True Rock Tales: 'The Third Way': Van Halen III, Twenty Years On

It was 20 years ago this month that one of the world’s most successful rock band’ unveiled its MK. III incarnation: Van Halen’s III. Even if you are one of the Van Halen diehards who bought the album, or you caught the band on their 1998 world tour, or you are the band’s short-lived frontman Gary Cherone, odds are you don’t know the full story behind one of the most misguided, star-crossed album cycles of the Classic Rock Era. The Riffage’s Steve Haag explains how III’s 20th anniversary is the closest this album will ever get to platinum.


ANTICIPATION

It was St. Patrick’s Day Eve -- March 16, 1998 -- in Boston and a palpable buzz filled the air, something above and beyond the revving of the paddywagon engines tuning up in advance of the next day’s culturally-sanctioned debauchery. Temperatures hovered in the low 40s, but it felt colder than that to the crowd already gathered by noon of that Tuesday in the shadow of Tower Records, the three-story megastore which pinned down the western end of the city’s famed Newbury Street. While half the crowd were pre-holiday revelers and standard-issue bums, the other half were waiting for midnight, when Van Halen III would go on sale at Tower. You would have thought these people had somewhere better to be, but you would have been wrong.

Excitement for Van Halen III had been building across the country for weeks, but only in Boston had it truly reached a fever pitch. At the heart of the hype was the hard-rockin’ quartet’s new frontman, Gary Cherone, the pride and joy of nearby Malden, MA, and beloved lead singer of local rockers Extreme. That band’s fortunes had run the gamut from a “Participant” ribbon in the 1982 WBCN Rock ‘n’ Roll Rumble (when they were still called Dream), to a name change (ex-Dream, get it?), to having an album whose title their young fans had a hard time explaining to their grandparents when they submitted their Christmas wish lists (1990’s Extreme II: Pornograffiti), and, finally, to having their legacy defined by two acoustic songs, “More Than Words” and “Hole Hearted”, that completely betrayed their hard rock/”funky metal” sound. After Extreme disbanded in 1996, Massachusetts fans from Abington to Yarmouth rejoiced when Cherone was given the keys to the lean, mean, legendary hard rock machine Van Halen, the East Coast boy able to now reach down between his legs and ease back the driver’s seat that once cushioned Diamond David Lee Roth and his assless chaps, and Sammy Hagar and his Zubaz. Upon hearing the news, countless Bostonians took off their Tim Naehring t-shirt jerseys and pulled their “Beat L.A.” shirts out of storage. (Just kidding, they had never taken their “Beat L.A.” shirts out of regular rotation.)

TROUBLE IN THE STUDIO

Mike Post, Obvious Producer Choice

With the new line-up in place -- Cherone, bassist Michael Anthony, drummer Alex Van Halen and guitarist Eddie Van Halen -- the band quickly identified a producer: television composer Mike Post, whom Eddie had wanted to work with ever since becoming enamored with Post’s 1982 smash hit “Theme From Greatest American Hero (Believe It Or Not)”. Eddie had gone as far as to record a version of the song for 1982’s covers-heavy album, Diver Down, only to have that album’s producer, Ted Templeman, “accidentally” incinerate the master recording with a crème brûlée torch that David Lee Roth left in the studio to light the $100 bills that he would then light his cigars with. In a July 1997 interview with Guitar for the Practicing Musician magazine, Eddie admitted he had forgotten about the song but was reminded of it by the episode of Seinfeld (“The Susie,” airdate February 13, 1997) where George records a parody version of it for his outgoing answering machine message. He reached out to Post the next day, and Post -- who had just completed a Music From L.A. Law remix album with the Dust Brothers and needed a new project -- agreed to produce.

