 | Dave: Greg, great interview! I am totally geeking out at two people discusing VH’s early years and having a clue lol!! I definitely learned a thing or two.
Question for you – I see you hashed out thedetails for Mark Stone’s departure, which was new to me. But I seem to remember that one of the reasons was Mark wasn’t dedicated to the band full-time and instead of commiting to the band, continued with school. Now I think I heard that from Mark himself in “The Van Halen Story: The Early Years DVD” that came out a few years ago. Thoughts??
Thanks for the reply. I can’t speak to Stone’s college aspirations. I do know he continued to play in bands around Pasadena for some time after he split from the Van Halens. And let’s not forget that all of those guys were taking college classes at one point or another after HS.
He says in this video – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEQLd5kmaXY – that he felt “split” between school and the band because he was a straight A student. That said, Eddie has said in interviews that MS couldn’t remember the song list, which had gotten very long. Eddie has said those problems had to do with partying. As I tried to make clear in the interview, the other guys were probably partying as much. I’d say this was a Steven Adler/GNR situation. What shouldn’t be forgotten is that Stone was an excellent musician who could musically keep up with Eddie and Alex and did so for years.
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