Sammy Hagar is looking to mend fences with his former bandmate Alex Van Halen amid their longtime feud.
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In a new interview with Rolling Stone, Hagar, 77, says he wants to try to make peace with the Van Halen drummer after their nearly two-decade long estrangement.
“It’s on my bucket list that I will not take this to my grave, and I don’t want Al taking it to his grave,” Hagar tells the outlet. “I’ve put the olive branch out there many times, and I just put it out again to (Van Halen manager) Irving Azoff.”
Hagar famously replaced Van Halen’s original singer David Lee Roth in 1985 after the latter left the group to pursue a solo career. Along with Eddie on guitar, brother Alex on drums and Michael Anthony on bass, they recorded four platinum records, including 5150, OU812, For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge and Balance. Hagar left the band in 1996 and was replaced briefly by Gary Cherone. He reunited with the band for a 2004 tour, but their fractious relationship continued offstage leading Hagar to exit the band once again.
Roth returned to the fold in 2007 and they embarked on three world tours over the next eight years, making one record along the way — 2012’s A Different Kind of Truth.
Hagar’s comments come after the recent release of Alex’s memoir Brothers, which deals with the early years of Van Halen but doesn’t include any mention of Sammy’s time with the band.
Before Eddie’s death in 2020, Hagar was holding out hope for a reunion tour with the Van Halen brothers. “Eddie and I are not done,” he told Rolling Stone. “If enough water goes under the bridge before we die, (a reunion will) happen. It has to. God is going to slap us both around if he has to.”
But even though they never got another chance to play live again, Hagar and Eddie reconciled in the months before the founder of Van Halen died after a battle with throat cancer in October 2020.
“Eddie and I had been texting, and it’s been a love fest since we started communicating earlier this year,” Hagar said in a note provided to the Howard Stern show. “We both agreed not to tell anyone, because of all the rumours it would stir up about a reunion, et cetera, and we both knew that wasn’t gonna happen. But he also didn’t want anyone to know about his health.”
Hagar went on to add that Eddie stopped replying a month before his death.
“He stopped responding to me a month ago, and I figured it wasn’t good,” Hagar continued in his message to Stern. “I reached out one more time last week, and when he didn’t respond, I figured it was a matter of time. But it came way too soon.”
Hagar kept Van Halen’s music alive with this past summer’s Best of All Worlds Tour, which featured Anthony on bass, Joe Satriani on guitar and Jason Bonham on drums.
“It’s crazy to think that it’ll be 20 years since Mikey and I played these songs with Van Halen on the 04’ Best of Both Worlds Tour,” Hagar said of resurrecting Van Halen’s catalogue. “The music we created is going to outlive us all. They deserve to be heard so it’s time we go out and serve the fans that music, while we still can.”
Hagar tried to enlist Alex to join the tour, but he got no reply.
“We reached out to him a dozen times before this tour, in every way. Email, text message, phone call, message on the machine, OK? No response. No response,” Hagar told Ultimate Classic Rock in July.
“When the tour came, the first person we called and left all of the messages, sent all of emails, it was Alex Van Halen. Mike and I said, ‘We’re wanting to do this thing.’ Alex’s famous line to me (was), ‘Sammy, we ain’t getting any younger.’ Mike and I said, ‘Alex, we ain’t getting any younger. We’re going out and playing for the people. We’re going to go honour the Van Halen catalog. Let’s just get together and let’s talk about it. Mike and I, we’re going out, we’re going to do this, Alex. Please join us. Let’s be friends, let’s bury the hatchet, whatever.’ There was no response.”
In an interview with Billboard last month, Alex was dismissive of the trek.
“I’m not interested,” he said of the tour. “They’re not doing the band justice. They can do what they want to do. That’s not my business.”
Hagar tells Rolling Stone, that he still wants to be “friends” again with his former bandmate.
“I don’t want to play in a band with Al. I’m not asking for that. I can see that he’s not capable of doing that. If he was, I’d be happy to play with him, but it’s not what I’m looking for. I just want to be friends again,” he said.
Hagar also addressed the fact that Alex’s memoir includes no mention of his time with the band, calling the snub “sad.”
“I haven’t read the whole book, but I’ve seen all the excerpts, and I heard some of the interviews,” he said.
“Why he left me out, I would like to hear him explain that someday, because I don’t get it completely. I know that he’s bitter about some things, whatever that is… It’s like, ‘If you don’t want that era, that even gives me more justification to say I own it then,’ because no one else can do it, and he can’t do it even without me,” Hagar said.
But Hagar credited Alex for focusing on his brotherly bond with Eddie and said that maybe his era with the band will be covered off in a sequel.
“I understand he probably couldn’t have done the whole era in one book. It would’ve been the Bible, the dictionary, so maybe he’s got plans for a Volume 2. Who knows?”