Sammy Hagar has sent David Lee Roth kind words of support after the latter was forced to suddenly pull the plug on his current US tour.

Van Halen’s two most prolific vocalists have often been at odds with one another. Roth even trolled the Red Rocker last August, in response to his claims he wrote a song with the late Eddie Van Halen in a dream. This time, things are playing out differently.

Roth kicked off his current US tour in April, and has spent a portion of his sets reflecting on his humble songwriting beginnings with Eddie Van Halen. However, he’s now removed all but one live date from his website, with no explanation given. Hagar has voiced his concern.

“Hey Dave, Sammy here. I just got a call from [ex-Van Halen/current Hagar solo bassist] Michael Anthony about your tour getting canceled,” Hagar says in an Instagram reel.

“I wanna say from the bottom of my heart, I’m sorry. I hope you’re well. I hope there’s not a physical problem. Honestly, Mike and I love the fact that you’ve been out there doing it, supporting the greatest band in the world that we were both part of.”

Hagar is back on home soil after taking his Best of All Worlds tour with Joe Satriani and Mike Anthony to the UK. In September, the show will have its second Las Vegas residency.

“I’m really sorry,” he continues in his message to Roth. “That’s fucked up. Supporting what we did in this band to keep this music alive. You and I, Mikey, Al [Alex Van Halen], Ed, cannot be replaced. So, when you’re ready to carry on, you go, brother. Mike and I support you.

“I hope you’re well, I really do. God bless, brother.”

Roth was slated to play six shows between July 24 and September 4. Now, the only date listed on his site is in Sturgis, South Dakota on August 7. There has been no public comment on the show cancellations, nor an explanation.

While Eddie Van Halen was Van Halen's linchpin and chief songwriter, the Sammy Hagar era saw the Red Rocker prove himself as a songwriter in his own right.

Coming into the band, Hagar had something of an upper hand: the Van Halen brothers were already fans of the material he had recorded with Montrose in the mid-’70s, while his solo career was already on the rise.

Therefore, it was no surprise that Hagar brought his own ideas to the fore – even if Alex Van Halen wasn’t so keen at times. Eagles Fly, which ended up on Hagar’s 1987 solo record, I Never Said Goodbye, was one such track.

“When I sing Eagles Fly, it's about being born,” Hagar tells Total Rock when asked to pick the song he enjoys singing the most from his vast repertoire.

“And once again, I had a vision. It wasn't a dream. I was wide awake, and I had a feeling in a special place. I was in a special place.”

He continues, “I showed him [Alex Van Halen] that song, and Eddie's going, ‘Wow, wow, wow.’ And Alex goes, ‘Yeah, yeah. It sounds like John Denver; it's cool.’”

Hagar explains that, at the time, Alex “wasn’t about me writing songs for Van Halen,” preferring that Eddie handle the musical composition while assigning Hagar “the lyrics and the vocals.”

However, the drummer soon did a 180 when he heard it as a fully-fledged track on Hagar’s ninth solo album – and his first solo effort since becoming Van Halen’s front man. Eddie not only stepped in as the album’s co-producer – alongside Hagar himself and David Thoener – but also laid down the low end and a quintessentially Eddie guitar solo.

“When it came out, and we finished my solo record, Alex heard it, and he goes, ‘Hey, why the fuck didn't we put that on a Van Halen record!’” Hagar says.

“I went, ‘Well, Al, if you don't remember, I can remember you said it sounded like John Denver,’ because I was playing it on acoustic guitar!”

In more recent Van Halen-related news, Joe Satriani recently recalled being approached by David Lee Roth for a Van Halen cover band – when Eddie was still alive.

Van Halen was the world’s biggest rock band at the beginning of 1985. Their 1984 album had sold more than five million copies in the U.S., reaching Number 2 on the Billboard 200 albums chart (their highest position to that date, held back only by the juggernaut that was Michael Jackson’s Thriller album) and delivering their only Number 1 single, Jump. The supporting tour was a massive success, selling out all 101 shows.

Eddie Van Halen hoped to propel the band to even greater success, starting work in early 1985 on new musical ideas at his 5150 studio with Donn Landee, who engineered all six of Van Halen’s previous albums and had become the guitarist’s studio sidekick.

Meanwhile, singer David Lee Roth released the four-song Crazy from the Heat EP, recorded with Van Halen’s producer Ted Templeman and released in late January 1985.

