It all began in 1974 when David, Eddie, Alex, and Michael Anthony (the original bassist) met up and formed Van Halen. The band was new but blew people's minds away. Gene Simmons, lead vocalist of KISS, heard them and let them have a recording demo with Warner Bros. In 1978, their first album, appropriately titled Van Halen, was released, and the general population finally got to hear their unique sound. The crowd liked it so much that six weeks later, it went Gold. It peaked at #19 in the album charts.
After the first album, the band released 1 album for each of the next 5 years. In 1979, the band broke the Top 40 with "Dance the Night Away" from Van Halen II reaching #15 on the song charts. Then Eddie teamed up with the King of Pop, Michael Jackson, for "Beat It", which was a #1 hit in 1983. David did not like that, but what he hated even more was the idea of using synthesizer for their only #1 hit, "Jump". The band ended up using synthesizer for the song and it reached #1 in 1984, but David had had enough and left the band that same year.
Van Halen didn't quit, and they hired Sammy Hagar to replace "Diamond Dave". He didn't have the same energy that David had, but he did have enough for every one of his albums with Van Halen to reach #1 on the album charts. However, Sammy left the band, so they hired Gary Cherone, vocalist of the band Extreme, to join. They produced one album that didn't do so well, so Gary left. The vocals problem was settled in 2007 when David Lee Roth rejoined Van Halen for a reunion tour. Wolfgang replaced Michael Anthony for the tour, and they rocked. Currently they are making new music.
