Sammy Hagar says in a new interview that he would love to play Van Halen with Eddie's son Wolfgang and his former bandmates Michael Anthony and Alex Van Halen, but says that the proposed tribute with a celebrity guitarist would not be Van Halen.
The former Van Halen frontman made the comments during an interview on the Trunk Nation SiriusXM show and confirmed that he was previously asked by the band's manager Irving Azoff about a special tribute event.
Hagar said, "I said, 'I'll do anything with Al and Mike and play music with people, but it's not gonna be Van Halen. There is no Van Halen... Wolfie is Van Halen, okay? And he doesn't wanna be the Van Halen copy band. I don't blame him. He's doing a great job on his own stuff, and it's very cool when he jams a little bit here and there. He's Van Halen, and if he wanted to play guitar with Al and Mikey and myself, I would love to do that."
Sammy also revealed one complication with putting such a tribute show together, "Alex Van Halen and I don't talk. I reached out to Alex... and he wouldn't return my call or my email.
"And so I said, 'You know what? F*** it. It's not on the top of my list, my agenda. I think Eddie deserves, definitely, a tribute. And the whole world would show up and the whole world would do it."
He also shared, "If Alex came to me and wanted to do it, I'm in. But Alex has got a stick up his ass about something with me still, and he's gonna take it to his grave, I guess. I don't think I made peace with Al. And I don't think I'm going to unless he reaches back out to me. I've done it about five times now."
Hagar continued, "Alex and I actually got along better than Ed and I at times. Through the hard times, Alex and I still got along. But I don't know what happened. Somebody poisoned him. Somebody told him something. Maybe he still doesn't like my book, which was the most honest thing I've ever done in my life. Some people just don't think that that should have been done."
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