Eddie didn’t mind the singer’s extracurricular activity at first and spoke positively about Dave’s solo record in interviews. The EP’s music bore no resemblance to Van Halen material, and the general consensus among the band members was that Roth deserved the opportunity to release some creative steam as long as it didn’t interfere with the band.

However, when Roth showed up at a handful of sessions to write lyrics and work on melodies for the next Van Halen album, he seemed detached and disinterested. Eventually, he stopped showing up altogether, choosing to conduct interviews and promote his EP instead.

One evening in late March, Eddie invited Dave to his home to discuss Van Halen’s future plans. The guitarist was shocked but not surprised to find out that Roth had received an offer from CBS Studios to star in a film with a $20 million budget.

While Ed wanted to release the next Van Halen album before the end of 1985, Dave wanted to take a full year off to make his movie. The singer suggested a short summer stadium tour as a compromise, but the guitarist refused to go out without any new material. Roth also invited the band to record music for the film’s soundtrack, but Van Halen shot that offer down as well. A stalemate was reached, with both parties refusing to budge.

Many sources cite that meeting as the end of Van Halen’s classic era with David Lee Roth, but the singer’s departure actually became official and final almost four months later.

Dave assumed that his bandmates would wait for him to return to Van Halen after the film was finished, while Eddie was convinced that the singer would eventually come to his senses and join the band in the studio.

The situation became more complicated when the band fired its manager, Noel Monk, after he demanded a new contract that would have paid him more than any individual band member. Without an authoritative mediator to guide and advise them, the friction grew.

Initially, Ed pitched the idea of making an album with several of his favorite singers.

“We bounced around the idea of doing a record with me writing all the music and having everyone from Joe Cocker to Phil Collins to Mike Rutherford sing a different vocal on each track,” Van Halen told Steven Rosen in May 1986. “But Alex talked me out of it. He said that would be just a one-shot project, and it made me realize that I wanted a family.”

Ed also reached out to Pete Townshend around this time to pitch ideas for a collaboration, but that effort never went further than the exchange of a few telegrams.

When the guitarist found out that Roth was putting together a band to record music for his movie and had reached out to Billy Sheehan (who accepted) and Yngwie Malmsteen (who declined), he realized Van Halen should probably start looking for a new singer as well. He made a genuine offer to Scandal vocalist Patti Smyth, but she turned it down because she was pregnant and concerned about the band’s reputation as hardcore partiers.

News of Roth’s and the Van Halen camp’s extracurricular activities appeared in music publications like Rolling Stone, convincing many fans that the band was finished.

Privately, Eddie Van Halen clung onto hope that Roth would return, but his attitude soon changed thanks to some matchmaking assistance from his friend, exotic car dealer Claudio Zampolli. One day in late June 1985, Sammy Hagar dropped by Zampolli’s L.A. shop on Wilshire Boulevard to check out Ferraris.

Ed had purchased several Lamborghinis from Zampolli, and during a recent friendly chat he mentioned that he was looking for someone to replace Roth. Zampolli told Hagar about Van Halen’s predicament; Hagar gave Zampolli permission to pass along his phone number to Ed; Ed called to set up a meeting and audition.

Hagar was an enticing prospect to replace Roth. His solo career was on an upward trajectory at the time, with his three most recent albums (Standing Hampton, Three Lock Box and VOA) achieving Gold certification and VOA ascending toward Platinum, thanks to the ongoing popularity of his need-for-speed anthem I Can’t Drive 55. In between he joined the supergroup Hagar Schon Aaronson Shrieve (HSAS), which showed that he could be a team player as well as a solo frontman.

The Van Halen brothers were also big fans of the albums Hagar recorded as lead vocalist for Montrose in the mid-’70s. An added bonus was that Hagar had recorded the Montrose and Paper Money Montrose albums as well as VOA with Van Halen’s producer Ted Templeman.

Ed remained unwilling to give up on Roth until July 15, 1985, when Hagar dropped by 5150 to play and record a few new songs with the band. As Van Halen played the first song, Summer Nights, Hagar came up with lyrics and a vocal melody on the spot. “In 20 minutes we had a complete song,” Edward told Rosen. “We all freaked out.”

“Believe it or not, I just started singing summer nights for the chorus,” Hagar told John Stix in 1986. “They all looked at each other and said, ‘Wait a minute, the guy can sing!’”

