's seventh studio album there first with 0:13:13.240 --> 0:13:15.600 Sammy on the mic, and then race each other home 0:13:15.679 --> 0:13:18.880 after dark and after Eddie was good and shift faced. 0:13:19.160 --> 0:13:22.720 Sometimes Sammy would take his Ejag or his Cobra. Today 0:13:22.760 --> 0:13:25.640 it was a sleek midnight machine, as sleek as the 0:13:25.720 --> 0:13:28.480 music he was now making with Eddie Alex and Michael Anthony, 0:13:28.760 --> 0:13:33.600 van Halen's long suffering bass player. And holy shit was 0:13:33.640 --> 0:13:39.000 the music sleek and huge sounding. Van Halen two point 0:13:39.080 --> 0:13:41.640 zero sounded just like that metallic sphere looked on the 0:13:41.679 --> 0:13:43.920 cover of their album fifty one to fifty, which is 0:13:43.920 --> 0:13:49.839 to say, polished, glossy, and yes heavy. Fifty one to 0:13:49.920 --> 0:13:53.200 fifty named after Eddie's home studio, which itself was named 0:13:53.240 --> 0:13:55.760 after a section of the California Penal Code that allowed 0:13:55.760 --> 0:13:58.400 for the detention of an adult suffering a mental health crisis. 0:13:58.800 --> 0:14:02.160 Fifty one to fifty was not by Van Halen's longtime 0:14:02.200 --> 0:14:05.920 collaborator Ted Templeton, but by foreigners Mick Jones, who you 0:14:05.920 --> 0:14:08.559 should know is also the stepfather of Mark Ronson, But 0:14:08.600 --> 0:14:10.640 that's beside the point. But back to the point. Mick 0:14:10.720 --> 0:14:13.360 Jones gave that record that Van Halen was making a 0:14:13.520 --> 0:14:17.199 modern sheen. When it hit shelves on March twenty fourth, 0:14:17.320 --> 0:14:21.160 nineteen eighty six, supported by Monster singles like why Can't 0:14:21.200 --> 0:14:25.840 This Be Love and Dreams fifty one fifty went gangbusters 0:14:26.400 --> 0:14:31.040 in the mid eighties, Van Halen mattered. The og metal Heads, 0:14:31.080 --> 0:14:34.640 on the other hand, begged to disagree. Van Halen could 0:14:34.640 --> 0:14:37.440 never be Van Halen without their beloved David le Ros 0:14:38.040 --> 0:14:40.480 call it a vocal minority because all that bitching and 0:14:40.520 --> 0:14:42.880 morning was taking place as fifty one to fifty race 0:14:42.960 --> 0:14:45.480 straight to the top and look, man, I don't care 0:14:45.560 --> 0:14:47.800 who you are, you have got to give it up 0:14:47.920 --> 0:14:50.960 for Sammy Hagar. Maybe you like the Day Years better. 0:14:51.000 --> 0:14:53.360 Hell I like the Day Years better. But maybe you 0:14:53.480 --> 0:14:55.760 go even further. Maybe you think they were more pure, 0:14:55.880 --> 0:14:59.080 or they had less power ballads and fewer keyboards, or 0:14:59.080 --> 0:15:01.760 maybe you condescend. He referred to Sammy's tenure as Van 0:15:01.840 --> 0:15:05.480 Hagar or whatever. But it doesn't matter. Sooner or later 0:15:05.640 --> 0:15:08.080 you're gonna come around to the Sammy Hagar version of 0:15:08.160 --> 0:15:11.800 Van Halen. Okay, it also doesn't matter that Sammy Hagar 0:15:11.920 --> 0:15:13.960 came from a press shirt kind of world, and Eddie 0:15:14.000 --> 0:15:16.480 and Alex were the equivalent of a beer soaked stale 0:15:16.600 --> 0:15:20.160 beer smelling dorm room. You know best at both worlds. 0:15:20.360 --> 0:15:23.400 But here are the facts. Van Halen with Sammy Hagar 0:15:23.720 --> 0:15:26.400 went to number one on the Billboard album chart, and 0:15:26.480 --> 0:15:29.560 not just in nineteen eighty six, but four times in 0:15:29.600 --> 0:15:32.160 a row over the next nine years, which is a 0:15:32.200 --> 0:15:34.720 feat that the band was never able to pull off 0:15:34.720 --> 0:15:37.960 with David Lee Ross. I love David Lee Ross, now 0:15:38.000 --> 0:15:40.680 this is no doubt. Dave was flashy as shit. He 0:15:40.720 --> 0:15:43.600 got your attention with those midair splits off the drum riser. 