Sammy Hagar: “I’m sad I didn’t get do a tour with Dave Lee Roth and Van Halen. Eddie wanted it to happen”

“Wow! I’ll say Frank Ocean because I don’t know who that is.”

WRONG. Frank Ocean references Van Halen on his 2011 cut ‘Songs For Women’, as does Lana Del Rey on ‘Mermaid Motel’ and Lady Gaga on ‘Shake Your Kitty’. The Killers are the only band that haven’t released a track with a lyrical nod.

“Which is ironic because when The Killers played at the Ohana Festival in 2023, they invited me to sing the Van Halen song ‘Why Can’t This Be Love’ which they all love. Great band!”

Any other acts you’re enjoying?

“Yungblud is the next superstar on this planet. I saw him at Ozzy Osbourne’s ‘Back to the Beginning‘ singing ‘Changes’ and I became a huge fan overnight. He was on earlier than me and killed it. When he came offstage, I joked: ‘Hey dude, you can’t do that to an old guy like me! Have some respect!’ [Laughs]”

“Oh, ‘Rock Candy’ and ‘Flying High Again’.”

CORRECT.

“Wait, you think I wouldn’t remember that? How old do you think I am – 150?! [Laughs] Although I didn’t know the words to Black Sabbath’s ‘Flying High Again’. I screwed up the first verse, but I have redeemed myself since!”

“Backstage, Steven Tyler was a wreck and freaking out about going onstage. I said: ‘Steven, what the hell? Do you want me to walk out there with you?’. I wasn’t as scared as him, but I was nervous. I picked the right song with ‘Flying High Again’, and I chose ‘Rock Candy’ because it’s an early track from my old band Montrose from 1973, the same era as Black Sabbath, with a similar heavy groove. I was honoured to be asked to do it.”

Any favourite memories of Ozzy?

“When I was going to do the Van Halen reunion tour in 2004, I was in a LA restaurant with Ozzy and Sharon who were giving me advice. I said: ‘I don’t know if I want to do it. Eddie [Van Halen]’s not in good shape’. Sharon’s urging: ‘Sammy, take the money!’.  I’m protesting: ‘I don’t need the money. I’ve gotta do it from my heart’, as Ozzy’s agreeing: ‘Yeah Sharon, listen to him, he knows what he wants to do’. Ozzy was the sweetest, most genuine man. He was special.”

“Oh, I would have to say the former Van Halen singer! [Laughs] Wasn’t it a drag impersonator of someone like… Grace Slick from Jefferson Airplane?”

WRONG. Cher.

“I didn’t even read the script! I had no idea I was supposed to be working at a gay bar until I went to the bathroom and there were [glory] holes drilled into the walls. What a trip!”

‘Over in a corner we wrote this song’.

CORRECT. From your recent single, ‘Encore, Thank You, Goodnight’ which you co-wrote in a dream with Eddie Van Halen, who died in 2020. Do you believe his ghost actually collaborated with you?

“100 per cent. It happened. I waited so long to tell the story because I thought nobody would believe me. It was real and spiritual. Whenever I’d run into Eddie, I’d always say, ‘What have you got?’, ‘cause his music was so inspiring to me, and he’d always play me a guitar lick or squeal that was unique. In the dream, he showed me the lick for ‘Encore, Thank You, Goodnight’. I called Steve Lukather and every guitar player who knew Eddie and asked, ‘Did Eddie ever show you that lick?’, and they replied, ‘No, but it sounds like something he would do though’. And I wrote the lyrics telling the exact story of what happened in the dream. The first time I sang the song, an energy came through me and I thought I was going to explode! I thought I was going to have to take a tranquiliser!”.

If Eddie hadn’t passed away, do you think you would have worked together again?

“100 per cent. We talked about it. This is personal stuff, but Eddie even said to me: ‘Man, we made some great music together. I’ve been fighting this [cancer] for 10 years. I’ve got to beat this, and next year, let’s get together, make some new music and go out and make some noise together’. Then he said: ‘But please don’t tell anyone, and especially don’t tell Al [Alex Van Halen].”

“And I’m going: ‘Wow, I guess him and Al aren’t getting along right now’. I mean, those brothers – it was rockier between those two more than between me and them. I never told anyone because I wasn’t going to betray Eddie. But Eddie wanted to go out and bring everyone out – do Sam and Dave [Lee Roth, original Van Halen frontman] and have [Eddie’s son] Wolfie open and do the whole nine yards. It would have been a dream come true for the fans. I’m sad it never happened. I’m sad we never got to do the Sam and Dave tour with Van Halen. If Dave had been more user-friendly, we could have done it, but he doesn’t play well with others! [Laughs]”

Is there no chance of doing a Sam and Dave tour in some form with the surviving members of Van Halen?

“No. I don’t have any hope to play with Alex. When you sell all your equipment and are walking around on crutches, you’re not going to tour. And Dave, I could care less. I’ve no problem with Dave, but I wouldn’t want to tour with him again. We did it in 2002, and he was miserable. He’s no fun. He’s not what he appears to be, he’s always playing mind games. Needless to say, we’ve all heard that he’s struggling with his voice, and I wouldn’t want to bring him out with the ticket price it would be and have to apologise to people.”

“I’m happy with my ‘Best of All Worlds Band’. I’ve got guitarist Joe Satriani, who is as close to Eddie as you’re going to get, and [longtime Van Halen bassist] Michael Anthony who is as much a part of Van Halen’s sound as anybody, and the legendary drummer Kenny Aronoff. This is the best band I’ve been in since Van Halen.”

