Sammy Hagar on Alex Van Halen: ‘I just want to be friends again’

Sammy Hagar has shared how he’s feeling after his former Van Halen bandmate Alex Van Halen released his memoir, Brothers, and didn’t even include him in Van Halen’s history.

Alex’s book suggests that Van Halen ended when David Lee Roth left the band and steered clear of mentioning Hagar’s name in interviews, which Sammy tells Rolling Stone is just “sad.”  

“Why he left me out,  I would like to hear him explain that someday, because I don’t get it completely,” Hagar said. “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.'”

But Hagar would like to bury the hatchet, telling the mag it’s on his “bucket list” to make peace with Alex.

“I will not take this to my grave, and I don’t want Al taking it to his grave,” he says. “I’ve put the olive branch out there many times, and I just put it out again to (manager) Irving Azoff.”

“I want to be friends, though,” he adds. “I don’t want to play in a band with Al. 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 friends again.”

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.