0:15:43.680 --> 0:15:46.280 He was goofy and schlocky showbiz to his core in 0:15:46.320 --> 0:15:48.400 the best kind of way, and he delighted in being 0:15:48.480 --> 0:15:51.920 Van Halen's mouthpiece. But David Lee Roth ran that mouth 0:15:52.000 --> 0:15:54.400 like a cocky sixteen year old, just as Eddie here 0:15:54.440 --> 0:15:56.920 was running his lambeau. Not that Eddie wasn't still a 0:15:56.960 --> 0:15:59.760 sixteen year old himself, because in many ways he most 0:15:59.760 --> 0:16:03.640 serve was. But unlike Dave, Eddie was a musical genius, 0:16:03.960 --> 0:16:07.760 faithfully serving his master like a samurai old. The thing 0:16:07.960 --> 0:16:13.120 was for Eddie, his master was his music, and music, 0:16:13.320 --> 0:16:18.360 to quote Eddie van Halen overpowers bullshit. That was the 0:16:18.400 --> 0:16:20.720 answer Eddie gave after he was asked if He felt 0:16:20.840 --> 0:16:23.520 vindicated when fifty one point fifty went to number one 0:16:23.640 --> 0:16:27.560 following the messy split with David Lee Roth, Eddie was 0:16:27.600 --> 0:16:30.400 in a great place. In Eddie's eyes. Sammy was not 0:16:30.440 --> 0:16:33.760 a peacock like Dave, but a true musician, and since 0:16:33.800 --> 0:16:36.800 Sammy played guitar, Eddie could stretch out in concert and 0:16:36.800 --> 0:16:40.840 play keyboards, which Dave always gave him shit about. But 0:16:40.960 --> 0:16:44.680 without Dave, the music continued to reward Eddie van Halen 0:16:44.760 --> 0:16:47.880 it's most humble servant. He didn't even need a samurai 0:16:47.920 --> 0:16:49.400 bu in his hair at this point to be the 0:16:49.440 --> 0:16:53.520 noble warrior that he was. But the music wasn't the 0:16:53.520 --> 0:16:59.000 only thing holding Van Halen the band together. Despite outward appearances, 0:16:59.400 --> 0:17:03.040 this was still fragile unit of four men. Every day 0:17:03.160 --> 0:17:07.000 something threatened to destroy it. All the boozing, the drugging, 0:17:07.200 --> 0:17:09.560 the non stop fucking it was taking place in puff 0:17:09.640 --> 0:17:13.480 tents beneath the stage. Yes, all four guys had their 0:17:13.560 --> 0:17:17.639 own tent in which they indulged in their wildest sexual fantasies, 0:17:17.920 --> 0:17:20.760 and those tents were set up beneath the stage at 0:17:20.800 --> 0:17:23.840 their concerts. Don't ask me how it just happened, so 0:17:23.880 --> 0:17:26.760 that they could act upon those sexual fantasies while the 0:17:26.800 --> 0:17:27.480 show went on. 0:17:28.280 --> 0:17:31.400 Eddie and l both addicts, were just as prodigious. 0:17:30.920 --> 0:17:33.440 When it came to hand to hand sibling combat as 0:17:33.440 --> 0:17:37.600 it did to musical telepathy. Sammy meanwhile, had girl problems. 0:17:37.920 --> 0:17:39.800 All is sleeping around on the slide got him at 0:17:39.880 --> 0:17:42.240 least one extortion attempt from a former playboy buddy he 0:17:42.280 --> 0:17:45.680 said she was carrying his child, all while his wife's 0:17:45.720 --> 0:17:48.600 panic attacks caused it to nearly jump from a plane. 0:17:49.560 --> 0:17:53.119 Bassist Michael Anthony meanwhile was once again getting the shaft 0:17:53.119 --> 0:17:55.720 when it came to money, watching his share the music 0:17:55.760 --> 0:18:00.680 publishing shrank down to a measly ten percent. These tensions 0:18:00.680 --> 0:18:03.320 were enough to break up any band, but add to 0:18:03.359 --> 0:18:06.240 it Eddie and Alyx's increasing belief that Sammy wasn't working 0:18:06.280 --> 0:18:08.840 as hard as they were, a suspicion that they'd previously 0:18:08.880 --> 0:18:11.960 experienced with Dave. And it's crazy that things didn't fall 0:18:11.960 --> 0:18:15.399 apart sooner than they did. And the reason things didn't 0:18:15.400 --> 0:18:19.159 all fall apart wasn't because of the music. It was 0:18:19.240 --> 0:18:25.679 because of Ed Leffler. Ed Leffler was more than just 0:18:25.720 --> 0:18:28.479 