We had such synchronicity. We were walking around at the Hana Ranch on Maui, we had eaten some mushrooms, when the idea came up to get a parrot. We walked a little farther, and there"s a cage with some parrots. This one little gal came to the cage and rubbed her head against the bars, like birds do. We cut a deal and took her back to our room. Her name was Spooch. That bird slept with us under the covers.
As soon as we got home to Mill Valley, we were sitting in the backyard by the pool. We clipped Spooch"s wings so she couldn"t leave. She was sitting on our shoulders. Spooch was a nanday conure and we were talking about how we had to get Spooch a boyfriend, when out of the sky flies a motherf.u.c.king nanday conure, who lands on Spooch"s cage. Spooch was talking to the bird. The bird went into the cage to drink some water. Boom. We got us another bird. We called him Spooky. He never got along with Spooch-they fought like crazy-and we eventually had to give him to Bucky, but that happened to us.
Shortly after we got together, we were in Boca Raton, near where Kari"s father lived in Florida. She wanted to go see her father. He bought houses, would move in for six months, fix them up, move out, and rent them. We took a limo-it was more than an hour away-and went out to dinner. In the limo after dinner, we smoked a fat one and started to get a little s.e.xy in the backseat. We found her father"s place around midnight, and Kari grabbed the key from the top of the water heater. We let ourselves in, turned on the living room light, and started rolling around on the couch. I put my foot on the floor and, hey, stepped on a pair of men"s shoes. I jumped up naked and turned on some more lights. There"s a shirt across a chair, an ashtray with cigarettes in it. Somebody has rented the house and is living in it.
We ran out of there, stoned on our a.s.ses, half-naked, throwing on our clothes, into the limo. Our hearts were pounding. We could have been killed, but we couldn"t stop laughing.
So many things happened with Kari and me because we were in sync. With Betsy, I was living a lie. I was lying to her about everything, and I was therefore lying to other people on the phone, because she could hear. I was this whole lie-so far out of sync that things weren"t working for me. As soon as I fell in love with Kari, I opened up and never lied again. I felt spontaneous. I felt free. Everything we did was the right thing to do. Things came to us that we wanted. You would think it, and it would happen.
We could laugh over anything. Another night, after we moved back to Mill Valley, at the Sweet.w.a.ter, the town"s tiny rock club, I met Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead. Kari and I ran across him sitting at a table with a girlfriend, drinking Suntory scotch straight out of the bottle. We sat and drank together until the place closed at two in the morning. "Let"s go to my house," he said.
The smart thing to do is have everybody come to your house and then they have to drive home, not you. "No," I said. "Let"s go to my house."
He pulled into my driveway in this beat-up old Corvette that hadn"t been washed in years. My driveway is pretty wicked. There wasn"t even a curb, just a sheer drop that goes down 250 feet. Bob brought a mason jar full of buds. His scotch was almost gone. We started smoking weed and continued drinking. We played a little guitar. We peed off the deck. About four in the morning, I"m wasted and shot. I told Bob it was time for them to go. We let them out the door and Kari asked wasn"t I going to help him get out of the driveway. I didn"t see it. He was Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead. He could take care of himself. I started up the stairs.
A terrible loud sc.r.a.ping noise outside-Kari"s going, "Oh, my G.o.d"-and I come running back down. Instead of backing up and turning around, he has driven straight forward, off the driveway, and his car was now sitting half on and half off the driveway, facing down, the rear wheels off the ground. Kari and I dashed out and sat on the trunk. Weir, sitting in the car next to his girlfriend, looked dazed. "I think I need to pull forward," he said.
I told him to sit very still and have his girlfriend climb out carefully. She crawled out over the back and sat on the trunk with us. He climbed out after her. The car could have gone down in a second. No seat belt, convertible, down the hill-he"s dead. Bob Weir dead at Sammy Hagar"s home. It was horrible and five in the morning. I told him to walk home. He took his mason jar of buds and wandered off down the hill with his girlfriend.
The next morning, I had to meet some people and I was very hungover on about three hours" sleep. I backed out my Ferrari down the driveway, trying to maneuver around his car and not knock it down the hill, and broke off my G.o.dd.a.m.n $1,600 side mirror. I called a tow company. When we got home around five o"clock in the afternoon, the tow truck left a note saying they couldn"t take the car. There wasn"t enough room behind the car and they were worried about pushing it over the hill.