Although the Van Halen brothers and Michael Anthony decided to hire Hagar on the spot that day in July, the public announcement followed a few months later, even though the news leaked almost immediately.

In August, the band issued a statement confirming that David Lee Roth was no longer a member of Van Halen. However, Hagar’s official induction waited until September 22, 1985, in the middle of Hagar’s final concert performance with his former backing band at the Farm Aid concert in Champaign, Illinois.

Actually, co-host Gary Beaty of The Nashville Network prematurely spilled the beans during the live broadcast a few seconds before Eddie Van Halen joined Hagar on stage, confirming the rumors once and for all.

Before the duo played their first notes, Sammy fumbled with a banner and joked that it read, “My dick’s too small.” From that point onwards it became obvious that the Red Rocker was not going to be David Lee Roth 2.0, as the former Van Halen frontman would never speak of “Little Dave” in such self-deprecating terms.

Hagar and Roth both were high-energy, dynamic performers who let expletives fly like a sailor with his dinghy caught in a zipper, but Hagar was more down-to-earth and less intimidating, with more working-class appeal.

Hagar’s lyrics may not have been as clever as Roth’s – Sammy’s sexual innuendos were more single than double entendre – but they were direct, to the point and arguably more relatable, if perhaps also too obvious.

While Roth was prone to unapologetic braggadocio, Hagar offered a less threatening approach and more modest personality – consider Roth’s Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love compared to Hagar’s Why Can’t This Be Love, or “guaranteed to satisfy” in Ice Cream Man to “you’re never satisfied” in 5150.

After the Farm Aid appearance, the new line-up of Van Halen spent most of October 1985 writing and completing material for their first album. Recording started in November at Ed’s 5150 studio with engineer Donn Landee behind the mixing console.

The band wanted Ted Templeman to produce the album since he had already produced nine albums in total with Hagar and Van Halen, but much to their dismay they discovered that Templeman was unavailable due to his commitment to produce David Lee Roth’s Eat ’Em and Smile.

Instead, Ed and Donn presumed the producer roles until December, when they hired Foreigner guitarist Mick Jones, who previously co-produced all of his own band’s albums.

“Sammy and [us] were all thinking we didn’t want to do the whole thing on our own because we need an outside opinion,” Van Halen said. “Mick was playing in town with Foreigner and called Sammy to invite him to the show. Sammy asked if Mick wanted to co-produce our album and he said yes.

“Actually we were almost done with it, but Mick helped us organize everything and polish it up. He changed a few things, especially on Dreams, which is like a different song than it originally was. He got a hell of a vocal performance out of Sammy on that song, too.”

Eddie Van Halen’s guitar tone on 5150 went through a dramatic sonic shift compared to the albums he recorded with Roth. Although he previously used an Eventide H949 Harmonizer on various earlier Van Halen tracks, here he used it almost nonstop to create a stereo chorus-style effect by using one H949 panned right with a slight pitch detune, another H949 panned left with a different micropitch detune setting and his dry signal panned to the center.

Landee occasionally patched in delay from a Roland SDE3000 or Lexicon PCM70 to add space and reverb-like resonance. The guitar’s midrange was also more focused, providing more breathing room for Anthony’s bass.

5150 was also the first album that Ed recorded without using his faithful original Frankenstein guitar, now replaced in the pecking order by the Kramer 5150 guitar he built himself, featuring a single Seymour Duncan JB humbucker and Floyd Rose vibrato.

Previously he tuned his guitar down ¼ to ½ step to accommodate Roth’s vocals, but here he generally used standard pitch. For 5150, Ed used his 1958 Gibson Flying V tuned down a half step (to D#) with the low E string tuned further down a whole step drop D tuning-style (to C#) to record the main rhythm track and overdubbed the solos using the Kramer 5150.

Good Enough features Ed’s Kramer 1984 guitar with the low E string replaced by a low A string from a bass (tuning low to high is AADGBE) to provide the vibe of a baritone guitar on the rhythm parts while allowing Ed to still play his regular lead parts.

Ned Steinberger gave Ed a Steinberger GL2T headless guitar with a TransTrem system at the 1985 Summer NAMM convention in New Orleans. Ed immediately put this new toy to good use, writing the songs Summer Nights and Get Up only a few days after first receiving it and expertly employing the TransTrem system.

