Ever wonder what Prince and Eddie Van Halen talked about during their brief meeting? Well, we got the answer for you from an eyewitness, former Prince drummer, Michael Bland.
During a Podcast on Prince, Bland was asked which he preferred live, Hagar or Roth, he replied:
“I met Sammy when we played the MTV Video Music Awards in ’91. Van Halen, they played ‘Poundcake,’” he continued before dropping his bombshell. “And one of my favorite moments working with Prince was watching Eddie Van Halen and Prince have a conversation.”
The hosts got excited and interrupted Bland and made sure that they did not mishear him.
“Prince and Eddie,” Bland confirmed. “It was only a couple of minutes. We’d finished our sound check and we’d hung around for theirs. Prince was kinda talking to Dick Clark or somebody, and Sammy and Eddie came walking around. And they both greeted Prince, and Sammy kept walking but Eddie stayed.”
However, Bland wasn’t close enough to overhear the conversation, but he confirmed that the two were “laughing a lot. Prince had this kinda outfit; it’s an outfit he’s been photographed in. It’s like a white pinstriped one-piece that was kinda like a vest on the top,” Bland remembered. “Eddie said something and he started smiling, and he went to touch Prince’s lapel, like, ‘I like that; it’s real sharp. I used to wear something like this.’ It’s like that sorta thing – and Eddie did use to wear something like that.”
Adding that he “would really like to have been in on” that conversation between the two before finally giving his answer to which era he preferred, and Bland said he liked Roth as a frontman, but Hagar as a singer.
Watch the full interview below: