EDDIE VAN HALEN And SAMMY HAGAR Exchange Tweets

Eddie Van Halen turned 61 today (Tuesday, January 26),and one of his well-wishers was none other than former VAN HALEN singer Sammy Hagar, who tweeted: "Happy Birthday Eddie - hope you're doing good". To many fans' surprise, Eddie responded to Sammy's tweet, writing: "Thanks Sammy. Hope you're well too."

After singer David Lee Roth left VAN HALEN in 1984, Hagar recorded four studio albums with the band between 1985 and 1995, rejoining briefly in 2004 for a disastrous reunion trek.

Roth rejoined in 2007 for a successful reunion tour and one studio album, 2012's "A Different Kind Of Truth", along with a live set recorded in Japan. The band completed a summer North American trek last fall, closing it out on October 4 in Los Angeles.

Hagar and Eddie Van Halen reportedly haven't spoken to each other since the end of the 2004 tour. In his autobiography, "Red: My Uncensored Life In Rock", Hagar slammed Eddie, saying the guitarist was unkempt, hunched over, frighteningly skinny, drinking wine straight out of a bottle, missing part of his tongue (after a cancer scare) and several teeth. He told an interviewer in 2012: "What happened on that reunion tour in '04 was some of the most miserable, back-stabbing dark crap I've ever been involved with my whole life."

Hagar last year blasted his former bandmates in an interview with RollingStone.com, saying there is "no chemistry" between the members of the band now, which includes Roth. Hagar explained: "I can only speculate on what I've seen on YouTube, things people send me now and then… There's just no chemistry up there. They don't like each other. I mean, it's obvious. It's like a backup band with a guy out there in front. I bet they don't say five words to each other offstage.'

Hagar added: "VAN HALEN was always about chemistry in the early days. Early, that band was all about fucking chemistry, man. They were on fire. When I joined the band, they had great musical chemistry. We were friends, and we were on fire. We had so much fun, it should have been illegal. Now all that's gone."

Asked if he thinks he will ever speak to Eddie Van Halen again, Sammy said: "I would hope so. Because that would be really sad if any one of us — I'll put myself in the same category — took this to our graves. But who knows. Whatever. It's not my decision because I was the one they pushed out and tried to fuck over. To me, it's up to them to come back and say they're sorry."

Hagar said he was "not sorry for anything" he did while in VAN HALEN, but added, "I wouldn't want to be in a band like that right now. I'd feel like a hypocrite for joining that band. How about that? There's a good quote for you. If I joined VAN HALEN right now, I'd feel like the biggest hypocrite in the world. And I'm not a hypocrite."