Despite the smooth sailing that the largesse of record label Warner Brothers and the services of Mike Freakin’ Post would seemingly provide a band of Van Halen’s talents, factions quickly formed within the band: Post, the Van Halen brothers, engineer Erwin (Mucho Mic’s) Musper, art director Stine Schyberg, photographer Dan Chavkin, tour manager Scotty Ross, studio manager Ken Deane, the programming team of Florian Ammon, Ian Dye, Ed Rogers and Paul Wight, and colorist F. Scott Schaefer on one side, and Anthony on the other, with Cherone playing peacemaker, trying to mollify both camps over meals of homemade New England clam chowder, lobster rolls and Necco Wafers. Eddie had been skeptical of Anthony’s time-keeping skills after seeing him dance in the band’s “Hot for Teacher” video, and had only been prevented from firing him throughout the years by the interdiction of former VH lead singer Sammy Hagar, who relied heavily on the bassist for input on how best to launch his Cabo Wabo tequila and Cabo Wabo Cantina restaurant -- Anthony’s parents having owned a Shakey’s Pizza outside of Chicago during Anthony’s formative years. Despite Anthony’s untouchable status in the band at the time, Eddie had been taunting the bassist for years, promising that he would sire a son whom he would groom to replace Anthony. When Wolfgang was born to Eddie and then-wife Valerie Bertinelli, the birth announcement read, “Welcome Wolfgang William Van Halen 3/16/91 -- Future Van Halen Bassist”.

As work on Van Halen III proceeded, Eddie worked to freeze Anthony out of the band, limiting him to bass duties on only three tracks, the titles of which were not-so-veiled threats to Anthony: “Without You”, “One I Want” and “Fire in the Hole”. Eddie took six-year-old Wolfgang out of first grade to play bass on the album’s remaining nine tracks, and he officially replaced Anthony in the band in 2006, at age 15.

THE ROLL-OUT

Not that the fans were aware of these intra-band squabbles. Warner Brothers’ promotional campaign for the record spared no expense -- and coming off the heels of 1995’s triple-platinum-selling Balance, and the band adding the wildly popular Cherone to the fold, the label’s approach seemed well-founded, a pump primed to line the label’s coffers further. Or something like that.

Alex waves from the
Santa Claus Float

The album cycle began earnestly, though ominously, on Thanksgiving 1997, when Alex Van Halen surprised the crowd at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade by appearing as Santa Claus -- though he refused to wear a hat or beard, and was upstaged by the spectacle of several of the balloons (including the Cat in the Hat, the Nestle Quik Bunny, and Barney the Dinosaur) destroyed by 40-mile-an-hour winds. Meanwhile, VH had signed a deal to join the roster of performers at the halftime of Super Bowl XXXII, but those plans were quickly scuppered when Cherone joined commentators Tom Hammond and Randy Cross in the NBC broadcast booth during the AFC Divisional Playoff game between the New England Patriots and Pittsburgh Steelers on January 3, 1998, and, showing his Beantown stripes, dismissed Super Bowl co-headliners Boyz II Men “as fake-ass New Edition wannabes”.  (Upside: Community leaders in Roxbury, MA, where New Edition hailed from, briefly renamed Linwood Park “Gary Cherone Park” as a show of solidarity.)

Fortunately, further rollouts went much smoother: the band was musical guest on the February 14, 1998, episode of Saturday Night Live, hosted by Roma Downey, and even appeared in a sketch: the quartet ran through a medley of recent-ish Van Halen hits (“Don’t Tell Me (What Love Can Do)”, “When It’s Love” and “Poundcake”) with Marty Culp and Bobbie Mohan-Culp, the Altadena Middle School Chorus teachers played by Will Ferrell and Ana Gasteyer (Downey played a tambourine-twirling Valerie Bertinelli). They also performed III’s wistful, piano-led album opening instrumental “Neworld” over the episode’s closing credits, in place of the long-standing “A Waltz In A”. In the biggest promotional coup, the group served as the house band for the performances of all of the Best Original Song nominees at the 70th Academy Awards (save Elliott Smith, who begged off for a solo take on Good Will Hunting’s “Miss Misery”). On the strength Cherone’s duet with Celine Dion on Titanic’s “My Heart Will Go On,” the Oscar broadcast itself was nominated for Outstanding Variety, Music or Comedy Special at the 50th Primetime Emmy Awards that September, where it lost to the (Van Halen-free) 51st Annual Tony Awards.

FINISHING TOUCHES

When not making the rounds in parades or on TV, the band was busy designing Van Halen III’s iconic cover behind Michael Anthony’s back. (Art director Stine Schyberg -- Alex Van Halen’s wife -- and Anthony had nearly come to blows over the color of Best Of - Volume 1’s cover.) Schyberg sought to unify the three eras of the band through circus freaks: the conjoined twins on 1995’s Hagar-led Balance, and the smoking angel baby on 1984’s Roth-fueled 1984 (which was based on an sideshow attraction that the Van Halen brothers had seen as children growing up in the Netherlands -- the famous “Rokende Baby” of Nijmegen). 

