The tour for 1984 was the
pinnacle for Van Halen. GRothing over $15 million in ticket sales alone. It's also where the final
cracks would start to show and lead soon after to a complete breakdown. When concerts first started
becoming mainstream in the sixties and seventies, their primary way to make
money was only through ticket sales. By the early eighties, Van Halen's manager Noel Monk
convinced the boys to all chip in 50 grand and start a
merchandising company. Most bands at the time would
farm out merchandise to companies like famed concert promoter, Bill Graham's Winterland.
Within a couple of years, this move paid off huge
dividends. By 1982, Van Halen was making $250,000
a night on merchandise alone, and half of that was pure profit. Put your hands together. In 1983, the new revenue stream for
the concert business was the highly lucrative and low
maintenance world of sponsorships. It's like people only do
things because they get paid. Monk was able to score a
sponsorship deal with Sparkomatic, a company specializing in
high-end audio products primarily for the automotive industry. The band would receive $1.2
million upfront plus additional revenue for advertising. In return, they would put the company's
name on some of their licensed merchandise in tiny letters, which seemed like easy money to Monk. But when Monk presented the
deal to Roth over the phone, Roth was not impressed and said
he had never heard of Sparkomatic. Roth supposedly put
Monk on hold and informed the rest of the band and they
said no. According to Monk, Roth didn't present it to the
band or it was the shortest band meeting ever. Roth
returned and said, you. Want to get us a sponsorship? Fine, make it Marlborough or
Levi's, otherwise it's fuck you. Monk dumbfounded went back to
Sparkomatic and told him the deal was off. A couple of weeks later, Alex asked Monk if he could
ask if he could still get the deal, but Monk couldn't. By then Sparkomatic had given
the sponsorship to Supertramp. It should be noted that the
timelines in Monk's book do not add up. He states this
all happened in late 1983, but by then Sparkomatic had
already sponsored Supertramp's 1983 tour and in 1984, they
sponsored the Yes tour. So my best guess is Monk
Confused Supertramp for a Yes. Rather than getting paid for
allowing Sparkomatic to put its logo on some of its merchandise, Van Halen ended up negotiating
with another company to allow them to use a portion of its logo. That business was Western
Exterminator Company whose logo included a character
known as the Little Man, a dapper gent and a black coat
and top hat wielding a huge wooden mallet. Roth loved this image and wanted
to use the Little man as a mascot for the 1984 tour. Monk made the deal and the
little man was plastered everywhere. Roth would later tell his side
of the story to the press. When asked about the
sponsorship deal, he said. We went after a sponsor and
tried to get them to put up some money and then we could be in
their advertisements and help sell their stereos and their
toothpaste or whatever, and nobody wanted us. I
guess our image was wrong, so we decided that we'll be
the first band to sponsor a company. So we took the logo from the
Western Exterminator Company in Los Angeles. The 1984 touring stage was one
of the biggest ever taken on tour 175 tons of equipment
including 1.5 million watts of light loaded onto nine trucks
and five buses with a crew of 75 members. Van Halen would give custom
Van Halen rings to all the crew members at the end of the tour. Metropolis designed by
Pete Angelus and Roth was a collection of metal beams,
grids, spotlight, speakers, and backdrops. During the
final encore each night, a massive light setup spelled out 1984. Although their PA was one
of the loudest at the time, many speakers on the
stage were just props. The 84 stage was the same
as the 81 Fair Warning Tour, except for more lighting, a more expansive stage with
platforms and a different backdrop. The three backdrops
for 1984 with the sky clouds, with the rigging the hammer
guy and the same pattern as the stage floor. The band unveiled several new
aspects to their live show on this tour. Eddie played keyboards for
"I'll Wait" and "Jump" with the latter, featuring a guitar
solo entirely on keys. David Lee Roth took his turn
in the solo spotlight bringing out his inner Elvis Presley
by doing a kung fu style sword dance. The dance known as Dave's Tai
Chi solo was developed by Roth and Kung Fu Master Pauly
Zinc and performed against a rousing synthesizer backdrop from Edward. That same instrumental piece
also appeared in the 1984 movie scored by Edward The Wildlife. Edward brought a new aspect to
his unaccompanied guitar solo spotlight. By adding his
newly patented guitar gear, he outfitted his guitar with
a clear plexiglass tray table that allowed him to lay the
guitar flat perpendicular to his body. He would then hammer out chords
with both hands on the neck. The technique began taking shape in 1982, but only surfaced on this tour. He patented the tray table
thinking that slide players might get used out of it, though
it has never been marketed. For the first part of the tour, Van Halen needed what they
called a t-shirt band, aka a band that nobody wants
to watch and they go buy a Van Halen t-shirt when they are playing. Nowadays, you could just go to vanhalen
store.com and buy official shirts, but back then, concerts were the main
place to pick up new gear. Autograph got the nod to fill
the opening act slot without having a record deal or an album out. Autograph drummer Keni Richards
was a jogging partner of Roth's, so Roth pushed for
Autograph to open for Van Halen, and after hearing their band tape, Eddie and the boys agreed to
let the band open up many dates on the 1984 tour. It was reported on the
