Sammy Hagar is putting to rest any talk of a Van Halen reunion to honor the band’s late guitarist Eddie Van Halen, who passed away in 2020.
Although there was talk of some sort of tribute in the past, Hagar discusses why a reunion of the band can’t really happen during an appearance on the That Rocks podcast.
"It's the same old story. It's the same old f***** story,” Hagar says. “Alex [Van Halen] won't respond to me. I reach out to him. I haven't done it in a long time now, 'cause it's, like, 'Hey, you wanna talk to me? Call me.' But there's not going to be a Van Halen reunion,” he continues, adding, “it’s too late.”
If it were to happen, Sammy says Eddie’s son, Wolfgang Van Halen, “would be the perfect guy” to be a part of it, but he’s too busy now with his own band Mammoth WVH. When it comes to the band's other frontman, David Lee Roth, Hagar says, “there’s no way he would cooperate with me.”
"So if [Dave] goes out by himself, that's not a Van Halen reunion; that's half a Van Halen reunion. If I go out by myself without him, it's a half a Van Halen reunion,” Hagar explains. “Only good news about that is that I could sing his songs just fine.”
Sammy and bassist Mike Anthony are still close and perform together; Sammy says he’d love to have Alex come play with them as well, but “the thought of a Van Halen reunion without Eddie, no, there's no such thing."
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