The fabled "freak-show trilogy"

While no confirming documentation exists, it’s likely that Seinfeld once again played a role in Eddie’s decision-making process, as he suggested a guy-taking-a-cannonball-to-the-gut photo as the cover in mid-December 1997, shortly after the Seinfeld episode “The Apology” aired on December 11. (Jerry, on his frequently casually-naked girlfriend: "When you cough, there are thousands of unseen muscles that suddenly spring into action. It's like watching that fat guy catch a cannonball in his stomach in slow motion.") The “Homerpalooza” episode of The Simpsons, which aired in May of 1996, may have also been a contributing factor -- Eddie, an inveterate Simpsons fan, had been lobbying that show’s producers for a cameo, and the band finally were granted a (dialog-free) appearance in the eleventh season finale, “Behind the Laughter”. (Rumor has it Eddie was furious when Sammy Hagar had several speaking lines in season 26’s “Covercraft” episode, even going so far as to sue to have “Behind the Laughter” removed from syndication.) 

Early plans for the cover drafted by Schyberg called for Anthony to be shot with a cannonball (unbeknownst at the time to the bassist, of course) and photographed by Larry Clark, with Schyberg even going so far as to pay out of pocket to procure a working cannon through eBay. Eddie and Alex loved the design, but Warner Brothers lawyers vetoed the plan, citing fears of copycat cannonings. Cooler heads having prevailed, Schyberg found a photo still from the famous film footage of Frank “Cannonball” Richards being struck at close range. Liner note photos of the band enjoying a day at the fair were taken at the Lunar New Year Festival in San Gabriel, California, a day marred only by Alex eating too much cotton candy. Cherone, whose involvement in the art design had been minimal, told Rolling Stone’s David Fricke that the album cover and liner note photos served as “a metaphor for the band reclaiming its rightful place in the rock universe,” a phrase that Fricke kindly let go unchallenged.

Artwork in place, the album still needed a title. Having cheekily slid 1991’s vulgar acronym For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge past oblivious censors, the new album boasted the working title Society’s Hierarchy Is Threatened to reflect the album’s political leanings (as evinced by tracks like “Dirty Water Dog” and “Ballot Or The Bullet”). Once again, though, Eddie’s television-watching habits came to the fore, as the guitarist became enamored with the popular Volkswagen commercial that featured German new wave band Trio’s 1982 hit "Da Da Da I Don't Love You You Don't Love Me Aha Aha Aha”. Alex talked his brother out of recording a cover version for the album, but Eddie had the last laugh, paying tribute to the German band’s name and its tri-syllabic hit, in the form of the new album title: Van Halen III. If Cherone’s feelings were hurt, he never let on.   

Back in Boston on album release eve, the fans outside Tower Records were getting restless. Cherone’s plans to greet the crowd, sign autographs, and hand out samples of his energy drink, Cher-ade, fell through at the last moment, as he had to spend the day petitioning the State Department for an expedited passport so the band could travel to Toronto on March 18 for a pre-tour warm up gig at a Sam the Record Man store. Several pallets of Cher-ade were delivered, however, and angry crowds emptied bottles on the store’s windows and front steps. (After this PR debacle, Cher-ade was never made available for sale.) Riot police dispersed the mob, and closed the store for the night before any purchases could be made. The Boston Tower Records, expected to be one of the biggest sales points for the new album, sold a grand total of 75 copies of the record in its first week. The album still debuted at #4 on the Billboard 200 (bested by C-Murder’s Life or Death, Celine Dion’s Let’s Talk About Love, and the Titanic soundtrack), but industry analysts cited the poor Boston sales as the chief reason Van Halen III was the only album in the band’s discography to that point not to go platinum, though, in fairness to the band, by mid-March most Bostonians are focused on the upcoming Red Sox season to the exclusion of all other entertainment options.     

ROAD DOGS

Van Halen III’s creation and promotional cycle had been tumultuous even by the band’s chaotic standards; now it was time for the band to embark on a comically ambitious world tour (because they pitied the Australia or New Zealand fans who had never seen them before) that completely ignored their current standing in the rock strata, and would span March-November 1998.

