Rhino Factoids: Gary Cherone Becomes Van Halen’s Third Lead Singer

21 years ago today, Van Halen formally announced that they’d selected someone to replace Sammy Hagar as the band’s lead singer: Gary Cherone, formerly the frontman for Extreme.

Tensions had been running high for awhile between Hagar and the Van Halen brothers – Eddie and Alex, of course – but while the band was in the midst of laying down some tunes for the soundtrack of the Bill Paxton / Helen Hunt hurricane-chasing action blockbuster Twister, things blew up and Hagar left the studio. With the relationship between the two factions of the Van Halen camp tenuous at best, things only got worse as the band began working on a new compilation album, one which would feature songs by both Hagar and David Lee Roth. As to what happened next, it depends on who you ask, but the end result was the same no matter which version of the story you hear: Sammy Hagar was no longer a member of Van Halen.

When the new Van Halen compilation BEST OF: VOLUME 1 came out, it featured two new songs with David Lee Roth once again fronting the band. It was a short reunion, however: the aforementioned Mr. Cherone had been named the new lead singer of Van Halen two and a half weeks before the best-of hit stores.

Mind you, Cherone’s stint as the lead singer of Van Halen wasn’t significantly longer. But that’s a story for another time.