David Lee Roth Says Alex Van Halen Drove Eddie ‘F—ing Crazy’

David Lee Roth claims Alex Van Halen used to drive Eddie Van Halen “fucking crazy” when the two were bandmates.

In a recent post to YouTube, Roth detailed conversations he used to have with the Van Halen guitar god.

“Dave, I fucking hate my brother, it’s why I fucking drink,” Roth recalled Eddie telling him. “Dave, I fucking hate my brother. Give me another beer.”

Roth noted that Eddie tended to “blame everybody else for personal problems,” something the singer admitted he also did. Still, Roth insisted Eddie’s tension with Alex was real.

“Al drove his brother fucking crazy. He’s big bully,” Diamond Dave declared, adding that alcohol often played a role in the brothers’ disputes. “Al weighed about 20 more pounds, drank between two and six six-packs of Schlitz malt tall liquors a day. At the height of his [drinking] they had to put in a special industrial refrigerator in the guest house at Eddie’s studio.”

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Roth went on to detail the arrangement Van Halen had with a local liquor store which would supply the band cases of beer.

“I need two cases every other day and it has to be delivered up to the guest house,” Roth recalled the band’s tour manager telling the liquor store owner.

Van Halen’s History With Alcohol

That alcohol reportedly played a role in the Van Halen brothers’ disputes is not surprising. Alex, who had been a heavy drinker for years, quit in 1986 following the death of their father, Jan Van Halen.

Eddie, meanwhile, had a very public battle with alcoholism before getting sober in the early 2000s.

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“I was an alcoholic, and I needed alcohol to function,” the guitarist admitted in 2015. “I started drinking and smoking when I was 12. I got drunk before I’d show up to high school. My ninth grade science teacher, he could smell the alcohol, and he told me, ‘Don’t drink anything you can’t see through.’ And I was like, ‘So, vodka?’ And he said yeah. Which was great, because that was my drink… I’m not blaming my father at all, but he was an alcoholic, too. So in our household, it was normal.”