#2. You give credit where credit is due IF you are an upstanding person. Why would EVH need to say anything about MA at all? Because he's a d*ck that's why.
#3. Didn't Hagar help write and help produce the records he sang and played on with VH? Van Halen had more success with SH, than with anyone before and after, record sales wise. Once again, you give credit where credit is due. If EVH is so great, why is that he hasn't made any real music since the SH days? Being in a band is a collaborative effort, which somehow or other EVH can't seem to reproduce on his own. Because he's a d*ck.
I'm sure he's had quite enough of being asked the same asshat questions every five minutes and hearing the same BS all the time about lead singers and bassists and playing these tunes vs. those tunes and blah blah blah. That Smithsonian thing from a few months back must've been nice for him because it wasn't a moron morning zoo DJ or hack music reporter asking the same played-out crap yet again. I'm betting that whenever you hear "OMG Eddie said THAT!?!?!?!?!" It's because he'd had about enough that day and can't drink and smoke about it.
Don't forget about the never ending supply of douchebags shoving microphones in people's faces.
It's all in degrees.
I would not put MA in my top five of all time but that doesn't diminish him as a musician.
And similarly, I once met Yngwie several years ago at a meet & greet/autograph signing at a local musical instrument store here in Oklahoma, and he went well above and beyond to make sure he came off as an arrogant prick. :mrgreen