Just under a week after Sammy Hagar's release of Encore, Thank You, Goodnight – the song he wrote after dreaming of Eddie Van Halen – the former Van Halen frontman is looking back on his years with the legendary band, his dynamic with Eddie, and his take on the virtuoso guitarist's lack of releases during the 2000s.
“Look, everybody gets fuckin’ dried up a little bit,” he tells Rolling Stone matter-of-factly. “And also, he had to be inspired by something. You know what I mean?”
Hagar also asserts that “Eddie’s musicianship blossomed when I joined the band”. Indeed, after the former Montrose frontman and solo artist artist was introduced to Van Halen in 1985 – by their mutual car mechanic – and started jamming with the band, the chemistry was clear to see.
Further still, Why Can't This Be Love, with Eddie on keys, was so distinct that, according to a previous Rolling Stone interview with Hagar, Warner Bros. president Mo Ostin claimed, “I smell money.”
“When I joined the band, everyone says, ‘Oh man, they started playing keyboards, and Hagar wants to write all these love songs.’ I didn’t bring the music to Eddie. Eddie brought the music to me.”
Hagar insists that, by then, EVH had already “used that guitar neck up” and “did everything and anything that neck could do”, changing his amps and gear in an attempt to continually refine and redevelop his sound. So, having Hagar join the fold served as the catalyst he needed to create something fresh.
“Over the years, he kept changing his sound to try and reinspire some new guitar things. That’s why he wrote Can’t Stop Loving You. It’s a classical piece of music, and so is 5150. I had to find a place to sing. But he sat down at a keyboard. It felt fresh.”
Between 1986 and 1995 – the Hagar era – Van Halen released four chart-topping albums. However, following their 1998 album, Van Halen III, with Gary Cherone as frontman, poor sales (by VH standards) and an unreleased follow-up project led to a hiatus. The band released no new material until 2012's A Different Kind Of Truth with original lead vocalist David Lee Roth – which turned out to be the final Van Halen record.
“People don’t realize that Eddie expanded as a musician because he got a singer that could say, ‘I can sing that,’” Hagar points out. “And we went on a fucking musical adventure.
“He stopped writing, I think, because he just ran out. Shit, how much do you need? How much can you squeeze out of the dude? He gave his blood, brother.”
In other Sammy Hagar news, the former Van Halen frontman has just shared some juicy details regarding Ozzy Osbourne's own involvement in Black Sabbath's mammoth final show.
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