a rock and roll manager. He was a father who 0:18:28.560 --> 0:18:31.479 wanted to make all of his children happy when he 0:18:31.520 --> 0:18:34.560 was brought on board along with Sammy. Leffler's first order 0:18:34.560 --> 0:18:36.760 of business was to make sure that relations between the 0:18:36.840 --> 0:18:39.040 van Halen brothers and Sammy didn't go the way they 0:18:39.040 --> 0:18:44.000 went with Dave. Ed Leffler ran interference. Ed Leffler maintained 0:18:44.000 --> 0:18:47.159 a proper balance of power. Ed Leffler would take a 0:18:47.160 --> 0:18:50.359 bullet for his clients. In fact, he took a fist 0:18:50.400 --> 0:18:53.720 to the face over and over and over, trapped inside 0:18:53.760 --> 0:18:56.320 an elevator at a show in Dallas, where an unknown 0:18:56.320 --> 0:18:58.600 assailant beat the living piss out of him and put 0:18:58.640 --> 0:19:02.480 him in a hospital. The guys never had to worry 0:19:02.480 --> 0:19:05.399 about ed Leffler's loyalty, but they did worry about his health. 0:19:06.480 --> 0:19:09.359 First there was that assault in Dallas, and soon after 0:19:10.000 --> 0:19:14.320 there was his cancer diagnosis, and it looked bad. As 0:19:14.359 --> 0:19:16.879 bad as the scene, Eddie was now witnessing outside the 0:19:16.920 --> 0:19:20.240 window of his studio City House every night, some crepe 0:19:20.280 --> 0:19:24.120 parking a van across the street, watching him, watching his wife, Valerie, 0:19:24.160 --> 0:19:27.439 and their newborn son, Wolfgang. No one ever got out 0:19:27.480 --> 0:19:30.320 of the van, It just sat there. And the cops 0:19:30.320 --> 0:19:33.080 could only do so much, and Eddie called them and 0:19:33.119 --> 0:19:35.600 they came and made the van move, and the van left, 0:19:35.880 --> 0:19:38.760 and then the van came back. Eddie wasn't about to 0:19:38.800 --> 0:19:41.239 sit idly by like an idiot, only to find out 0:19:41.280 --> 0:19:44.960 the hard way that the person inside was a demented psycho. 0:19:45.280 --> 0:19:46.760 So just as it was. 0:19:46.720 --> 0:19:49.560 Once his job to protect his musical innovations, to protect 0:19:49.600 --> 0:19:52.840 his brand and his legacy from companies making money illegally 0:19:52.880 --> 0:19:55.480 off of those innovations, it was now his job to 0:19:55.520 --> 0:19:58.960 protect his young family, which is how in the early 0:19:59.080 --> 0:20:02.679 nineteen nineties, an anxious Eddie van Halen became the owner 0:20:03.040 --> 0:20:07.840 of a twenty five caliber Bretta. 0:20:08.840 --> 0:20:10.600 We'll be right back after this. 0:20:10.760 --> 0:20:22.240 We're We're, We're. Dude, Eddie van Halen is a fucking legend. 0:20:25.440 --> 0:20:28.040 Did you see him play his guitar in that new 0:20:28.119 --> 0:20:33.359 video with a power drill? And dude, dude, get this 0:20:34.359 --> 0:20:35.920 van Halen's new record. 0:20:37.520 --> 0:20:41.399 For a lawful carnal Knowledge, Dude, check it out for 0:20:42.480 --> 0:20:48.480 unlawful carnal knowledge. F Uck fuck they named their new 0:20:48.520 --> 0:20:49.879 record fuck. 0:20:53.800 --> 0:20:56.480 If you were high in high school in nineteen ninety one, 0:20:56.920 --> 0:20:59.239 you'll remember this sort of thing being said pretty much 0:20:59.359 --> 0:21:01.280 verbatim by a kid in a jean jacket with a 0:21:01.280 --> 0:21:03.399 peach fuzz Stash leaning up against the hood of his 0:21:03.400 --> 0:21:06.080 car out in the parking lot next to yours, just 0:21:06.160 --> 0:21:08.760 moments before he dipped into the pocket of his flannel 0:21:08.800 --> 0:21:11.080 shirt to pull out a camel light to rip after 0:21:11.240 --> 0:21:14.159 just toking that joint. Maybe that kid was you, and 0:21:14.400 --> 0:21:17.200 if so, I salute you. Who cared about led Zeppelin's 0:21:17.240 --> 0:21:20.359 Jimmy Page playing his guitar with a violinbo anymore? Old 0:21:20.440 --> 0:21:23.439 fucking news