“You can use the vibrato bar to take whole chords up or down and they’ll stay in tune,” he said. “You can also lock the bar in different positions to instantly transpose keys. It’s kinda like a capo, but you can go up or down in pitch.”

Other guitars featured on 5150 include a Fender Stratocaster with the bridge/middle pickup setting on Best of Both Worlds and a Kramer Ferrington acoustic-electric for the acoustic guitar tracks on Dreams. Ed’s number one 1968 Marshall model 1959 Super Lead plexi remained his amp of choice, plugged into a single 4x12 Marshall cabinet miked with either Shure SM57 or SM58 mics.

Ed’s keyboard excursions continued to evolve on 5150, with several songs prominently featuring synths. An Oberheim OB-8 preset with a sweeping sawtooth oscillator patch provided the ersatz distorted “guitar” riff on Why Can’t This Be Love. Organic-sounding OB-8 string patches layered with an acoustic Steinway piano with MIDI controller capabilities provided lush textures on Dreams and Love Walks In.

Ed played Fairlight CMI and E-mu Emulator II sampling keyboards for the horn section hits and slappy bass on Inside, which unfortunately instantly made it the most dated-sounding track Van Halen ever recorded.

When the newly revamped Van Halen released 5150 on March 24, 1986, the album proved that lightning can indeed strike twice. The album benefitted from the momentum of 1984’s phenomenal success, and Sammy Hagar brought along a new group of followers to compensate for many of the David Lee Roth die-hards who broke ranks.

It was also the first Van Halen album to reach Number 1 on the Billboard 200 chart, reaching that milestone only one month after its release date, although it took about eight years to reach the stunning 5x Platinum sales figure that 1984 achieved in just one year.

Of course, 5150 also ignited a David Lee Roth vs. Sammy Hagar debate that still rages today, even as it becomes more meaningless and trivial with the passage of time. Although Roth didn’t match his previous band’s success when he teamed up with the incredible line-up of Steve Vai, Billy Sheehan and Gregg Bissonette to record Eat ‘Em and Smile, he delivered one hell of an album to satisfy the old-school fans.

Meanwhile Van Halen 2.0 (a.k.a. Van Hagar) maintained a large dedicated following and found new fans as they provided a perfect soundtrack for the remainder of the dayglo/just say no Eighties.

As Hagar sang on perhaps his most eloquent performance with Van Halen, it was the best of both worlds.

• This article first appeared in Guitar World. Subscribe and save.

Stevie Salas has backed up Rod Stewart, started a guitar trend via Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, and was asked to join both David Lee Roth and Sammy Hagar’s bands. But he doesn’t take any of it too seriously.

“I like to surround myself with super talent,” he tells Guitar World. “I always like to be the shittiest guy in the room – that makes me learn more and become better.”

Salas picks out his early ‘90s opening slot with Joe Satriani as a significant learning experience.

“I stole a lot of shit from Joe!” he admits. “But when I do it, it doesn’t sound like him; it sounds like me. I couldn’t do it when was there, but I was able to watch.”

While he’s promoting the reissue of his 1994 album, Back from the Living, his calling card remains the frenzied work from Bill & Ted. He didn’t like it when it arrived in 1989 – but he’s warmed to it now.

“A year ago I was with Keanu Reeves, and we talked about the third movie,” Salas says.

“I told him, ‘I’ve done a lot of amazing things, but when I die people will say, ‘That’s the guy who did Bill & Ted!’ He started laughing – we all feel like, ‘I don’t want to be known as the guy that did Bill & Ted.’ But it’s been an insane blessing – young guys are always like, ‘You’re the guy that did Bill & Ted!’ So there you go!”

Early on you rubbed elbows with George Clinton and Bootsy Collins, and eventually started working with producer David Kirschenbaum.

I left San Diego in ’85 after I got out of school and spent a couple of years rocking out with my band. My band was pretty good, but I didn’t think it was going to make it. I quit and moved to LA in 1985.

I was living in someone’s house with my next band, Color Code. We all got kicked out, and I was homeless from August to September ’85. Then I met George Clinton in the studio, and Terry Costa, wife of Don Costa, who produced Sinatra and Elvis. They let me live in their house in Beverly Hills. I was living in a rock star pad, but I had no money!

In ’87, David Kirschenbaum called me, because he knew I’d worked with George and Bootsy. At the time rap was very new; I was a big fan of Eddie Martinez’s playing with Run-DMC, and I was kind of emulating his funk-rock thing.

