Van Halen Discuss Their First Record Deal

Okay, so you still want to be a rock n' roll star despite everything you know about the business? Sometimes all it takes is just one more horror story before the reality of the business sinks in.

Here's a great video with Eddie and Alex Van Halen and David Lee Roth of Van Halen as they discuss their first record deal. In it they reveal how they had a platinum album (1 million sales) and toured for a year and still owed the record label $2 million, all the while collecting weekly checks of only $83.83 a week.

Think it's changed much since then? Guess again.


Jump to 1:20 to get to the best part.

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