It hasn't been good times all the time for
Van Halen. They've endured lineup changes, the consequences
of a rock 'n' roll lifestyle, and plenty of health scares. Here are some of the most tragic moments in
Van Halen's history. While Van Halen was named after brothers Eddie
and Alex Van Halen, their breakout star was colorful lead singer David Lee Roth. He was always good for a quippy quote, bouncing
around on stage, and mugging for the cameras. But then in 1985, he left the band, a year
after the release of their most successful album, 1984. "Why'd you leave?" "Why did I bail? I'm a workaholic. I like to travel. I like to go on the road." That left the rest of Van Halen scrambling
to find a new lead singer to keep the gravy train rolling. Several of the band's initial choices turned
down the gig, which eventually went to hard rock solo artist Sammy Hagar. Patty Smyth of the band Scandal was one of
those choices. She told Delaware's News Journal in 2014, "They had asked me not to talk about in interviews
at the time, because they didn't want Sammy Hagar to feel like he was the second choice." Another interesting selection that could've
been was the honey-voiced Daryl Hall of blue-eyed soul duo Hall and Oates. When Hagar was a guest on Hall's show Live
at Daryl's House, he asked Hall about the rumor that he'd been asked to join his old
band, which Hall confirmed. Not long after the stressful departure of
Roth in 1985, Eddie and Alex Van Halen endured a far more taxing ordeal. Their father, Jan Van Halen, suffered a heart
attack in May 1986, and then died in December of that year at the age of 66. In a 1988 profile in Rolling Stone, Eddie
indicated that a problem with alcohol contributed to his father's death. His passing, as well as the time that Eddie
was forced to stay in the hospital for a tropical fever, made him take a long, hard look at
himself. As he put it, "That kinda made me look at things a little
different, imagining being in there for an OD or alcohol, like my dad died from. It kinda wised me up." Their father's death shook Alex as well, who
enjoyed a reputation as the hardest partier of anyone in the band. He also quit drinking around 1986, and admitted
that he didn't want to end up like The Who's Keith Moon or Led Zeppelin's John Bonham,
two other legendary rock drummers who died from complications of excessive alcohol consumption. Bassist Michael Anthony's relationship with
Eddie Van Halen started to suffer in the late 90s when the band parted with Sammy Hagar
and briefly reunited with David Lee Roth. Hagar had started a new band called Planet
Us and had asked Anthony if he'd like to join. Van Halen took that to mean that Anthony had
quit. Flash forward to 2004 when Van Halen wanted
to tour with Hagar, and they asked Anthony to get the jilted singer to sign on. However, if Anthony wanted to be a part of
it, he'd have to sign away his legal rights to Van Halen's band name and take a pay cut. "It's really irritating to see them go after
Mikey. Mikey didn't do anything ever to Van Halen. Mikey was the most loyal guy in the band." Three years later, Van Halen hit the road
again, this time with Roth, but without Anthony, who found out about the tour when it was reported
in the press. The band's newest bassist was Wolfgang Van
Halen, Eddie's teenage son. On top of that, Eddie refuted Anthony's version
of the events to Rolling Stone, saying, "When Hagar left the band, Mike went with
him. Then when we get back together with Dave,
and all of a sudden, he wants back in. It's like, 'No dude, you quit the band.'" But that wasn't how Anthony saw it. He told Music Radar in 2009 that he simply
never quit Van Halen. This is one rock 'n' roll feud we don't expect
to be settled quickly and easily. Van Halen has a reputation for being a nightmare
on tour, and with that in mind, perhaps the most famous bit of Van Halen lore is the "no
brown M&M's" rule. The band's 1982 rider included a stipulation
that their backstage bowl of M&M's must be totally free of any brown candies. This wasn't Van Halen acting like a bunch
of divas, however. In 2012, David Lee Roth explained that the
band's touring show was difficult to set up in a timely manner because the crews in each
town were inexperienced with assembling a massive rock 'n' roll setup. So Roth asked his managers to place a clause
in the rider banning brown M&Ms. If he spotted the candies in the bowl, it
provided proof that the promoter hadn't read the rider, and the band would have to do a
serious line check to make sure all of the stage equipment had been installed safely
and correctly. If people didn't pay attention to the contract,
that led to some bad consequences. For example, at Van Halen's 1980 show in Pueblo,
Colorado, when Roth went backstage and found brown M&Ms, he absolutely destroyed the dressing
room. As it turns out, he had every right to be
mad that the promoters hadn't carefully read the contract. In addition to the M&Ms, the arena's shock-absorbent
floor couldn't handle the weight of Van Halen's gear. Even though the floor requirements were laid
out in the rider, organizers ignored that section, too, and tens of thousands of dollars'
worth of damage was done to the area floor. In their 70s and 80s heyday, the members of
Van Halen would play a concert in the evening, and then they'd go out and party afterward. Everyone, that is, except Eddie Van Halen,
who would stay back in his hotel room to write songs, work on guitar riffs, and ingest copious
amounts of vodka and cocaine. In 2015, he told Billboard, "I would use them for work. The blow keeps you awake, and the alcohol
lowers your inhibitions...I was an alcoholic, and I needed alcohol to function." Of course, this sometimes backfired, as Eddie
once got so wasted that he couldn't even play. His descent into addiction began at a very
