SAMMY HAGAR Wants To 'Be Friends Again' With ALEX VAN HALEN: 'I Will Not Take This To My Grave'

In a new interview with Andy Greene of Rolling Stone magazine, Sammy Hagar was asked to address his absence from Alex Van Halen's book "Brothers" in which the VAN HALEN drummer wrote that the essence of VAN HALEN ended when David Lee Roth left the group. Hagar said: "It's sad. I haven't read the whole book, but I've seen all the excerpts, and I heard some of the interviews. It breaks my heart, because if I think what Alex is going through, losing his brother, never played with anybody else in his life, and then his health."

Referencing the fact that Alex has been filmed and photographed walking with a cane while promoting "Brothers", Sammy continued: "When I saw how rickety he is, I realized, 'No wonder he's not answering my call when I say, 'Do you want to go out and play with us?'' He can't. That breaks my heart, because I can only put myself in those shoes and say, 'What if I couldn't sing and perform anymore?' The thing that I did my whole life, the thing I devoted my life to, the thing that made me rich and famous and gave me the most beautiful life on the planet, and all of a sudden I can't do that anymore? I would feel like I was robbing the fans, to start with. When you put yourself in his shoes, I'm saying, 'Okay, I feel sorry for him.'"

Hagar added: "Why he left me out, I would like to hear him explain that someday, because I don't get it completely. I know that he's bitter about some things, whatever that is… It's like, 'If you don't want that era, that even gives me more justification to say I own it then,' because no one else can do it, and he can't do it even without me. It makes it easier for Mike [Anthony, former VAN HALEN bassist] and I [to go out and play the songs on our own]. We're sitting there going, 'Okay, I guess we own this,' and we have the obligation to bring this to the fans to keep this music alive, keep it live and alive. This music is too good to throw away."

Later in the interview, Sammy once again said that he is determined to make peace with Alex. "It's on my bucket list that I will not take this to my grave, and I don't want Al taking it to his grave," he said. "I've put the olive branch out there many times, and I just put it out again to [VAN HALEN manager] Irving Azoff.

"I want to be friends… I don't want to play in a band with Al," Sammy explained. "I'm not asking for that. I can see that he's not capable of doing that. If he was, I'd be happy to play with him, but it's not what I'm looking for. I just want to be friends again."

Last month, Alex explained his refusal to participate in this past summer's "The Best Of All Worlds" that focused largely on the music of VAN HALEN. The trek featured Hagar and Anthony, along with guitarist Joe Satriani and drummer Jason Bonham.

The 2024 tour came more than two years after Satriani revealed that he was approached about participating in a VAN HALEN tribute show with Alex and David Lee Roth. That project never got off the ground, reportedly because Roth was "holding up" getting everything approved.

In an interview with Billboard, Alex said about why he was not responsive when Hagar and Anthony reached out about him taking part in some way in "The Best Of All Worlds": "I'm not interested. They're not doing the band justice. They can do what they want to do. That's not my business."

"Brothers" largely ignores Hagar's stint with VAN HALEN, as well as that of EXTREME vocalist Gary Cherone, and even VAN HALEN's reunion with Roth that started in 2007.

"What happened after Dave left is not the same band," Alex told Billboard. "I'm not saying it was better or worse or any of that. The fact is Ed [legendary VAN HALEN guitarist and Alex's brother Eddie Van Halen] and I did our best work whenever we played. We always gave it our best shot. But the magic was in the first years, when we didn't know what we were doing, when we were willing to try anything."

In a separate interview with Rolling Stone, Alex didn't even utter Hagar's name. "The heart and the soul and the creativity and the magic was Dave, Ed, Mike and me," he said. In the book, his only acknowledgment of the "Van Hagar" era reportedly came in the line, "We had a lot of other singers over the years."

This past August, Hagar confirmed to Las Vegas Review-Journal that he attempted to see if Alex would be interested in taking part in "The Best Of All Worlds" prior to getting Bonham involved. Sammy said: "I reached out to Alex a dozen times, before this tour was announced, and got no response. I mean, I've asked him to meet me under any conditions, any circumstances, anytime, anyplace, anywhere. It's not like, 'Well, let me think about it.' It's like, no answer. Zero."

According to Hagar, he was willing to offer Van Halen the spotlight "to just play a couple of songs, or if you want to be the drummer the whole night, or be the executive producer. [Laughs] What do you want to do?"

Hagar went on to say that Alex's autobiography may have something to do with the drummer's lack of communication about a possible appearance on the tour.

"I'm sure when he made his book deal, they said, 'You cannot talk to Dave, and you cannot talk to Hagar," Sammy said. "I guarantee you, that that was part of the deal."

In July, Hagar told Ultimate Classic Rock that he and Anthony "reached out to Alex before we did [the tour]. We reached out to him a dozen times before this tour, in every way. E-mail, text message, phone call, message on the machine, okay? No response. No response. I mean, we made every offer to get together or to just talk or to have breakfast, lunch or dinner. Go to the studio and play. Come to my house or I'll come to your house. Go ride horses, go sit on the beach. What do you want to do? Let's just do something. Let's get together. And nothing."

Explaining that he and Alex Van Halen "don't have a relationship," Hagar added: "When the tour came, the first person we called and left all of the messages, sent all of e-mails, it was Alex Van Halen. Mike and I said, 'We're wanting to do this thing.' Alex's famous line to me [was], 'Sammy, we ain't getting any younger.' Mike and I said, 'Alex, we ain't getting any younger. We're going out and playing for the people. We're going to go honor the VAN HALEN catalog. Let's just get together and let's talk about it. Mike and I, we're going out, we're going to do this, Alex. Please join us. Let's be friends, let's bury the hatchet, whatever.' There was no response. I was saying, 'He'll come to a show, he's got to — in L.A. or something. I'm sure he'll come.' But no, no, he sold all of his equipment. That was his statement. That was like, 'ah, I ain't coming nowhere.'"

Hagar previously discussed the possibility of Alex taking part in "The Best Of All Worlds" in November 2023 during an appearance on SiriusXM's "Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk". At the time, he said: "Jason insisted upon, 'I will not say yes to do this thing until at least you get… Alex says yes or no.' Alex hasn't returned my call for five years. I've called, I've left messages, I've left texts, I've left e-mails.

"I don't think Al really wants to go out and play; otherwise they would have did it with Joe when they were thinking about it [back in 2021]," he continued. "And Irving Azoff called me [around that time in 2021] and said, 'Hey, would you do it? Somebody's out of their mind. You and Alex, I've gotta get you guys together.' I said, 'Fine.' He said, 'Reach out one more time.' I reached out one more time. No response.

"Alex never played with anybody ever except his brother," Hagar added. "He never jammed with anybody. The whole time we were in VAN HALEN, Mike and I would be out playing clubs with Eddie [Van Halen], jumping on stage on nights off. And Alex [would be] standing on the side of the stage [and looking on]."

Hagar and Anthony previously worked with Satriani in the supergroup CHICKENFOOT. They recorded two albums between 2009 and 2011 and toured across America but never performed any VAN HALEN material. More recently, Hagar and Anthony have played some of the VAN HALEN catalog with guitarist Vic Johnson and Bonham in SAMMY HAGAR AND THE CIRCLE.

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

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 and Michael 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.