Man Jimmy's little trick couldn't hold a candle 0:21:23.440 --> 0:21:25.840 to Eddie's makita as it revved up the strings of 0:21:25.880 --> 0:21:28.399 his brand new Ernie Ball music Man guitar in the 0:21:28.480 --> 0:21:32.000 video for Poundcake, the lead single from Van Halen's ninth 0:21:32.040 --> 0:21:38.120 studio album, third with Sammy, titled for Unlawful Kernel Knowledge, which, yes, 0:21:38.680 --> 0:21:42.840 was named that way on purpose for the juvenile acronym, 0:21:43.119 --> 0:21:46.720 but calling the album for Unlawful Kernel Knowledge saved it 0:21:46.720 --> 0:21:50.000 from being slapped with the dreaded parental advisory sticker that 0:21:50.160 --> 0:21:53.000 was cropping up on other notable albums released in nineteen 0:21:53.080 --> 0:21:56.240 ninety one, such as The Red Hot Chili, Pepper's Blood Sugar, Sex, 0:21:56.280 --> 0:21:59.400 Magic Weens, The Pod, and The Guns N' Roses. Double 0:21:59.440 --> 0:22:02.920 album Music Illusion one and two. And though Van Halen's 0:22:02.960 --> 0:22:05.000 new album was hailed by many as a return to 0:22:05.080 --> 0:22:09.320 form a capital R rock record, such praise by Van 0:22:09.359 --> 0:22:11.880 Halen's fan base couldn't save them from a two out 0:22:11.880 --> 0:22:16.040 of five stars review in Rolling Stone magazine. Only months later. 0:22:16.080 --> 0:22:19.520 That same publication would give Nirvana's never Mind only one 0:22:19.560 --> 0:22:22.520 star higher than that. So what the fuck did Rolling 0:22:22.600 --> 0:22:27.040 Stone know? Anyways? When Pepsi came calling, they use Right Now, 0:22:27.200 --> 0:22:31.000 the album's socially conscious third single for a commercial marketing 0:22:31.040 --> 0:22:34.640 their brand new crystal Pepsi Eddie. The band and their 0:22:34.680 --> 0:22:37.359 manager Ed Leffler were making the kind of money Rolling 0:22:37.400 --> 0:22:41.400 Stone could only dream of. Ed Lefler, for one, used 0:22:41.400 --> 0:22:43.600 his steady hand to guide Van Halen through their most 0:22:43.640 --> 0:22:47.679 commercially viable years. He was a fixer at heart. The 0:22:47.720 --> 0:22:50.240 only thing it seemed he couldn't fix was the cancer 0:22:50.280 --> 0:22:54.240 and his thyroid, and by nineteen ninety three, Ed Leffler 0:22:54.280 --> 0:22:57.520 needed more than crystal pepsi money. He needed a miracle, 0:22:58.200 --> 0:23:01.439 So Sammy Hagar went looking for one. Sammy knew that 0:23:01.440 --> 0:23:03.399 whether or not he ended up just another blip on 0:23:03.440 --> 0:23:05.720 the Van Halen radar, was in large park due to 0:23:05.800 --> 0:23:10.280 Leffler's influence. Sammy went above and beyond, and then he 0:23:10.320 --> 0:23:14.520 went under the table that is below the border, all 0:23:14.520 --> 0:23:17.720 the way to Mexico, where samples of ed Leffler's urine 0:23:17.760 --> 0:23:22.200 were sent. Neurotransmitters were extracted from that urine and then 0:23:22.240 --> 0:23:25.400 sent back in tiny vials. The idea was that you'd 0:23:25.400 --> 0:23:28.240 shoot up those tiny miracle vials directly into your muscles 0:23:28.680 --> 0:23:32.720 and the healing would begin, which, according to Sammy, is 0:23:32.760 --> 0:23:37.360 what Leffler did. Sammy even did it along with him whackado. 0:23:38.280 --> 0:23:42.719 I don't know, but desperate times, you know. Ultimately, however, 0:23:43.080 --> 0:23:47.000 neurotransmitter extracted urine was no match for the Big Sea. 0:23:48.200 --> 0:23:52.680 In the fall of ninety three, ed Leffler was dead. Suddenly, 0:23:52.720 --> 0:23:55.880 the layer of protection that Leffler once provided, both internally 0:23:55.920 --> 0:23:59.080 amongst band members and from the external forces beating down 0:23:59.080 --> 0:24:04.359 on them was gone. The wheels slowly began to come off, 0:24:04.960 --> 0:24:07.760 but not before Eddie van Halen's hair came off first. 0:24:08.920 --> 0:24:12.000