Van Halen or Van Hagar ?

Both

Gary
















just kidding, I'll take Sammy

Van Hagar killed two great bands. From 1982...

"Remember The Heroes" - Sammy Hagar

"Big Bad Bill (Is Sweet William Now) - Dave & Van Halen


From Wikipedia..

"Big Bad Bill (Is Sweet William Now)"

Dave: "I think it's a great song. And there's been this thread winding its way through all of Van Halen's music and all of our albums since beginning with 'Ice Cream Man.' I played acoustic guitar and songs like this for quite a while before I ever joined Van Halen. It's music. Why do I have to bang my head to every single song on every single album? I don't think the audience has that much lack of creativity or imagination."

Eddie: "It was Dave's idea to do 'Big Bad Bill'. He bought himself one of those Sanyo Walkman-type things with the FM-AM radio, and you can record off the radio if you like something you hear. He was up in his bedroom at his father's house and he found that if he stood in a certain spot and pointed his antenna a certain way, he picked up this weird radio station in Louisville, Kentucky. He recorded 'Big Bad Bill' and played it to us, and we started laughing ourselves silly and going, 'That is bad! Let's do it!' Dave suggested, 'Hey, we can get your old man to play the clarinet.' We said, 'sure.'

"It's so funny, because I couldn't play the song for you right now. I had to read because there were so many chords, I just couldn't remember it. So here's my father to the left of me, sitting on a chair with a music stand in front of him, and I'm sitting next to him with sheet music in a stand. Mike was there, too, playing like an acoustic guitar bass – the kind they have in Mexican restaurants where they come up, play in front of your face, and aggravate you. We had a great time. It looked like an old '30s or '40s session. I used some thick Gibson hollowbody with f-holes. My father hadn't played in a long time because he had lost his left-hand middle finger about 10 years ago. He was nervous, and we told him, 'Jan, just have a good time. We make mistakes! That's what makes it real.' I love what he did, but he was thinking back 10 years ago when he was smokin', playing jazz and stuff. He played exactly what we wanted."

Dave: "I think when you hear Mr. Van Halen playing, you'll have an idea it's a shadow of where Eddie and Alex are now. There's a sense of humour in there, a lot of technique and a whole lot of beer!"

Michael Anthony

I basically treat them as two unrelated bands. I like them both about the same but for different reasons.

I say both! David was the ultimate front man back in the day but Sammy brought more hits and could sing his butt off.

If you’d have asked me that in 85, I’d have told you that I no longer recognize them as Van Halen anymore, but as time passes, truth be known, Sammy has proven himself to be one of the hardest working and best rock and roll voices of all time, right up there with Paul Rodgers and Robert Plant IMO, but it’s still hard for me to call his time with them as Van Halen. I still associate him with Montrose.

He had a difficult job though as it’s hard to supplant a legend. I remember the grief that Jake E Lee took for no other reason than he simply wasn’t Randy Rhoads, and that was so unfair because nobody could be, and fact is that Jake is quite a good guitarist in his own right. People do that tough.

Diamond Dave was a better front man, but Sammy was a better singer and overall musician. The music was better with Sammy, but more polished (normal for the 80s). The vibes are different.

I like a lot more of the Van Hagar songs, for sure.

I don't understand why people for decades have brought this up like it's some kind of neck and neck race. It'd be like asking whose better Richt or Kirby; both are good and all but it's not a comparison. Hagar isn't dogcrap and they did put out some good tunes during that era, but as anothe rposter said it's practically a different band post-1984.