You know, it never ceases to amaze me how the human mind can play tricks on itself to make things sound not as bad as they were. Check out this excerpt of Cherone.


"Vocally, the Sammy stuff was very challenging. He is a great singer and has a higher range than me. When we were writing Van Halen III we were writing songs that seemed like they were in the Sammy key. So I was reaching for notes I would have never done with Extreme. I think it made me a better singer."

I vividly remember Cherone trying to hit the Sammy songs and they were so far out of his range that buffalo's couldn't even roam there! It didn't make him a better singer, it exposed him as a limited singer and he should have insisted on sticking to the Dave stuff and the new stuff so as not to come off looking so bad. If Eddie was writing songs in Sammy's keys, then tell him you can't sing them there and get him to lower the keys... But for the love of God, don't go on tour in front of the whole world and try to sing a catalog that you can't reach vocally!! Watching Cherone try to sing the Sammy songs was like watching a wounded cat.

With that said, Cherone is an awesome singer that can do alot of things vocally that Sammy can't do, especially when it comes to singing pretty or falsetto material. Singers should always stick to what they do well even if it means giving up a chance to sing with Van Halen. So he gets to say that he was one of the 3 singers in Van Halen and no, we can't take that away from him. But his tenure in the band is a smear on Van Halen's and Gary Cherone's separate legacy's. Was it really worth it?