first night of the tour that Autograph was unannounced and
unadvertised horrified when the light dimed at 8:30
and a bunch of guys who are not Van Halen came out on stage,
turn it up, fans rejected them, Autograph endured a never
ending barrage of garbage and insults tossed at it. Roundly booed. At the end of each tune, the group left the stage after six songs. The second half of the tour
was opened by the forgettable band The Velcros. The North American Arena tour
consisted of 101 dates between January and July, 1984, including two and sometimes
three night stands in several cities. Van Halen did not need a lot
of promotions to put butts in seats, but one idea they had
was incredibly successful. Getting ready for the MTV
lost weekend with Van Halen, do you have the guts
to enter this contest? Destination unknown. You'll have when MTV announced
its lost weekend with Van Halen contest in early 1984, the network received over 1
million postcard entries for a chance to spend three days
with a band during their 1984 tour. The promotions titled was
inspired by the 1945 Billy Wilder film, the Lost Weekend about an
alcoholic on a four day binge. What Van Halen got in return
would be $2 million worth of free advertising for their
tour and album MTV's Martha Quinn announced that winner, Kurt Jeffries and his best
friend would be flying to Detroit where they barely survived the
April 5th and sixth shows at the Cobo Hall Arena. MTV did not know that the
winner Jeffries had a metal plate in his head from a tragic
accident a few months before one misstep and Jefferies could
have quickly gone back into a coma with a good chance of dying. That fact did not stop
Jefferies from snorting Coke, drinking Jack, and partying with a band. Roth even got him laid by
a stripper named Tammy. By the last night,
Jefferies's best friend, his plus one for the trip was
worried about Jefferies and came clean to the MTV
folks about his accident. MTV worried about the legal
implications if their winner died under their watch, quickly locked him up in his
hotel room until it was time to go home. Jefferies would later say, how many people can say they
smoked a fatty with David Lee Roth? Man, it was a high point
once in a lifetime experience Watching the band via MTV
made it look like they were the best of friends and at a
party that would never end. But as everyone knows
today, that wasn't the case. Although the 1984 tour would
be one of the highest gRothing tours, it would be the band's last
their manager from 1979 to 1985. Noel Monk details many indicators
in his book that the band was falling apart during the
1984 tour in more ways than one. He would also publicize how
three of the four band members would unfairly treat the
nicest guy in the group. According to Monk, here are some of the cracks
in the band's future looking glass. By now, Alex was a full-blown alcoholic
having to drink pretty much anytime he was awake to
starve off alcohol withdrawal syndrome. This led to bad decision making, like telling monk's wife he
wanted to have sex with her while sitting right behind
Monk on an airplane. According to Monk, Eddie had a personal coke
dealer that would fly around and meet him on tour. It should be noted that there
are others that were close to the band that say none
of this was true. Also, according to Monk, Roth
would also partake in coke, weed and alcohol, but the worst thing
about Roth on that tour, according to Monk, was his ego
and his dictatorial preening. Roth would order everyone around
during soundcheck and then point out everyone's little
mistake at the post concert meal backstage after the show, Dave held court in the Van
Halen hospitality area as if he was still performing. He set up his PA system and
indulged as only he could do. Meanwhile, the rest of the
band were like wallflowers, anxious to leave the crime
scene and each band member had their own limousine standing
by to whisk them back to their hotel. Communications between the four by this point,
were virtually non-existent. Journalist Malcolm Dome confirmed Roth
Mina's firsthand backstage after the Vancouver show. He said
that night in Vancouver, Dave humiliated the rest of
the band either unwittingly or deliberately. Personally,
I think the latter. It was as if he was on a solo tour. If there was a moment for me
when it became obvious that Van Halen in its original state
was over, then this was it. Dave Roth was playing for high stakes. The rest of the band were
simply biting their time before finally ridding themselves. The man who was becoming their
nemesis monk would call Van Halen, the d e a band drugs, ego, alcohol. Besides the rampant
drug and alcohol abuse, all three would go to Monk and
and moan about the other band members one night. They all surprisingly unified
to team up against by all accounts, the nicest, most
humble person in the band, Michael Anthony. It was a typical post concert
meal with Roth telling everyone what they did
wrong. When Ed spoke up, not to put Roth in his place, but to call out not only
Anthony's performance but also his role in the band. Michael doesn't contribute as
much as the rest of us Edward observed. Michael doesn't
write music or lyrics. Why does Michael get the
same share as the rest of us? Al jumped in behind Edward
asking the same sorts of questions and offering similar
observations about Michael's value or lack thereof to
the band. For the most part, Michael just sat there and
quietly took it until David stood up from his seat, a plate of food in hand and
walked around the table. He stopped when he reached
Michael's seat and stood over him for a moment, clearing menacingly, but saying nothing without saying a word. David slammed his full
plate of food down on top of Michael's full plate.
The effect was startling. Food went flying everywhere. Glasses tipped over and shattered. Silverware fell to the floor
and all conversations stopped. Anthony said nothing stood up
and walked out of the room. A couple of weeks later, the
trio returns to Monk and says, we want to cut Michael
out of the royalties. They felt since he didn't
write any of the music, he didn't deserve writing
credit or song royalties. I guess they forgot that neither did Alex, and not only moving forward, but also for the latest album 1984, which had already been released.
At the top of their fame and fortune, they decide to renege
on someone that was with them essentially since the beginning. You don't hear anyone talk
bad about Michael Anthony? Not even notorious ball-buster
and Van Halen photographer Neil Zlozower has a bad word
to say about Anthony. Wait a minute. Aren't you the bass player? Why are we even talking to you? Shouldn't. You be like unloading
equipment or something? Don't you need to put some water bottles on the stage? Don't you have to like steam
their costumes? I love how bass players just pretend
they're working as hard on stage as the other band mates. Bass is the foundation of the band. Why don't you make with a
bass guitar and be in-audible? On June 20th, 1984, Michael Anthony on his 30th
birthday signed a new agreement with Van Halen where he was
no longer entitled to any writing credits or royalties
derived from publishing from the 1984 album and moving
forward. Since he already had a contract, why did Anthony
sign this new agreement? Was he afraid that Van Halen
would kick him outta the band in the middle of the tour
if he didn't sign it? Around the same time, Ed was
showing nimble fingered bassist. Billy Sheehan the 1984
concert stage and floated the possibility of him joining Van Halen. The Talas bassist was interested, but there was no official offer. This might've been Ed's backup
plan if he needed to let Anthony go because he didn't
sign the new contract. Why did Roth, Alex and Ed
decide to do this to their band brother at this time amid
the height of their fame? Could it have been a
deep-rooted jealousy of Anthony? Angry with him because he wasn't
as miserable as they were? Anthony was happily married,
could party within reason, was well loved by everyone, and seemed to be the only one
genuinely grateful at this point for being in Van Halen. Or was it a fair and equitable
move and something that had been building for years?
Roth and especially Ed, did write the music and deserved
fair compensation for their role in the band, and it had been 10 years since
they had sat down a Dave's father's mansion and decided
to split the writing credits and therefore the royalty money. If you read Steve Rosen's Tonechaser, you will see that Ed loved
Anthony but was irked by him way before the 1984 tour,
and maybe rightly so, Anthony was well aware of this
issue before being asked to sign the new contract. In May of 1982, Rosen posed the question
of why they didn't have a publishing agreement between him and Roth, like Lennon and McCartney or Page
and Plant Ed responded with Jimmy Page and Plant didn't
have a brother in the band. 'cause I love my brother
and I don't give a fuck. The only person that eats my
ass away is Mike because he makes as much as Al Dave and
I and he does nothing. He does nothing, but I feel sorry for him because
if he was ever out of this band, he would never play again
because he's not good enough. According to Ed, Anthony was
never around to jam with and never brought one idea to the band. Ed said he walks around like
he's Joe Bitching when he does nothing. I'm telling you, you can
ask Al, you can ask Dave, you can ask Valerie, you can
ask Noel, you can ask anybody. He does nothing, but
he's part of the band. Anthony had almost been kicked
out for these reasons before, but he was allowed to stay on
the agreement that he showed up every time the band got together, even if he didn't have anything
to add, Ed went on to say, Mike doesn't deserve anything. He should just be paid a hundred
bucks a week for playing, but you can't do that because
he's part of the band now and he has been since the first
album. What the do you do? Oh God, what am I doing? As far as I could find Michael
Anthony has never spoken publicly about any of this. With the exception of some Roth comments, he almost always takes the high road. When talking about Van Halen, just as I was about to publish this video, I got word from a very reliable
inside source that although Anthony did sign this new
contract, it was never enforced. And in late April, 2023, Sammy Hagar appeared on the
Steve O podcast and implied that Anthony owned an equal fourth
of the publishing saying. We co-wrote everything and
we owned our publishing as a team. The four, even though
Eddie and I wrote everything, Mike and Alex worked one quarter
and you know our publishing company and Sep recording was
owned by all of us equally. So as with a lot of Van Halen
information, who the fuck knows? In the early summer of 84
while Van Halen was touring, Templeman helped put together
a killer group of musicians to help Roth Croon four cover songs. Edgar Winter would run
point man for the musicians, so Roth headed into Power
Station studio and knocked out four songs in under two weeks, or according to Roth in
four days. At the time, Templeman did not believe Roth
had plans to leave Van Halen. He thought it was a good idea too. Templeman said as a label executive, I thought the EP was a good move. It would keep Dave working and creating. We'd sell some records and it
would keep Van Halen via Dave in the public eye for a
few months In early 1985, if I'd gotten even the slightest
sense that he saw this as step one of David Lee Roth
post Van Halen solo career, I wouldn't have done the record. I never ever wanted to do
anything to threaten the future of Van Halen. I can't emphasize
this enough to be fair to Roth. It's not like this was the
first time a member had stepped out the Van Halen family and
recorded with someone else. Eddie had recorded several
things outside the band with one of his contributions helping
one album sell more copies than all the Van Halen albums combined. That album is still today the
biggest selling record of all time. In the late summer of 1982, producer Quincy Jones and Michael
Jackson were determined to make a rock song that would
appeal to all tastes and spent weeks looking for a suitable
guitarist for the song Beat It. They decided they wanted the Dutch Master Eddie Van Halen. Jones got
Ed's number via Templeman, but when Jones called Ed, Ed thought it was a
prank and hung up on him, they got it sorted. Eddie went to the studio and
nailed the song in two takes after doing a bit of rearranging
and in his mind that was it. He thought no one would ever
know it was him on the song and against his manager's
advice, Ed took $0 in fees. One of the main reasons
this song would win over the mainstream is Eddie's R&B
rock riff flavor that opened up rock to radio to Jackson. He deserved to be paid but
did not want it. In late 2022, Beat It studio musician
and friend to Eddie. Steve Lukather revealed that
Eddie actually did the solo at 5150 with 5150 not being
built by the time Beat It was recorded. It's very probable that Lukather
is mistaken about where the solo was recorded. The following year in April of 1983, Queen's Brian May invited
Ed out for a jam session, which turned into the Brian
May and Friends Star Fleet Project. Besides both being soft spoken, incredible musicians, they shared the challenges of
dealing with a flamboyant and headstrong lead singer. You can see the similarities
in the band's dynamics in May's response to a question
posed to him at the time. For Context May was coming off
one of Queen's worst received albums, Hot Space, which was Freddie Mercury
driven and not to the liking of the more rocking May. The reporter
asked a lot of the outside world who do think about Queen, probably think it's Freddy's band. He thinks of a direction
everyone fights a bit, but generally follows meekly
behind true? May's response. It's a continual fight because
we all have very definite ideas of what direction we
want to go in and none of them are the same. It's a continual battle and
it's very democratic and it's very painful. Most of the time when
we're recording it's hell. You have this constant dividing
line between being up and positive about what you're doing. And the other side is that
you may be trying to push what you want down someone else's
throat and maybe the other three will take it for a little while, but in the end they'll
say, no, this is rubbish. We hate it. Stop pushing. And that's what's happened a lot. In the summer of 1983, Ed
wrote three synthesizer songs, one of which included a guitar
solo for his wife's made for TV movie The Seduction of Gina. In early 1984, Eddie started to work on music
for Cameron Crow's pseudo follow-up to Fast Times at
Ridgemont High, The Wildlife. None of the songs were officially
released except for the track Donut City, which was nominated for a 1985
Grammy Award for Best Rock instrumental performance, but
lost to Yes' track Cinema. The same year Van Halen was
nominated with Jump for Best Rock performance by a duo or
group with Vocal Van Halen lost to Prince's Purple Rain, one instrumental from these
sessions got reused for the much bigger film Back to the Future. So in the span of a year and
a half and near the height of Van Halen's fame, Eddie recorded many tracks
that would end up in three movies, jammed with a renowned guitarist
from a legendary band that turned into an album, patented
a piece of guitar gear, helped produce a record
for Frank Zappa's son, built a home studio and recorded
on an album that would end up blocking 1984 from the
number one spot on the charts, and he performed live with
the Jacksons during the 1984 tour. Plus, if Ed had his way, he would also have produced
and played on the Allan Holdsworth album. Even in
the early years of Van Halen, Ed played outside the group. In 1977, Alex and Eddie recorded
with Gene Simmons of KISS, and in 1978, Ed played on the Templeman
produced album by Nicolette Larson, and he also played on Tim
Bogart's from Vanilla Fudge. Don't Leave me this way in 1983. There is nothing wrong with
Ed doing all these side gigs, and I get why Roth thought
it was no big deal for him to record four cover songs on his own, but this would be cited
repeatedly by many people as the last straw for Edward. When David Lee Roth first heard Beat It, he thought someone was
ripping off Ed's licks, but then he found out it was
actually Eddie Roth said. It was at that point I said, maybe I'll do something
on the side as well. Certainly nothing that would
conflict with what we were about as Van Halen, but
I'll keep my eye open. It was some months later
when I was in Mexico with my trusted assistant Ed Anderson. We were sitting under a thatched roof, empty little bar out in Playa
Blanca looking out upon the sea and the Beach Boys were on the stereo. Ed said to me, you should do this song. It was California Girls. This novel idea combined with
Ed already working outside the group and the frustration of
wasting time sitting around for hours at Ed's 5150 studio
hoping he'd wake up so they could work. Let Roth the wonder,
why can't I do a solo album? According to Roth, everyone in the Van Halen camp
knew of his solo pursuits, but accounts from Monk and
Anthony say the first time the band knew about it was while
waiting for a Concord flight to their European Monsters of
Rock show. Michael said, I remember we were going to
Europe and we were sitting at the airport and he played us the tape, the EP of the songs that were
going to be on the album. I thought it was pretty shitty that
he'd always get on Edward's case because he was being
approached to do different things like Beat It and all
kinds of different things. And Roth was, if this
affects me, I want to know. And then all of a sudden
one day he goes, Hey, I got these four songs that
Ted Templeman and I are going off and doing. He places this
tape and it's like, Hmm, yeah, good. I wasn't gonna tell him to his
face that I thought it stunk. Eddie's public response in
1984 was very diplomatic. He said, I think it's something
he's always wanted to do. I think it's great he's actually doing it. But privately Ed thought of
it as a novelty item and felt betrayed. After an extensive US tour, Van Halen decided not to tour
Europe extensively. Instead, after a four year hiatus from Europe, they decided to join the
multi-band Monsters of Rock Tour for five dates, sandwiched
between openers, Motley Crewe, do Ozzy Osbourne and other
bands and headliners, AC/DC. For the most part, the band's five European dates
were standard shows full of Roth swaggering, wise-ass,
spectacular stage, present and energy, And the band played with
enthusiasm as they did nine months earlier at the start of the
tour in Jacksonville, Florida, but backstage at Castle Donnington, Ed was starting to show his
frustrations by lashing out at others. World renowned rock
photographer Ross Halfin relayed his dark encounter with Ed. I remember shooting them on
stage and Edward was smiling at me, so I was smiling back. I went backstage to see them
afterwards and Eddie was hanging out with Neil Sean
from Journey and John Entwistle from the Who. So I took a few photos. Then Eddie said, Hey, what's your problem? I said, what? And their tour manager said,
oh look, just, just ignore him. But he kept going, what's your problem? smiling at me like a. He just turned completely
nasty. I realized he was drunk, and when he was drunk, he
could turn from the nicest, most charming guy to the most
horrible person in the world. According to Noel Monk, Ed was backstage with Neil
Schon of Journey ungraciously, noting that Michael Anthony's
solo, which the crowd loved, even though he ripped his
pants in the middle of it, had been composed and spoonfed
to the bassist by Edward. I had to teach him that.
Edward said every note later, Edward had a meltdown in the
dressing room after their set provoked by a guitar
glitch during the show. On September 2nd, 1984
in Nuremberg, Germany. After an encore of Happy Trails, the band with the original
lineup would never perform together again. Unknown to everyone the Van Halen we loved was over.