It took two tow trucks and three days to get that d.a.m.n car off my driveway. I even paid for the tow truck. I was p.i.s.sed at Bob, but Kari and I only laughed.
After a while, Kari started wanting to settle down a little more in the house in Mill Valley. She started putting some of her own items in there. She"d been living in Betsy"s house, sleeping in Betsy"s bed. She started making changes. I began to see her domestic side. Before long, she started talking about how she would like to have a baby. Andrew was about ten. I was reluctant. But when a woman says she wants to have a baby, you don"t tell her no. But I wasn"t into being a father again.
Aaron was grown and living in Los Angeles, but Andrew was a heartbreaker. At first, Betsy wouldn"t let me see him. She finally started letting him come up for weekends, but it was tough on the little guy. I"d catch him crying in his bedroom. The divorce was hard on Andrew. That"s something I"ll always carry with me. Being a father again didn"t look all that attractive.
Then I remembered what Miss Kellerman had told me about moving to Northern California: "Someday you"re going to have two daughters." I realized everything else Miss Kellerman said came true.
Sure enough. Just by bringing it up, Kari got pregnant. We were in the Jacuzzi, out by the pool, middle of the day, and we threw it down right on the gra.s.s. I knew it. We made wedding plans.
KARI AND I had been together almost four years. Leffler had been dead almost two years. The band had not toured since that last weekend in Costa Mesa. We had been working for months on a new Van Halen alb.u.m, had been together almost four years. Leffler had been dead almost two years. The band had not toured since that last weekend in Costa Mesa. We had been working for months on a new Van Halen alb.u.m, Balance, Balance, and I took a little break to get married in November 1995. We got married in Mill Valley at the amphitheater on top of Mount Tam. Beautiful, sunny day. My mom was happy. Kari"s grandmother was there, her mom, all my family. My pal Emeril Laga.s.se, the great New Orleans chef, flew out and cooked for the wedding. We had ten pounds of white truffles imported from Italy. Ed and Al were there. Everybody posed for the picture in and I took a little break to get married in November 1995. We got married in Mill Valley at the amphitheater on top of Mount Tam. Beautiful, sunny day. My mom was happy. Kari"s grandmother was there, her mom, all my family. My pal Emeril Laga.s.se, the great New Orleans chef, flew out and cooked for the wedding. We had ten pounds of white truffles imported from Italy. Ed and Al were there. Everybody posed for the picture in People People magazine. Someone overheard someone talking to the brothers, saying, "This f.u.c.ker"s making too much money." magazine. Someone overheard someone talking to the brothers, saying, "This f.u.c.ker"s making too much money."
Eddie was supposed to be sober, but he wasn"t and he could be trouble. He couldn"t drink around Valerie, and Ray Danniels was all concerned that we keep Eddie straight. I had taken Eddie to the Bridge School concert in 1993, the all-acoustic benefit for a school for children with severe learning disabilities run by my buddy Neil Young. I did a couple of the shows by myself and I was terrified. I don"t lack confidence one bit, except for when I"m by myself with an acoustic guitar, and then I"m a wreck. Neil Young is a fearless musician. He starts stomping his foot, slapping his guitar and singing at the top of his lungs. He doesn"t have any inhibitions. James Taylor was sweet backstage. "Sammy, what do you mean you"re nervous?" he said. "We all want to be like you."
"What do you mean," I said. "Scared?"
The year I brought Eddie, the headline act was Simon and Garfunkel. Eddie and I were both very nervous, but we did well. Three songs on piano and Eddie played a solo on this tiny amp with a kind of acoustic setup and he was great. We didn"t go over as well as you might have expected, but it wasn"t our crowd.
We went back to our trailer and we did some blow. Paul Simon was in the trailer next to ours and I started talking with him, while Eddie was getting more trashed. He finally wandered out to see what was happening. Paul Simon invited him to play on a song. "Do you know "Sound of Silence"?" he said.
"No, I never heard of it," said Eddie.
Simon took him in the trailer and tried to show him the song. He was supposed to take the stage in about twenty minutes. Eddie couldn"t get it. I guess he was too wasted. "Wait," he said. "What key again?"
He tried his finger-tapping to the song. Eddie"s a great musician, but very methodical. He doesn"t simply jam those things. He finds the melody and plays that. He was looking for the melody while Paul was singing and playing him through the song. And he couldn"t get it. "Never mind, Eddie," Simon said.