Someone said to David, “This kid knows about rap music.” I really didn’t, but I told him I did! So I became a producer for David at a studio called Power Tracks.

How did you end up working on movie soundtracks?

I met a Motown arranger named Gene Page, who told me about two African American boys called West Coast Posse, these badass rappers. There was this movie called Big Shots, about two black kids who steal a car and go across the country on an adventure.

They said, “We need some rap music.’ I said, ‘I can do it!’ and I went into the studio with these two kids. We created this song called Put On the Brakes. Atlantic Records loved it and released it as a 12-inch single.

That led to the next movie, Action Jackson. They needed another rap song, so I called the West Coast Posse kids and cut a song called Protect and Serve. That was another Atlantic 12-inch – and all of a sudden I’m the expert on hip-hop in LA, but only because no one in LA really knew shit about it. It was all being done in New York.

Is that what led to your memorable guitar solo at the end of Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure?

David said, “Stevie, I need your help. There's this movie about these two kids who play guitar and want to be in a rock band, but they don’t know how to play, and they go on this history trip. They put a score down for the movie, but there’s no guitar at all. They want you to redo the whole movie over the score.”

So that was unusual, but it was dope. Once the movie was done, I forgot all about it and moved on. I got a call from David, who said, “The Bill & Ted movie is coming out, but the ending isn’t testing well.” I was like, “I don’t even know what that means!” I was a stupid fucking kid! He goes, “They’re gonna reshoot the end and they want some kind of guitar solo.”

What do you remember about recording the solo in a scene with George Carlin?

I drove to this house in the Palisades. They had the whole Bill & Ted setup in the garage, and Keanu and Alex Winter were there. Everyone thought I was a big shot, so they had me share a trailer with George! He told me stories all night; it was one of the most amazing nights of my life.

So they called me up to the set with George, and we’re wearing matching outfits. They stood me up on this crate, handed me a guitar, and Keanu, Alex, and the two girls were standing in front of me.

I said, “What do you want me to do?” The director, Stephen Herek, said, “Just play something crazy!” I wasn’t plugged in, and I knew it was a comedy, so the first thing I did was hit the A chord like it was Eruption. Then, I just started spazzing out with my fingers!

So the solo wasn’t premeditated.

No – I just started moving in the most unorthodox, weird way all over the fucking place. I was trying to be funny, playing air guitar, and you couldn’t hear anything. My fingers were going bananas and everyone goes, “That’s great! That’s perfect, thanks!”

A couple of days later I got the cut. I went into Power Tracks and used a Rock Tron, which made these really cool pre-amps that you could plug into a pro-gap, like a yellow Bass overdrive. Joel Dantzig from Hamer sent me an amazing Tele-shaped Hamer, so I had that guitar. All I did was follow my hands – I hit the A chord and followed my fingers the best I could. It sounded ridiculous to me, which I thought it was supposed to.

I got the gig with Rod Stewart after I’d done it. I took off on a world tour, and when I went to see the film I thought it was the worst, crappiest film I’ve ever seen in my life! I was super-embarrassed. But somehow that guitar solo became part of the franchise.

Tongue-in-cheek as it was, you started a trend that Steve Vai and Tosin Abasi followed.

The next movie came out and Steve Vai was the guitar guy. And then the third one came out and Tosin Abasi did it. It became this rite of passage to be the guitar guy in Bill & Ted, which is really weird!

In the early ‘90s you opened for Joe Satriani. What was that like?

A fucking nightmare! I was managed by Bill Graham, and by then I was hot shit, playing on big records and going on MTV. I was the guy in LA, I’d just gotten this huge gig with Rod Stewart, and then I signed the biggest recording contract Island had ever given a new artist.

I made my album – the Colorcode album with Bill Laswell – and Bill Graham said, “We should put you on tour with Joe Satriani,” because they also managed Joe. I was up for it, but I was scared shitless because everybody who went on tour with Joe got booed off the stage. You can ask him!

Satriani really wanted me to do it and I wanted to go back on tour. But I’d just finished with Rod Stewart, where we were playing 20,000-seaters, with mostly women in the crowd. Now I was going out with Satriani with 5,000 people a night, and it was all dudes. They would just stare at your hands, and I’d never taken a lesson – I just play.

So I was like, “This is going to be gnarly,” and I was scared shitless. But in the end it was one of the greatest things I ever did. I got standing ovations every night!