The tour started in April 1998 in New Zealand, where ticket sales were driven by the novelty of seeing a band not on the Flying Nun record label perform in the country. The remainder of April was spent touring Australia, which was largely uneventful, outside of the band’s performance at Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne on April 17, when Anthony regaled the crowd with an off-color joke about Silverchair frontman Daniel Johns that nearly caused a riot. As punishment for his ill-advised remarks, Eddie forbade Anthony from performing bass solos for the remainder of the tour.    

The first U.S. leg of the tour included a May 21 stop in Cherone’s hometown of Boston, at the FleetCenter. Cherone introduced a special guest: his Extreme guitarist Nuno Bettencourt, who unbeknownst to Eddie, performed “Eruption” to a mesmerized, delirious crowd. Eddie never spoke a word to Cherone ever again, which was difficult, considering the tour continued for another five-plus months and the group was planning a second album together. 

Cherone, trying to stay in the fans’ good graces (if not always those of his bandmates), sang selections from both the Roth and Hagar eras during the tour, including such deep cuts as “Atomic Punk,” “Women In Love…,” “In A Simple Rhyme,” and “The Full Bug” (from Roth’s VH albums) and “Inside,” “Source of Infection,” “Pleasure Dome,” and “Big Fat Money” (from Hagar’s VH albums). He may have been overly solicitous, though, adding non-VH tracks from both singers’ repertoires to the setlists, including “Ladies’ Night in Buffalo?,” “Hot Dog and a Shake” and “Weekend With The Babysitter” (Roth); “One Thing On My Mind” and “Spaceage Sacrifice” (from Hagar’s stint with Montrose); and “Urban Guerilla,” “The Pits,” “Crack in the World,” “Trans Am (Highway Wonderland),” “In The Night (Entering the Danger Zone),” “Inside Lookin’ In,” “Remember the Heroes,” “Valley of the Kings,” and “Rock Is In My Blood” (solo Hagar). By the time the band hit Boston (again) in August, not a single song from Van Halen III graced the setlist. While Cherone was a genuine fan of these songs, VH fans’ initial excitement gradually turned to befuddlement, and ticket sales slumped as word-of-mouth spread that the show was larded with obscurities. What the public didn’t know was that Eddie had given Cherone final setlist approval in exchange for Cherone’s tacit approval in removing Anthony from the band.      

The tour was exacting its toll on all the members of the band, but Eddie’s spirits were lifted during the band’s week in Germany (May 29-June 3). He was able to track down the members of Trio -- singer/keyboardist Stephan Remmler, guitarist Gert Krawinkel and drummer Peter Behrens -- and persuaded them to perform at all five of the band’s German tour dates; it was the first time three had played together since 1986. With Eddie’s backing they performed “Da Da Da” nightly, naturally, but Eddie, oblivious to the fact that Cherone was not also a fan, also got them to perform minimal synth versions of Extreme’s “Hole Hearted” (“Loch Herzen”) and “More Than Words” (“Mehr Als Worte”) -- a move Cherone interpreted as an insult and one that nearly caused him to retract his promise to vote to fire Anthony at the band’s annual retreat. (The Germans, unaware of the band’s toxic dynamics, eventually apologized to Cherone.)

Anthony, with seemingly the entire Van Halen machine arrayed against him, played the lone card he had on tour: inviting Sammy Hagar to make a surprise appearance onstage on the Red Rocker’s birthday, October 13, at Sullivan Sports Arena in Anchorage, Alaska. Hagar, eager to stick it to the Van Halen brothers, indebted to Anthony for his family’s restaurant advice, and excited to cross Alaska off his “states visited” list, readily agreed. Knowing Eddie would never share a stage with Hagar, Anthony and Hagar ran onstage before the show started to a stunned crowd and performed several vocals-and-bass only tracks from the band’s 5150 album (in honor of Hagar’s 51st birthday): “Why Can’t This Be Love,” “Dreams,” and “Love Walks In”. Eddie, seething offstage, mentally removed Anthony from his Christmas card list, Hagar having long been banished from the list.

