Today is the release date for Everybody Wants Some: The Van Halen Saga, my new book. The early reviews look good, and the book is selling like hot cheeseburgers on Amazon and VanHalenStore.com, so I’m going out for champagne and dancing girls.
[ALTERNATE: Full press conference video from The Metal Scene]
Kevin Estrada, my main photo contributor for Everybody Wants Some: The Van Halen Saga, just called on his way out of the Van Halen tour press conference in LA, where he was taking photos for Rolling Stone. As hoped, the reunion with Roth began with a bang — tour dates for this fall and winter are already posted on Blabbermouth.
Kevin says Roth entered the press conference from the rear of the room, dressed “bolero-style” in a bullfighting costume. The room went wild, people were screaming, and Roth slapped hands all the way up to the stage. He hit the microphone and launched into a gifted gab session, speaking Spanish and rapping and ranting. He and Eddie hugged and kissed to demonstrate their renewed friendship.
Wolfgang didn’t say much, and seemed a little unprepared for the attention. During the Q&A, he told reporters he listens to AC/DC, Tool, and the White Stripes. Alex apparently didn’t say a word. Rolling Stone reports Alex saying: “I can describe Wolfie in two words — DNA.”
Michael Anthony did not magically appear at the last minute, and when asked about him the response was: “This is a brand new band. Michael Anthony is part of Van Halen’s past.”
And that’s the story until the tour begins on September 27 in Charlotte, NC. Plenty of time to catch up on your VH-related reading, right?
I have to say that when I started writing Everybody Wants Some in 2005, the chances of today happening seemed like zilch to infinite zip.
My book Everybody Wants Some: The Van Halen Saga shipped from the factory this morning, so in a few days all my questions will be answered, along with everybody else’s. I talked to Kevin Estrada today, one of my collaborators. He’s a lifelong Pasadena/Burbank native who took most of the amazing photos in the book, some of them when he was 12 years old. I’ll post a couple previews in days to come.
My publisher already posted of excerpts the text, so help yourself to:
INDEX [from Abbott, "Dimebag" Darrell 266-267 to ZZ Top 17, 20, 24, 32, 50, 189, 195]
And so it begins…
“Like the stories of other great Americans from Henry Ford to Walt Disney to Fievel the Mouse, the saga of Van Halen begins in an ancient land, far from the United States and its constant supply of hot water and electricity. As a narrator would say in the old movies: Among the windmills, tulips, and wooden shoes of lovely Amsterdam, Holland, there once lived a kindly musician named Jan van Halen…”
Sheeyit…it’s finally happening. My Van Halen history, Everybody Wants Some: The Van Halen Saga, will be published in hardcover on August 24. That above is the first draft of the dust jacket, click it to enlarge it. The text isn’t final, but at least you get an idea of what’s going to be soon spraying champagne all over your bookshelf.