What’s the biggest lesson you learned from Satch?

Joe was so good to me. He was really bummed when I had to leave because my European label wanted me to do a more alternative tour. He never tried to shut me down – he’d sit up the front watching me.

He’d measure the volume every night of what the amp was doing, and it had to be the same. Then he’d measure the volume of the monitors, and they had to be the same too. He’d measure between the monitor and his amp to be exactly the same, no matter how big the stage. At soundcheck, he’d hit a note, walk around, and put an “X” on the stage.

During the shows he’d go over to that spot, hold that note, and the crowd would go crazy. He’d worked all that out – he knew exactly how it was going to sustain forever and do that shit. That was a big thing I learned.

In 1994, you made Back From the Living, which has built a cult following.

I went from being this cult guitar player with tons of dudes who’d show up to see me play to having a ton of chicks in the audience! I shot the photos for the album in New York with a Vogue photographer. It sounds corny, but she made me look beautiful!

Suddenly I had all these chicks piling in to listen to me play. That album never caught on in America, but it was number one in other countries. It was life-changing for me; it made me rich. I got this multi-million-dollar contract where I kept all the money!

Steve Lukather lived up the street from me, and he asked, “Where’s Stevie getting all that money – is he a drug dealer?” I swear to God! But that album changed my life in the most amazing way. I was just trying to blend James Brown and Jimi Hendrix; that was my thing.

Is it true that both David Lee Roth and Sammy Hagar asked you to join their bands?

Sammy called me two days after he got fired from Van Halen, and David Lee Roth called me after Steve Vai left. I might be the only guitar player in the world who was called by two Van Halen singers!

Why didn’t you take the gigs?

I was a huge Van Halen fan. When I was with Rod Stewart I got to meet Eddie Van Halen, and we became friends. I was a Van Halen nut – but when Roth called me, I thought somebody was taking the piss! He talked to me for about an hour, but he kind of sounded like he was out of his mind.

He was talking about making a blues album, like B.B. King. I’m thinking, “What am I doing?” I didn’t like where Dave was going. I didn’t like [Roth's 1988] Skyscraper album, and I just didn’t think it was what I wanted to do.

With Hagar, I was a Montrose fanatic. He called me, flew me to San Francisco, picked me up himself in his Porsche, and I stayed at his house. We started to write together. I wanted to write a Montrose album, and he wanted to write an album more like the Eagles – and I hate the Eagles!

No disrespect, but that didn’t work for me. Plus, I still had a recording contract, and Back From the Living was blowing up in Europe. So I played on his album, but I couldn’t commit to the tour.

What’s next for you?

Well, I’m 100 years old now, so I don’t know! But Deko has been talking to me about rereleasing my shit – so I’m kind of letting people rediscover my old shit like it’s new shit. In 2006, I started producing television; I’m still writing and producing movies and TV now. But I’ll still do music stuff if it’s something that’s good and interesting.

• The reissue of Back From the Living is on sale now.

When Stevie Salas calls time on his career, he will not want for high-profile credits. He has played with Rod Stewart, made records with Bootsy Collins and Buddy Miles, guested on records by Michael Hutchence, Glenn Hughes and the Jeff Healey band – and he has had a successful solo career, and worked as musical director and consultant on American Idol.

When we consider all this in sum, we might be able to understand why Salas turned down not one, but two former Van Halen frontmen when they came calling.

That’s right. ‘Diamond’ David Lee Roth and the ‘Red Rocker’ Sammy Hagar, bona-fide rock legends, tried to recruit Salas. He said thanks but no thanks to both.

Salas is a self-described “Van Halen nut”, so how could he pass this up? Well, technically he did say yes to Hagar. At least, he played with him for a little bit. It just never went any further, as Salas explains in a new interview with Guitar World.

“With Hagar, I was a Montrose fanatic, so when he called me, he flew me to San Francisco, picked me up himself in his Porsche, and I stayed at his house,” says Salas. “We started to write together, and I wanted to write a Montrose album, and he wanted to write an album more like the Eagles – and I hate the Eagles. [laughs] No disrespect, but I didn’t like the Eagles, so that didn’t work for me.”

Salas has long said that Montrose’s self-titled debut album is his favorite rock album of all time. But there's no point in forcing a collaboration if you’re not on the same page. Besides, the timing was all wrong. This was the mid ