Reply To: Begining of the end..Eddie on DLR

jroundy: Seems like Mike couldn’t have been a nicer, easy to get along with guy.

It would be interesting if someone would ask Ed why he dislikes Mike so much?

Even Valerie has said very nice things about Mike.

Back in the ’80s he made comments that Mike had bought a huge house and several Porche’s off of Van Halen and didn’t contribute anything. They released that “Unpublished” interview from 1981 some time around the ’06-’07 period I think and Eddie was saying the same thing, that he felt Mike didn’t pull his weight and didn’t contribute and still got his 25% cut. I recall he also said he didn’t like Mike’s bass sound in the past, too. In 1980, Ed even approached Billy Sheehan about possibly joining the band, but I think they said that they both knew that wouldn’t work.

Ed has made it sound like, from his perspective, he wrote the music, he, Al and Dave arranged the music into songs, Dave and Al helped to come up with the melodies, Dave wrote the lyrics, Al also contributed to set designs and album art along with Dave and Pete and he felt Mike just showed up, learned what Ed had recorded and got his paycheck. That’s what I got out of Ed’s comments over the years and then, like I said, when he went out on tour with Sam after Sam left the band, Ed basically said, “Fuck you. You’re in Sammy’s band now.” but didn’t officially “fire” him, I guess. I do remember him saying, “You can’t be in two bands”, but that obviously doesn’t apply to his son, so there is a bit of hypocrisy there. I don’t think Ed doesn’t like him as a person. I think it was basically that Ed felt that everyone else contributed more than Mike and that Mike seemed OK sitting back and collecting a check off of the Van Halen name. That’s just kind of how I see it based on Ed’s comments. I have no idea if that’s really the case or not, but based on his comments, that’s kind of what I’m picking up.