"No, no, no," said Eddie, leaning over his guitar again. Simon finally dashed off to the stage and did call out Eddie, who went out there and butchered the song.
We were making the Balance Balance record, but it was over for Van Halen. If it wasn"t for the producer Bruce Fairbairn, we never would have finished that record. He had to throw Eddie out what seemed like every night. Eddie would come in seeming drunk and f.u.c.ked up. You"d go into the bathroom in the studio and there"d be a hole in the wall. Reach down and there was a bag of cocaine. A bottle of vodka was underneath the sink. Chewing gum and cigars were everywhere. "Al," I"d say, "your brother"s f.u.c.ked up. What is this bulls.h.i.t, everybody saying he"s clean and sober? The guy"s ripped out of his brain." record, but it was over for Van Halen. If it wasn"t for the producer Bruce Fairbairn, we never would have finished that record. He had to throw Eddie out what seemed like every night. Eddie would come in seeming drunk and f.u.c.ked up. You"d go into the bathroom in the studio and there"d be a hole in the wall. Reach down and there was a bag of cocaine. A bottle of vodka was underneath the sink. Chewing gum and cigars were everywhere. "Al," I"d say, "your brother"s f.u.c.ked up. What is this bulls.h.i.t, everybody saying he"s clean and sober? The guy"s ripped out of his brain."
"You"re crazy," Al would say. "That"s just the way Ed acts."
I"d get in Eddie"s face. "Ed, get the f.u.c.k out of here. You"re f.u.c.ked up. I don"t want you in here while I"m working. I"m doing my vocals. Get the f.u.c.k out of here."
"I haven"t had a drink for five months, you motherf.u.c.ker," he said. He"d break down and cry, bust up things.
It got ugly. Fairbairn and I were staying at the Bel-Air Hotel, and, the times when Eddie became thoroughly disruptive, he would call the session and the two of us would drive back to the hotel together, sit in the bar, eat a bite, and drink a couple of c.o.c.ktails. Eddie was really on edge, because, number one, he needed a hip replacement and was taking painkillers all the time. And number two, it seemed like he was drinking and hiding it from everybody. When I started to do my vocals, Eddie, for the first time ever, started making suggestions about how I should sing. That got out of hand so quickly that Fairbairn took me to Vancouver to finish my vocals by myself.
I knew they were trying to get rid of me. Eddie was trying to make me quit. He would find something wrong with every lyric I"d write. He"d never said a word about a lyric before. Suddenly he didn"t like anything.
"That"s wimpy," he said. "Make it "Don"t tell me what love can do."" I had this strong, positive thought-"I want to show you what love can do"-but Eddie wanted to switch it around. I want black, no, I want white. I want black, no, I want white. Okay, I"ll go with white. Okay, I"ll go with white. No, I want black. No, I want black. Okay, I wanted black to begin with. Okay, I wanted black to begin with. You know what? I want white. You know what? I want white. It would drive me crazy. The brothers were dead-against me. It would drive me crazy. The brothers were dead-against me.
I wrote that song, "Don"t Tell Me What Love Can Do," about Kurt Cobain. I wanted it to say, "I want to show you what love can do." Ed and Al fought me on that. They wanted more of a grungy, bad-att.i.tude song. "Don"t tell me what love can do." That"s not what I had in mind. I was talking about somebody who could have saved Kurt Cobain"s life.
I do believe that. You can save people. Drugs kill people. People think drugs are what made Jimi Hendrix great. No, drugs are what killed Jimi Hendrix. Kurt Cobain could have been saved. The people around him let him go, for some reason. They had to have seen that coming. So I wrote that song about it to say you have control over your destiny. It"s your life. You can do what you want. But then I wanted the chorus to say, "But I want to show you what love can do." I wanted to make it a love song. Not about me and Kurt Cobain, but about what people could have done for him, people that he knew and loved.
Kari was pregnant, and they hated me being so happy. I kept telling Kari I had to get out of the band, but I didn"t want to quit. I saw what they did to the other guy. They will lie. They will crucify me. They will kill me with the fans. The fans went against Roth. He died a quick death as a solo artist. Maybe not instantly-he had a brief moment when he first went solo-but it didn"t take long. I didn"t want that to happen to me.