“Whatsherface… Billie Eilish?”

CORRECT.

“That was very cool and honest of her. I thought it was funny, but I respected her because she’s not a bullshit artist.”

“Velvet Revolver. I can even tell you that it was Matt Sorum who mentioned my name!”

CORRECT. Apparently you once turned down the chance to be in Velvet Revolver.

“Every damn band you’ve ever heard of has tried to get me in at some point! Even when Steven Tyler went off the rails and fell off the stage in 2009,  [Aerosmith’s] Joe Perry and their manager called me up and asked me to join the band for a South American and US tour. I started making a setlist in my head of classics like ‘Livin’ On The Edge’. Then I thought, ‘Am I fucking crazy? I ain’t going to try and replace a guy like Steven Tyler’. When Robert Plant and Jimmy Page weren’t getting on, people in the industry were trying to get me to front Led Zep – who are one of my favourite bands in the world, but I wouldn’t be caught dead trying to replace Robert Plant! Who else? Anthrax, even the [Grateful] Dead – the Grateful Dead’s Bob Weir and me are dear friends, and we’ve talked a million times about me being in the band.”

“But I think: are you trying to put nails in my coffin, you fuckers! [Laughs] I did it once with Dave in Van Halen. If I did it again, it would change my whole legacy. I’d be the guy who replaced two singers, instead of Sammy Hagar. I’m happy with the career path I’ve taken. Getting kicked out of Montrose [in 1975] was the best thing that ever happened to me, and getting kicked out of Van Halen [in 1996] was the second best thing. I wouldn’t change anything.”

“The Simpsons, of course, and Aqua Teen Hunger Force?”

CORRECT.

“Ooh, that’s difficult, ‘cause it was Number 1 in America, so I’m going to take a wild guess and say Number 5?”

WRONG. 8. As your final album with Van Halen, how do you look back on it?

“Van Halen were the happiest band in the world starting with [1986’s] ‘5150’. None of us had any doubts that it was going to work, ‘cause we went into the studio for one day and wrote ‘Good Enough’, ‘Summer Nights’, ‘Why Can’t This Be Love’ and ‘Best of Both Worlds’. Recording their previous record, ‘1984’, had been like pulling teeth – they weren’t getting along with Dave. They were slowing the tracks down so he could sing the notes, and then would speed them back up. It was not a happy Van Halen. So when I arrived, it was, ‘Whoo, this guy can sing and he’s fun’. Eddie and I would race our cars back and forth to the studio.”

“But right around ‘Balance’, our manager died and making that record was hard. I had gone through a divorce, and the band felt like it was breaking up. ‘Balance’ is a great record – almost as good as any record in my life that I’ve made, but the lyrics are so dark, and it’s not me.”

“When I hear those songs, it’s tough, but what great music. Listen to the complexity of a song like ‘Don’t Tell Me (What Love Can Do)’. When Joe Satriani plays that song, he looks at me and goes ‘What the fuck was Eddie thinking?!’. But Eddie was just trying to fuck with me, like ‘Try to sing over this!’ [Laughs].”

“It was different from anything Van Halen had done.  If we’d kept going, we’d have done more stuff like that – which the fans may not have been happy with, but Eddie was getting sophisticated musically. People try to blame me for what happened to Van Halen’s music when I joined, but Eddie still wrote the damn music and I just wrote the lyrics and melodies with what I had to work with. So that ‘Balance’ record is bad-ass, man.”

‘Don’t Tell Me (What Love Can Do)’  was inspired by Kurt Cobain’s suicide in 1994. Did you ever recieve any feedback from anyone close to him?

“Fuck, I can’t believe I never thought about sending it to Dave Grohl or Courtney Love, who are friends. But Eddie did change the song’s title. I wanted to say ‘I Want to Show You What Love Can Do’, ‘cause I always felt in my heart if Kurt had been my friend, I would have saved him. I would not have let that happen. I would have seen it coming. I’d have got in there, like I did with Eddie many times – to get him into rehab and get him straight. I’m a good frined when it comes to that. That’s how Eddie and I started butting heads. I started bustin’ his balls about being fucked up, and he didn’t like it. His wife, Valerine [Bertinelli] was on his ass as well, so he’d come to the studio to escape home, and I’d say ‘Ed man, get out here, you’re all fucked up!’. I figure I would have done the same with Kurt Cobain, and would not have let him get quite so far.”

“Was it around 4,000 cases? There were two trucks stolen, with $1 million worth of tequilla, but the detective was a huge Van Hagar fan and thought if he solved the case he’d meet me. He managed to track down one of the trucks. Sometimes being a celebrity pays off! I flew him to our Las Vegas residency and we did tequila shots backstage.”

CORRECT. 4,040, cases or 24,000 bottles.

“I was asked to be on that show and I didn’t do it, but I know [Poison’s] Bret Michaels did…so him?”

WRONG. John Lydon.

“Woah! That must have pissed him off! [Laughs] I can imagine him ranting ‘Fucking bloody Sammy Hagar!’”

The verdict: 6/10

“That’s a pretty low score for Sammy Hagar! I should have got nine – that’s my number!”

Sammy Hagar brings his career-spanning Best of All Worlds Tour to the UK, kicking off at  Manchester’s AO Arena on July 4 2026. For full dates, see here. The band’s new live album, ‘Sammy Hagar & The Best of All Worlds Band – The Residency‘, is available now.