Van Halen Is Beefing Again Because Van Halen

Photo courtesy of ABC and Jimmy Kimmel Live

It's not a proper Van Halen reunion without the ever-present threat of annihilation due to in-fighting, and with the hard rock legends set to embark on a new tour in two weeks to push a new live album, weirdness of some sort was inevitable. The axe dropped yesterday, as co-founder and guitarist Eddie Van Halen sat down with Chuck Klosterman for a Billboard cover story. It starts light: Eddie tells Klosterman the last album he bought was Peter Gabriel's 1986 smash So and wonders aloud whether Max Martin writes Taylor Swift's songs. He's also an avid vaping enthusiast, despite having lost a third of his tongue to cancer he attributes to brass and copper guitar picks he liked to hold in his mouth, not cigarettes. They begin to talk about bandmates, past and present, and shit gets real.

Of former bassist and backing vocalist Michael Anthony: "Every note Mike ever played, I had to show him how to play. Before we’d go on tour, he’d come over with a video camera and I’d have to show him how to play all the parts."

On second lead singer Sammy Hagar, who depicted Eddie as a raging alcoholic in a 2011 memoir: "[The stuff in Hagar’s book] was definitely embellished. That’s him painting a picture of something that never happened."

Of former Extreme frontman Gary Cherone, who briefly held vocal duties around 1998's blasphemous Van Halen III: "We were getting ready to go on tour, and all of a sudden I see this John Travolta outfit – these big lapels and a crazy jacket. He’s like, ‘This is my stage outfit.’ That’s when I realized it wasn’t going to work."

Of once and future lead singer David Lee Roth: "Roth’s perception of himself is different than who he is in reality. We’re not in our 20s anymore. We’re in our 60s. Act like you’re 60. I stopped coloring my hair, because I know I’m not going to be young again."

Van Halen heads out to tour North America in early July comprising Eddie, his brother Alex, his son Wolfgang and Roth. Will Diamond Dave walk? He's been with the band almost a decade this time, nearly as long as he ever stuck around for Van Halen's classic 70s and 80s lineup. (His shortest stay? The evening of the 1996 MTV Video Music Awards.) Sammy Hagar has released a video defending Anthony's talent and honor and calling Eddie a liar. Check that out below.