It didn"t help that my ex-brother-in-law, Bucky, died about three weeks before the Balance Tour started in March 1995. It was a heartbreaker. Bucky and Joelle had divorced, and for a while he and his son, Ben, had been living together on a houseboat in Sausalito with Bucky"s new girlfriend, Penny, a great gal who used to be Jeff Beck"s old lady. Bucky lived for his kid, and when Ben died in a car crash-a bunch of kids riding in the back of a pickup truck on the way to Stimson Beach and Ben was the only one killed-the bottom fell out of Bucky"s life. My lawyer sued the city over the accident and came up with a fair-size settlement for Bucky. When Bucky died from an OD, they found the check crumpled in his fist.
By the time we went on tour that March, the Van Halen brothers were both in terrible shape. Al came out of the tour in a neck brace, because of a ruptured vertebrae. Al collapsed in the hotel lobby the day of our dress rehearsal in Pensacola, Florida. His hands went numb and down he goes. He started seeing neurosurgeons every day, getting these crazy adjustments. In Paris, the doctor put on rubber gloves and stuck his hand up Al"s a.s.s to work the lower vertebrae. If that wasn"t enough, he and his wife were separated, the beginning of another divorce for Al. He was under a lot of pressure.
Eddie seemed like he was on painkillers most of the time and was facing a total hip replacement due to avascular necrosis, a bone disease often a.s.sociated with alcoholism. Eddie walked with a cane-his hips were shot. He would walk up to the stage, put the cane down, and walk out. Every so often, he would sit on the drum riser or a stool to play a couple of songs, because his hips were killing him so bad.
On the final leg of the Balance Tour, Ray Danniels booked the band to open for Bon Jovi at football stadiums in Europe in May and June 1995. It was a total disaster. Van Halen had no place on a bill with Bon Jovi, who was huge over there. They did three nights at Wembley Stadium in London, eighty thousand people a night, and there were about ten thousand people in the front going nuts when we played, and about sixty thousand teenyboppers in the back waiting for Bon Jovi. As soon as we finished playing, our people left and the Bon Jovi kids came to the front of the stage. It was total oil and water. Nothing against Jon Bon Jovi. He and I went to dinner many times on this tour. But it was the worst idea ever for Van Halen. We got nowhere on that tour. I could feel the end coming.
Still, Van Halen rocked. We would play a killer show, walk offstage together, hugging and laughing at what a great show we just played, and the next day it would be back to the same s.h.i.t.
We flew separately to j.a.pan to do the last shows on that tour. We stayed in different hotels. About two o"clock in the morning, Eddie called. He had wiped out his minibar. Wasted on his a.s.s. Clean and sober? These were almost the last shows. On the way home, we were stopping for four nights in Hawaii, but then we"d be done.
"What are you going to do when we get back?" he said.
The Ronnie Montrose story all over again.
"I don"t know," I said. "Take some time off. What are you going to do?"
"I don"t know yet," he said. "When I figure it out, I"ll let you know. I"ve got some plans, but I"ll let you know if it involves you or not."
"Okay," I said. "f.u.c.k you." I hung up the phone.
We went to Hawaii to play the last shows. Kari and I decided on an impulse to buy a house. We"d been renting places every year for three months, from Thanksgiving through, like, January or February. We were on our way to the airport and I called a realtor. I told him I wanted something private, on the ocean, lots of acreage, a guest house, a pool, and total privacy. I want to be naked. I want fruit trees. He took us to see this place on a cliff on Maui. We bought the house on the spot, and decided that, when the tour was over, we would move to Hawaii to have the baby. We were going to have this baby through natural childbirth. I wanted to deliver it. I wanted to have the baby and take a long break from the band.
As soon as the tour ended, the brothers started calling every day. We"d just gotten off tour. We just did a record and a world tour, and these crazy b.a.s.t.a.r.ds wanted to go in and do a song for the movie Twister Twister. I was not down with it. All they wanted was to get me off the island. Ray Danniels would be on the phone saying things like, "If you"re not back tomorrow, we"re a.s.suming that you"ve quit the band."
I talked to the film director on the phone. He sent me the script. There were some key words-"drop down" was one phrase-that are used by twister-chasers. I wrote these great lyrics for a song called "Drop Down." I cut a little demo over there and the director loved it, told me I told the whole story in three minutes.
They hated it. Al and Eddie told me it was stupid to write about the movie. I told them I had been working with the director.
"He doesn"t know what he"s talking about," they said. "We don"t like it. Get over here. If you"re not here tomorrow, we"re a.s.suming you quit the band."