Scot Halpin, Super Sub of '73

Meanwhile, Alex had been nursing a mild arm injury ever since he had high-fived a roadie too hard after a drum solo during the July 1 performance at Phoenix’s Blockbuster Desert Sky Pavilion. With memories of the so-called “Ambulance” Tour promoting Balance -- where Eddie battled a hip injury and Alex wore a neck brace after rupturing three vertebrae in his neck -- tour management insisted the band drink lots of milk, to promote strong and healthy bones. As further insurance against cancellation in the event that Alex couldn’t play, tour managers flew to Bloomington, IN and contracted Scot Halpin -- who had gained minor notoriety in 1973 when, at age 19, he was pulled out of the crowd at the Who concert at the Cow Palace in San Francisco to fill in for a PCP-addled Keith Moon -- to follow the tour and fill in for Alex should the need arise. The 44-year-old Halpin traveled with the band from August 2 through the tour’s conclusion on November 2 at Yokohama Arena in Japan; his services were never needed, and the tour jacket he was given by the band as a sign of appreciation was stolen before he returned to the states.

THE REVIEWS ARE IN

"Better than 'VHIII," - Xgau

The beatings -- self-inflicted and otherwise -- the band took while on the road were nothing compared to the critical reception that greeted III upon its release. The March 14 issue of NME blared the headline “SH’III’TE”, a headline all the more remarkable considering that the magazine had never deigned to review a Van Halen album before. Meanwhile, Village Voice editor Robert Christgau gave it an unprecedented “three bombs and two turkeys” in his fabled Consumer Guide. The Dean of Rock Critics even invoked III nearly a decade later in his “two bomb” review of Kevin Federline’s 2006 misguided album Playing With Fire: “Spared a third bomb only by dint of being 20 minutes shorter than the execrable Van Halen III.” Indeed, it was III’s runtime (65 minutes!), lack of memorable choruses, surfeit of clever lyrics, uninspired hooks, muddy production, paucity of songs that merited even more than one spin, and general off-putting attitude that the critical community took umbrage with in review after review.   

Even within the band, opinions varied. In a moment of candor, Cherone told NBC’s Friday Night host Rita Sever that the band knew the album’s only good song was “Without You” and they padded out the rest of the album to justify the CD’s $18.99 price to “stay on Jack Warner’s good side.” He also alluded to several scrapped between-song skits that would’ve bumped the runtime to a disc-maximizing 74 minutes. (These tracks, to this day, have never materialized, though they’re rumored to be in-studio pranks at Michael Anthony’s expense.)

Eddie was much more sanguine about the album, telling Entertainment Tonight’s Garrett Glaser that he was excited to share their new songs with the world, and was sure that the band’s hard-rockin’, fun-lovin’ fanbase would love the introspective tunes, including the 7:42 mystical “Once” (“The best song that Live never wrote,” Eddie bragged); the 5:42 “Josephina,” which Eddie claimed was inspired by the time he badgered a mysterious, soft-spoken woman about her past, refusing to take no for an answer; and the 8:34 “Year To The Day,” an ode to 365 days of misery, loneliness, and anger.

Alex, still smarting from the criticism he received for his stripped-down take on Santa Claus at the Thanksgiving Day parade, largely opted out of the promotional cycle. He granted a lone interview to the Dutch tabloid Algemeen Dagblad, wherein he admitted that he attempted to listen to the completed album twice, and that he fell asleep both times by track four, “From Afar”. (He also confessed he thought the song was called “From Jafar” and that it was based on the Disney movie Aladdin.)

Anthony, who only played on three tracks, was told by Eddie’s lawyers that, by dint of playing on a minority of tracks on the album, he was unable to comment publicly on it, lest he run afoul of the newly-implemented WIPO Copyright and Performances and Phonograms Treaties Implementation Act (which in actuality prohibits the removal of copyright management information from recorded media). Having already been reduced to an ancillary member of the band during the recording of the album, Anthony chose not to fight back, though he did appear on the cover of Bass Guitar’s annual “Master Bassists” August issue fold-out cover, appearing alongside Robbie Merrill (Godsmack), Greg K (The Offspring), Melissa Auf Der Maur (Hole), Rob “Blasko” Nicholson (Rob Zombie), Twiggy Ramirez (Marilyn Manson) and Reginald "Fieldy" Arvizu* (Korn). (This is the famous photo shoot where Auf Der Maur, not wanting to be the only female on the cover, insisted on including a cardboard cut-out of Smashing Pumpkins’ D’Arcy Wretzky that she brought with her. The cut-out was (poorly) airbrushed out by the magazine’s photo editor, which in turn led to the legend that the ghost of Jaco Pastorius haunted the photo session.)  

