Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
While I was in Montrose, the publishing checks went into the band's coffers. This was our management's decision; we were just financing ourselves on the road.
In Van Halen there were moments, like in some of the ballads, I put my heart and soul into those records. Those lyrics when I sang 'em, I gave myself goosebumps.
You just went up and started playing, the audience got into it, and it was just a great high experience. That's what I kind of invented with "Mas Tequila" in Cabo.
There are a lot of people going around where an alien took over their body, and their soul will actually leave and be, like, in a sleep or in a near-death situation.
Everything that Eddie has said about me is the total opposite of what really happened. Eddie says I wanted to be a solo artist. No, Eddie wanted to be a solo artist.
I don't want to talk about negative, dark things. The only thing I've got against stuff like Marilyn Manson is, they make unbelievable videos and unbelievable images.
It's hard to say this about a guy like Eddie Van Halen, one of the greatest guitar players who ever lived, but he's really limited to a style and they're locked into it.
You could be in the gutter and fall in love with someone, and you feel great. That's my honest opinion. I've witnessed both sides of that fence and being in love is where it's at.
I've been drinking tequila for a long time now, and it's never been about drinking to get drunk. I don't do that. I never drink tequila during the day, and I don't drive at night.
That song ["Don't Tell Me"] didn't take us anywhere, and I know why now. It wasn't what Van Halen fans wanted. It showed the darkness of Van Halen, and basically the end of the band.
Dave was great in Van Halen. No question about it. He was one of the best at being Mr. Rock Star. But it's sickening to see a guy still trying to be that with a wig on 20 years later.
I wish I would have known Kurt Cobain. I would have been the first guy there to get him help, doing anything I could have. I just felt like the people around him kind of let him down.
I was really wanting to be a rock star. I was saying, "I am going to have a fancy car, I got to have fancy clothes, and I have got to play the whole role." Obviously, I meant business.
I'm the only choice to make a record. And that's the only way I would do it. We'd have to make some new music. The fans deserve it. Van Halen's got some of the best fans on the planet.
The reason I didn't fly over from Maui at their beck and call is my wife was about to have a baby at any time. Those guys knew that. These guys would not compromise and meet me halfway.
I had been reading this book about Zen Koan philosophy, and it was talking about the right here and the right now, and how important it is, and I was really trying to get there in my life.
When we were on the road, I found out that my greatest hits album went Gold. They freaked out. Things really came to a head when we started arguing about a Van Halen greatest hits package.
I wasn't writing the music. Ed would write a piece of music. I'd listen to it and come up with a melody and then we would arrange it. We'd put it together and I would write lyrics to my melodies.
If I would have ever dreamed that I wouldn't be in Van Halen anymore and was going to have resume my solo career again, I would have never contributed anything towards my own greatest hits package.
When I left Van Halen, I went in the studio and made a CD called Marching to Mars with all studio musicians. I did it immediately. With the disappointment riding on my shoulders of the breakup of the band.
The downloads, the licensing, commercials, radio - it's made me more money than any song I've ever written, and it only went to No. 26. It wasn't a big hit at all. But it's a career song ["I Can't Drive 55"].
Ted Templeman, the producer, and Donn Landee, the engineer, are the same team that signed Van Halen, when they were called Mammoth. Donn convinced them to change it to the last name of the guitar player and drummer.
We needed time off from each other after our last tour because there was a lot of personal stuff we had to take care of. Eddie needed hip replacement surgery. Al needed his back worked on. And I was going to have a baby.
I've never met or spoken to David Lee Roth, yet it's rather ironic that even he's saying Eddie's lying about things. I'm saying he's not telling the truth, yet Eddie insists that the two of us are lying! You be the judge.
All he cares about is going out there with his Jack Daniels bottle. Nothing has changed. That's kind of sad. If David was doing better than he used to be, then that would be different. But it was a joke and he made it that way.
Overall, we had about 50 meetings where the brothers would say that I couldn't do any solo records, I couldn't write for other people, I couldn't do this and I couldn't do that. These guys were trying to nail my feet to the ground.
After I had my dream, I got into numerology. Like my buddy's name is Bill, and I would say, "B is a two, and each I is a nine, and the L's are fours. And that's eight." I would figure out everybody's numerological single-digit number.
"Rock Candy" was my first record. I had never been in a studio, so I was in shock and I had no idea if it was great or if it stunk. I was just putting in my heart and soul, and closing my eyes and keeping my fingers crossed. I gave it everything.
I'm a co-writer, publisher of that song ["Right Now" ], so for it to get accepted, we had to sign off on it. I signed off in a second. "You bet that anyone can use this. I don't care. You can use it for anything." If it is to inspire people in the positive sense.
I was going through troubles with my marriage, and I was just trying to focus and center myself. I was already rich and famous. I've got to figure out where I want to go and just get this thing aimed. I wrote this song ["Right Now"] and I kept singing it every day .
Ruth Montgomery had a book I was reading called Aliens Among Us. She was an automatic writer. She used to go into a trance, and she would just start typing information, and then she would come out of her trance and read it and go, "Wow," and that was just the way she wrote her books.
I've had my fill of "One Way To Rock" or "I Can't Drive 55." Those are guy songs to me, and I'm cool with that. But when you write a great love song and you start seeing that 50 percent of your audience is beautiful women, that's much more rewarding, than having a bunch of guys out there.
This is pop music. You've got a candidate for president of the United States using it, that's hitting the biggest audience you're ever going to hit in your entire friggin' life. And you don't want that? Bullshit. That's what you want. It's not even for success or fortune, it's because that's the power of the song.
I feel it's such a tragic thing [Kurt Cobain's suicide]. Here is a guy, a young guy, that had everything in his hands. He could have had a great life. He had a wife, he had a child, he had a fantastic career. He was important to a generation. And for him to do that - I didn't like that. I thought that was just wrong.
I had been in Africa for six weeks on a safari with my family. I said, "You know, I made a lot of money. I am getting kind of burned out. I really want to do something special." So I went on this extended trip to Egypt, Kenya, Sardinia - I really did it, man. I was coming home, and while I was gone, they changed the speed limit from 65 to 55.
When I woke up from that dream, brother, I was like, "Okay, I've got to know what that was, what happened." That was not an average dream. I've had some dreams in my days, but not like that. It was way too vivid. Looking back, the reason that dream makes more sense today than it did then is, we are in a digital world. Back then, it was an analog world. Everything was digital in the dream.