Kari was so pregnant that she was ready to pop, and I was flying home. I flew my mom over and I flew back. This was about the fifth time I had to fly back to the mainland. I wrote new lyrics. Bruce Fairbairn was waiting for me. Eddie wanted to call the song "Human Beings." I wrote all these belligerent lyrics-"lemmings breeding...There is just enough Christ in me to make me feel almost guilty...because we are humans, humans being."
I was ready to fly back to Hawaii the next day, but they told me they wanted me to stay and work on another song for the greatest-hits record. I told them I wasn"t doing any songs for any greatest-hits record and split. I went back to my hotel room and changed my name at the front desk. I didn"t want to call Kari at four in the morning and tell her. Eddie was trying to call me all night. Security knocked on my door to tell me they had Eddie Van Halen on the phone and he wants to know what room I"m in. "What do you want us to do?" the guy asked.
"Tell him to go f.u.c.k himself," I said.
That"s when they called Roth.
The greatest-hits alb.u.m was Ray Danniels"s idea. They wanted some quick bucks. I thought if we"re going into the studio, let"s do a whole record, but they wanted the greatest-hits record. Then he gets another genius idea-let"s get David Lee Roth back, do two new songs with him, two new songs with Sammy, and we"ll be bigger than G.o.d. They did the whole thing behind my back. I was thrown out of the band for not going along with it.
I went back to Maui the next morning. Kari was way pregnant. We talked it over. In another few days, she wouldn"t be able to fly anymore. We agreed going back was the best thing to do. Back in Mill Valley, we went to see the pediatrician who delivered Aaron and Andrew and he told us the baby was breech and would have to be delivered by caesarian. Forget that I was going to deliver the baby in water and all that stuff we learned at Lamaze cla.s.s in the church in Hawaii. She would have to have been helicoptered to a hospital. It turned out to be a good thing that we went back.
When my first son, Aaron, was born, I wasn"t even in the room, because we were on welfare. Dave Lauser and I were out in the park, eating fish and chips, and no one even told me. I finally went and checked. When Andrew was born, I was right there. He was such a surprise, because I was certain he was going to be a girl. We painted the room for a girl. We bought girl clothes. The baby shower was all girl presents. Even the doctor said it was probably a girl. I burst out laughing in joy. A child is a child and, when it"s your child, it changes your life. I think it was the most joyful moment in my life. Until Kama came. When Kama came, it was even more of a joy, because I actually took her out and cut the umbilical cord.
Kari came home with our daughter from the hospital, and the next Sunday was Father"s Day 1996. We were lying in bed around nine in the morning, with the baby, when the phone rang. It was Eddie Van Halen. He had been up all night.
"You"ve never been a team player," he said. "You never want to do things when we want to do them. You always wanted to be a solo artist. You can go back to being a solo artist. We"ve been working with Roth on the greatest-hits record and it"s going great."
They"d been working with him behind my back while I was in the hospital with my wife having a baby. I went off.
"f.u.c.k you, you f.u.c.king motherf.u.c.kers," I said, and hung up.
They couldn"t take me being happy for one more minute. They had to get rid of me. It irritated them so bad that I was so happy. I had my little girl, my wife, and was living the happiest life on the planet. I called Ray Danniels. "Eddie just called me and said you"ve been working with Roth," I said.
"Oh, no," Danniels said. "He didn"t make that call, did he?"
"Yes, he did, dude."
"What do you want me to do?" he asked.
"Go f.u.c.k yourself, for starters," I said. "Second of all, congratulations. You just broke up the biggest band in the world. That"s going to be a big feather in your cap."
I went off on his a.s.s. "Let me talk to him first," Danniels said. "Don"t take that att.i.tude."
"f.u.c.k you. It"s over," I said.
Eddie always said I quit, and maybe I did. His att.i.tude was that I always wanted to be a solo artist. They even attacked my work ethic. He and Alex told Kurt Loder of MTV News MTV News that I didn"t want to work. I remember reading one article where Eddie said, "He was a lot older than us and I don"t think he really wanted to work like we did." that I didn"t want to work. I remember reading one article where Eddie said, "He was a lot older than us and I don"t think he really wanted to work like we did."
I gave them their Van Halen rings trademark. They gave me my Cabo Wabo brand. I kept my royalties. I was a 30 percent partner in that band, since they"d already knocked Michael Anthony down to 10 percent.
Things that put a stick up my a.s.s make me take action. I think sometimes I"m at my best when I have something to prove. When I joined Van Halen, I was burnt out and finished with the business. I didn"t even want to be creative at that point. When I replaced their first singer and was taking s.h.i.t from everybody, putting myself on the spot, it lit a fire-I"ll show these motherf.u.c.kers. I became really driven in that band and we did some amazing things, even at the end. Even our last record, Balance, Balance, was a great record. I"m an adrenaline and inspiration junkie. If something inspires me, I will get up for it. With inspiration, I can do anything. When I was kicked out of Van Halen, I was determined to show those motherf.u.c.kers that they made the biggest mistake of their lives. was a great record. I"m an adrenaline and inspiration junkie. If something inspires me, I will get up for it. With inspiration, I can do anything. When I was kicked out of Van Halen, I was determined to show those motherf.u.c.kers that they made the biggest mistake of their lives.
12.
MAS TEQUILA TEQUILA.
I was out of Van Halen. one side of me was angry, but the other was nothing but happy. was out of Van Halen. one side of me was angry, but the other was nothing but happy.
Kari and I got on a plane with our brand-new baby to go back to Maui. We had a little dog called Winch.e.l.l that we snuck on board. You can"t take a dog to Hawaii. they quarantine the suckers for six months. We were planning to stay a good spell-I certainly didn"t have any big plans-so we pumped the little pooch full of doggie tranquilizers and stuffed him in a bag. Sitting across the aisle in the first-cla.s.s cabin was Mickey Hart from the Grateful Dead. I knew who he was, but we"d never really met before. He and his wife, Caryl, were headed over to the islands for some downtime, which, it turns out, is something Mickey Hart knows nothing about.
Bill Cosby was also on the flight, about four rows behind us. It was an early-morning flight and we were snoozing as the plane was getting ready to land. out of the corner of my ear, I hear that famous Bill Cosby voice speak up: "oh, what a cute little dog."
I turned around and looked. there was Winch.e.l.l, staggering down the aisle, wobbling, tripping, falling like a drunk. He was a rat terrier and he dug his way out of his bag, unzipped the d.a.m.n thing, and got loose. We were busted.
Mickey"s wife turned out to be a lawyer and she swung into action, schmoozing the stewardess. We had to stay behind on the plane. Bill Cosby walked by me, looking at his bag and going, "Woof...woof." Mickey and Caryl stayed with us. We were there for a couple of hours. This was a serious deal. We were facing a possible $25,000 fine and even jail, but after a few $100 bills were pa.s.sed around, a dog carrier was brought to the plane and Winch.e.l.l went into the baggage compartment to fly home with the stewardess, who handed him off to some of our friends who were waiting for the dog in San Francisco.
When I got on that airplane to go to Hawaii, I had accepted that Van Halen was done. I was going to Hawaii because my place there is my sanctuary. If I went to Cabo, the press would have been all over me. What happened? What happened? I just wanted to lie back and figure out what to do. I was going to Hawaii to get my head together and decide what I really wanted. Did I really want to keep doing this? Financially, I certainly didn"t have to work. I"d been doing that tour/alb.u.m, tour/alb.u.m grind since Montrose. I was thinking I was going to lie back, do nothing until something came to me. I wasn"t looking to put a band together. I was going to hide out.
But Mickey Hart wouldn"t let me.
Mickey came over to my house in Maui every day. I told him I was through with the music business. He told me I had to get right back on the horse, that I was too talented to quit. He would come over, light up big fat joints, and get me to play guitar. He had all these ca.s.settes of African music and would be constantly snapping tapes in the deck and telling me, "Listen to this." He totally put me right back on the horse, that knucklehead.
Mickey"s the most energetic guy in the world. He has never taken off five minutes in his life. He reads six newspapers a day, writes a couple chapters in a book, knocks off a couple of songs, and goes to rehearsal.
"What do you mean you"re going to take some time off?" he wanted to know. For him, it wasn"t even about "You"ve got to show those guys." It was simpler than that: "You"re a musician and a singer, so that"s what you do."
He has this catalog of beats and world music that he"s collected over the years and carries around with him. He had Egyptian, African, South American, all these different styles of music. He kept playing all this music I"d never heard before. It was very inspiring. I picked up a guitar and started jamming and, in no time, we had written about four or five ideas. He was coming over every day, rolling up a fat one. They"ve got the good stuff over there, too. I didn"t smoke as much as he did, but he"d get pretty high and would get me worked up.
I turned around and came back to California. I went up to Mickey"s house, and the two of us would crank up this African music as loud as it would go. I played guitar and he sat down at the drums and we jammed for about three days. "Marching to Mars" was the only song that stuck, but I got interested in doing these other kinds of grooves. I was drawn back into making a record. I asked Mickey to coproduce it with me. I started thinking about putting a band together. I"d just gotten out of the d.a.m.n frying pan, and Mickey dragged me right back into the fire. If he hadn"t been on that airplane, I probably would have stayed in Hawaii for months.
We went into the studio and Mickey went totally crazy. He never stopped. He piled up overdub after overdub until he needed to bring in another recorder. For one track we did, "Marching to Mars," he brought in four twenty-four-track machines and used all ninety-six tracks. Hart was on the phone at four o"clock in the morning, trying to find another twenty-four-track, when engineer Mike Clink from the Guns N" Roses sessions finally said, "That"s enough."
This one song took more time and was turning out more expensive than the whole rest of the alb.u.m. I made the mistake of telling Mickey to stop.
"You"ve wasted enough time and money on this one track," I said. He got so insulted he went out and sat in his car, rolled up the windows, and lit a joint. n.o.body could find him. I finally went out to the car and there he was, sulking. I apologized.
"It"s four o"clock in the morning," I told him. "We"re all worn out." We finished the track, the last cut on the alb.u.m, which had been finished for almost three months except for this one final track. I love the guy. He may be the most high-energy, hardest-working, most enthusiastic person I"ve ever met.
For the alb.u.m Marching to Mars, Marching to Mars, the band included Denny Carma.s.si from Montrose on drums, Bootsy Collins on ba.s.s for a couple of tracks, and John Pierce from Huey Lewis and the News on the rest. Jesse Harms played keyboards, and the engineer Mike Clink also produced a bit. I went into the studio and made the best record I could possibly make, an artsy record, a sharp left turn from Van Halen. It was one of the best solo records I"ve ever made. Every song is great. the band included Denny Carma.s.si from Montrose on drums, Bootsy Collins on ba.s.s for a couple of tracks, and John Pierce from Huey Lewis and the News on the rest. Jesse Harms played keyboards, and the engineer Mike Clink also produced a bit. I went into the studio and made the best record I could possibly make, an artsy record, a sharp left turn from Van Halen. It was one of the best solo records I"ve ever made. Every song is great.
I paid for the record myself and didn"t want record companies involved until I was done. For the release of Marching to Mars, Marching to Mars, I signed a deal with a new label run by Sid Sheinberg, former head of MCA. He had retired and started this movie company called the Bubble Factory, and a new record company called the Track Factory. They gave me a large advance and big points. I was the only act on the label and they would do whatever I wanted. It was like a dream come true. We went to Hong Kong and did a press event. We went to j.a.pan and played acoustic at a couple of in-stores. I signed a deal with a new label run by Sid Sheinberg, former head of MCA. He had retired and started this movie company called the Bubble Factory, and a new record company called the Track Factory. They gave me a large advance and big points. I was the only act on the label and they would do whatever I wanted. It was like a dream come true. We went to Hong Kong and did a press event. We went to j.a.pan and played acoustic at a couple of in-stores.
The first week the record came out, it sold 44,000 copies-not chicken feed, but not millions. The next week, the company folded. They"d put out a big-budget movie starring Bette Midler, which bombed, my record, and that was it. They went out of business.
MCA took over, but the momentum was lost. The record was done. In the end, it sold pretty well, but it was a disappointment to me, because I came out of a band that was selling 5 to 7 million records. Marching to Mars Marching to Mars sold about 400,000. I took a long fall. But it was a successful record in its own way. sold about 400,000. I took a long fall. But it was a successful record in its own way.
The Track Factory hadn"t been the only option. There had been another guy, who wanted to sign me to Hollywood Records, the Disney label. He slept on my floor for four days, trying to get me to sign a record deal. He wrote up a deal on a c.o.c.ktail napkin. It was big money, way more than the other guys, but I backed out at the last minute. He was too crazy. On the cover, he was going to have a van with HAGAR HAGAR painted on the side. He was going to tour the van to every record store in the country, and give it away in a contest at the end. painted on the side. He was going to tour the van to every record store in the country, and give it away in a contest at the end.