FALLOUT

As it became clear over the summer that III was not going to meet Warner Brothers’s sales expectations, further promotional plans for the band and album were sidelined. The band was disinvited from appearing on the September 14 debut of MTV’s Total Request Live, depriving the world the sight of Eddie and veejay Jesse Camp co-introducing the video for Monica’s “The First Night”. Likewise, Burger King’s three-way promotional tie-in between the band and the Jean-Claude van Damme/Rob Schneider action/buddy flick Knock Off -- a spicy chicken sandwich, inspired by inclusion of the band’s “Fire In The Hole” on the film’s soundtrack -- was also scrapped days before its launch on September 4. The band’s best days were officially behind them.   

Van Halen limped home from the Asian leg of their tour on November 3, with no one on speaking terms and everyone in the band mildly embarrassed that the talents of the innocent Nuno Bettencourt and Sammy Hagar had been weaponized against their bandmates. Still, the band voted to make Anthony fly in the plane’s cargo hull with the equipment.

Plans for a follow-up album -- a concept album expanding on the lyrical conceits of III’s “Once” -- were shelved, to the dismay of no one but Eddie, who rumor has it, is still tinkering with this album as of this writing in February 2018.

The 1999 Van Halen Annual Retreat, normally held each year in February in the French Alps, was pushed back to April after a series of avalanches destroyed Eddie’s chalet outside of Geneva (and also so Cherone, a presidential history buff, could attend the impeachment hearing of President Bill Clinton). The extra two months did nothing to abate the rancor between the bandmates -- who were still not on speaking terms -- and the entire retreat was held in the presence of each member’s team of lawyers. Anthony, as expected, was voted out of the band, 4-0, his vote having been stripped away from him through arcane parliamentary procedure and given to Alex’s wife Stine Schyberg. (Inexplicably, Van Halen kept up the facade that Anthony remained a full bandmember until September 2006.) Other business included Cherone winning Van Halen Rookie of the Year Award, and Alex winning the Van Halen Rhythm Section Timekeeper/Motivator Award for the 20th consecutive year.   

S. Roy Hagar & D. L. Roth (L-R)

This would turn out to be the last Annual Retreat the band ever held. Cherone returned to Boston and, inspired by the Roth/Hagar deep cuts he performed on tour, started a Van Halen cover band, Everybody Wants Some!!, with his brother Markus. In 2002, he and Anthony played select dates on David Lee Roth and Sammy Hagar’s “Song for Song, the Heavyweight Champs of Rock and Roll Tour” aka “Sans-Halen” aka “Sam & Dave Tour” aka “Mr. Spandex & Curly Hair Guy Tour” aka “Diamond Dave’s Super-Sexalicious Rocktastic Tour (feat. S. Roy Hagar)”. Eddie and Alex auditioned a handful of potential replacement lead singers, including Chester Bennington, Andrew W.K., Ritchie Blackmore, Don Dokken, Blackie Lawless (W.A.S.P.), Wes Scantlin (Puddle of Mudd), and Phil Black (L.A. Guns), before eventually re-teaming up with Hagar (2003-05) and then Roth (2006-present), because all parties had nowhere better to be at the time.

This story does have one happy ending, however. In 2009, Michael Anthony formed Chickenfoot with

Chickenfoot: Grammy Royalty

Hagar, Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith, and guitarist Joe Satriani. Their eponymous debut swept the 2010 Grammys: Album of the Year, Best New Artist, Best Rock Album, Best Engineered Album, and Best Recording Package (for Chickenfoot’s temperature/color sensitive front and back covers), with single “Oh Yeah” winning Record of the Year, Song of the Year, Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal, Best Rock Song, and Best Shortform Music Video; Andy Johns won Producer of the Year, Non-Classical. The band also performed during the telecast, joining numerous fellow musical celebrities in tributes to Michael Jackson, Les Paul and the victims of the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. Later that week, Anthony learned that Trader Joe’s supermarkets would begin carrying his “Mad Anthony” hot sauce line, specifically replacing Eddie’s “Eruption” hot sauce. For the long-suffering Anthony, revenge was best served at 2,000,000 scoville units. 

*Correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly identified James "Munky" Shaffer as Korn's bassist. He is that band's rhythm guitarist.


 Previously in "True Rock Tales": True Rock Tales: Tad and the 1993 World Series