SAMMY HAGAR Regrets 'Nothing' About Being In VAN HALEN: 'It's The Greatest Thing That Ever Happened To Me'

In a new interview with Meltdown of Detroit's WRIF radio station, Sammy Hagar was asked if he has any regrets about his time as the lead singer of VAN HALEN. He said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "Oh, hell no. Oh, no regrets whatsoever. I regret that we broke up, just to see what else we could have done. I would've loved to have made another record or two with [legendary VAN HALEN guitarist] Eddie [Van Halen] writing.

"Eddie and I wrote some great songs together, and I think the best stuff was yet to come; it could have been yet to come, because Eddie was really reaching out on instruments," he continued.

"Last time I talked to Eddie before he passed, I said, 'Man, what are you playing?' He said, 'Oh, man, I've really been playing a lot of cello.' And I'm going, 'Cello? Holy shit.' [Laughs] 'Play me something, dude. I'm ready to write a song with you on cello.'

"As artists, Eddie and I were really capable of doing a lot of stuff that he couldn't do before me because the other guy didn't want keyboards," Sammy added, apparently referring to VAN HALEN's original singer David Lee Roth. "And when I walked in the room with Eddie, he showed me two guitar songs when I joined, on [the] '5150' [album] — he showed me 'Good Enough' and he showed me 'Summer Nights'. Those are two riffs he had. And then what did he do? He went and sat down at the piano and he started playing all this stuff. And I'm going, 'Whoa. What?' He starts playing to riff to 'Dreams'. He's sitting there playing 'Love Walks In'. He's just playing all these things on keyboards, and I'm going, 'Whoa, I had no idea he was that good of a keyboard player.' So, he really wanted to expand as a musician. To me, I think that's what his dream would've been. And it was always held back by the record companies and the people around him. I think we would've broke out of that within a year and start doing some really crazy stuff.

"Now, all the hardcore VAN HALEN fans are out there saying, 'No, no. You would've ruined it. We want 'Poundcake'.' But it's all good, man. It's all good.

"That's the only regret I have," Hagar concluded. "I regret nothing about being in that band. It's the greatest thing that ever happened to me. I will never reach that pinnacle again in my musical career, and I don't even try for it. It's, like, why even try? I can't do it. Those times are gone and I'm proud to have been there."

Hagar replaced Roth in VAN HALEN in 1985 and recorded four studio albums with the band — "5150", "OU812", "For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge" and "Balance" — all of which topped the U.S. chart.

Sammy, Eddie, Alex Van Halen (drums) and Michael Anthony (bass) last teamed up in 2004 for a U.S. summer tour. In exchange for taking part in the tour, Anthony reportedly had to agree to take a pay cut and sign away his rights to the band name and logo.

Hagar mended his relationship with Eddie Van Halen months prior to the legendary VAN HALEN guitarist's October 2020 passing.

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."

In a 2015 interview with Rolling Stone, Eddie questioned an "embellished" portion of "Red: My Uncensored Life In Rock" that painted the guitarist as a "very angry drunk" during the group's 2004 reunion tour.

In November 2020, Eddie's son Wolfgang revealed that his father had contemplated a "kitchen-sink tour" that would have included Anthony, as well as vocal turns from both Hagar and Roth. There was even talk about bringing back Gary Cherone, who sang with VAN HALEN on one poorly received album, 1998's "Van Halen III".

Eddie died at St. John's Hospital in Santa Monica, California. The iconic VAN HALEN axeman passed away from complications due to cancer, his son confirmed.