Tim Mosenfelder/Getty ImagesLast year, Van Halen fans got hopeful about the prospects for a potential reunion featuring Sammy Hagar after Hagar reached out to guitarist Eddie Van Halen via Twitter to wish him a Happy Birthday, and Eddie responded with a thank-you tweet. However, Hagar tells Billboard that whatever goodwill was created by the exchange faded when Sammy’s own birthday without a note from Eddie.
“Let’s put it like this — when it came to my birthday, I didn’t get a message, so obviously that camp, him and [drummer Alex Van Halen], still have some kind of trip against me,” laments Hagar. He adds that the logistics of his supergroup Chickenfoot are already so complicated that he certainly wouldn’t want to get involved with Van Halen, which he feels would be far worse.
Compared with Chickenfoot — which also features ex-Van Halen bassist Michael Anthony, Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith and rock guitar virtuoso Joe Satriani — Sammy says a Van Halen reunion, “would be twice the nightmare of the workload and the anxieties about getting along or being worried about being stabbed in the back again or something.”
Having said that, Hagar admits that he’d still agree to do a Van Halen reunion, but only under a specific, and highly unlikely, condition. He tells Billboard that “the only way” that he’d be interested in touring with the group would be if he and original Van Halen singer David Lee Roth both took part, as well as Anthony.
Hagar says he’s not interested in making money from such a tour, maintaining that he “would do that for the fans and give the money to food banks or something.”
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