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Van Halen’s David Lee Roth
When bands reunite and give press conferences about it, they’re more than happy to announce their upcoming tour dates, gush about how well they’re getting along or crow about the wondrous endurance of their old hits.
There’s just one thing they rarely, if ever, talk about: their real motivation.
When the Police announced their summer comeback at a press conference in L.A., Sting repeatedly dodged questions about the true reasons behind it all, offering only a spacey spiel about how he wanted to surprise the other guys—and himself.
When the members of Van Halen were asked why this famously fractious bunch was reuniting now, singer David Lee Roth simply called it a “no-brainer.”
Now, of course, it’s no-go, since Eddie Van Halen was packed off to the dry-out bin just a few weeks after the story broke.
Luckily, there are plenty of other reunions to come this summer and fall, including Genesis, Rage Against the Machine, the Stooges, Smashing Pumpkins and Crowded House. With that in mind, we offer the most common genuine reasons that, after years of distance and acrimony, musicians suddenly decide to bury the hatchet in something besides each other’s backs:
1) The bassist has a mortgage to pay: Ask the Who. According to singer Roger Daltrey and late bassist John Entwistle, the reason they got Pete Townshend to agree to many tours over the years was simply that they were trying to get the kind of cash flow Pete can command just by sitting home and collecting his publishing checks. That goes for a lot of bands. The guy who wrote the songs may be doing nicely years after the group stops playing, but the other musicians aren’t earning a dime unless they play.
2) They want the attention: Face it, after a certain point the stars can’t be doing it just for the money. How many Brazilian models can Mick Jagger buy? A more compelling motivation is the heightened love and admiration they get from playing their proven hits for fans who’ve pined for eons to hear them from the original guys.
3) The leader ran out of ideas for his solo career: Prime example: Sting. The guy’s latest album consists entirely of 16th-century lute music. It doesn’t get much lower on the obscurity scale than that. As a chaser, who wouldn’t want to bring back something you know bazillions of people will worship you for?
4) This is the members’ last shot to get back on the cover of Rolling Stone before they look too horrible for even the airbrushers to cover up: A subset of the “wanting attention” category, this has to do with pure vanity.
5) The members want to make amends for their past: The stars forging these reunions are at least a decade—if not two or three—older than they were when they made the (sometimes) rash decision to pack it in. Who hasn’t mellowed in all that time? And who wants the bad karma of continuing to hold a grudge against someone with whom you once shared something so dear?
6) They pine to play the bigger halls they can’t fill on their own: Even stars as huge as Sting and Phil Collins could never play stadiums as a solo act. But with their old bands, they can. That not only translates into a sky-high payday (as lofty as $100 million for some) but lets them bask in that rare sound of 50,000 people shouting their songs at once.
7) They want their youth back: The closest they can get is by reconnecting with the colleagues, and songs, that came from the fever of youth. Of course, that’s the covert dream, and key motivation, of the fans, too.
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THE COMEBACKS:
THE POLICE: No new music planned as yet. Includes: All three original members.
GENESIS: They swear they’ll record no new music. Includes: The three main members (post-Peter Gabriel).
SMASHING PUMPKINS: A new album, “Zeitgeist,” produced by Queen’s dial-man, Roy Thomas Baker, coming July 7, followed by a U.S. tour. Includes: Leader Billy Corgan and drummer Jimmy Chamberlain.
RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE: No new music planned as yet. But since three of the members just split with the band Audioslave, don’t bet against it. Includes: All four original members.
THE STOOGES: The just-released album “The Weirdness.” Includes: The three surviving original members.
CROWDED HOUSE: A fall tour. Includes: The two surviving main members.
THE EAGLES: Their first album of entirely new material in 28 years, “The Long Road Out of Eden,” arrives later this spring or early summer, chased by a tour. Includes: Don Henley, Glenn Frey, Joe Walsh and Timothy B. Schmit.