young age. He started drinking and smoking when he was
12. During his high school years, he would even
get drunk before showing up to class. In 1988, he told Rolling Stone about the alcohol-related
death of his father led to him kicking booze, but the sobriety didn't last. By 2004, he'd turned into, as he told Billboard,
"an angry drunk." Three years later, he checked himself into
a rehabilitation center, which precluded him from attending Van Halen's induction into
the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He's reportedly stayed sober since 2008. So many rock stars have married famous actresses
that it feels like it must just be the natural order of things. In 1980, 20-year-old Valerie Bertinelli, at
the time one of the stars of the popular sitcom One Day at a Time, met guitar master Eddie
Van Halen backstage at one of his shows. The pair then married in April 1981, just
eight months after they became a couple. "Why did that feel like the right move for
you back then to get married at the age of 20 to a rock 'n' roll star?" "I was madly in love. Madly in love! I just adored him." Unfortunately, drugs go hand in hand with
rock 'n' roll, and they were also a part of this rock 'n' roll marriage before it even
started. Bertinelli revealed in her memoir Losing It
and Gaining My Life Back that as she and Van Halen filled out a pre-marriage questionnaire
sent by their wedding officiant, they were holding vials of cocaine. Not too long into the marriage, both spouses
started to stray. Bertinelli discovered evidence of Van Halen's
infidelity when she heard him on the phone, talking about how he wanted out of the marriage. She filed for divorce in 2005, four years
after the two of them had separated. In March 1995, Van Halen hit the road for
a long stretch of concerts in support of their album Balance. Eddie Van Halen nicknamed it the "Ambulance
Tour" because both he and his brother were playing through significant pain. While Alex Van Halen ruptured three vertebrae
in his neck and had to wear a not-very-rock-'n'-roll neck brace for the duration of many shows,
Eddie was dealing with tremendous pain in his hip due to avascular necrosis. The guitarist delayed hip replacement surgery
for years, until he finally went under the knife in November 1999 when he was just 44. He got his brand new bionic from Dr. John
R. Moreland, orthopedic surgeon to the stars, who performed similar operations for Liza
Minnelli and Elizabeth Taylor. Clearly, there's almost always a painful price
to being an aging rock star. Eddie Van Halen was once a habitual chain
smoker, and all the cigarettes he went through during recording sessions weren't exactly
pleasant for his bandmates. Sammy Hagar described the situation to Ultimate
Classic Rock: "I would come home, midnight, one o’clock
in the morning, and I would stink so bad with all my long hair, hair just absorbs cigarettes,
and my clothes." Van Halen eventually gave up smoking in favor
of vaping, a necessary concession considering that a third of his tongue was surgically
removed in 2000. The cancer also spread to his throat, and
while he was declared healthy in 2002, he's been travelling to Germany for years to receive
special treatments. In November 2019, he was briefly hospitalized
for a health issue relating to the cancer, as he was suffering from abdominal pain, an
adverse reaction to some of his cancer drugs. Van Halen has an interesting theory about
the cause of this ongoing health crisis. Years of smoking aren't to blame. Instead, it's work-related. He told Billboard in 2019, "I used metal picks, they're brass and copper,
which I always held in my mouth, in the exact place where I got the tongue cancer. Plus, I basically live in a recording studio
that's filled with electromagnetic energy." Eddie Van Halen has survived cancer, bone
necrosis, and decades of heavy drinking. After slaying those potentially deadly demons,
he faced another major health scare in 2012. On August 29th, a message posted to the Van
Halen Facebook page read, "Eddie Van Halen underwent an emergency surgery
for a severe bout of diverticulitis. No further surgeries are needed, and a full
recovery is expected within 4-6 months." Symptoms like constant abdominal pain, nausea,
vomiting, fever, and constipation plagued Eddie, and severe cases require corrective
surgery. That's what happened to Van Halen. Sadly, the condition got even worse for the
"Eruption" guitarist. He spent an extra three weeks in the hospital
after his surgery because of a few blown stitches, leading to an infection in his intestine,
a portion of which had to be removed by doctors. Van Halen spent months recovering at home,
forcing the cancellation of the rest of his band's 2012 tour dates. In the early 1980s, Alex Van Halen was briefly
married to a woman named Valeri Kendall. Eventually, the two broke up, but that wouldn't
be his only divorce. In 1984, he married Kelly Carter. Their union ended in 1996, but there were
even more legal headaches yet to come. In 2013, ELVH Inc., the band's intellectual
property company, sued Kelly Carter...or more accurately, Kelly Van Halen. Over a decade after her divorce, she was still
using "Van Halen" as her professional last name. She started a construction, fashion, and interior
design company named "Kelly Van Halen," which, according to ELVH, constituted trademark infringement. The company also complained that putting the
name "Kelly Van Halen" on a line of blankets, bathing suits, and armoires was "confusingly
similar" to the "sound, appearance, and commercial impression" of Van Halen the rock band. After years of legal battles, all parties
settled the matter out of court. Check out one of our newest videos right here! Plus, even more Grunge videos about your favorite
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Good summary, thanks for posting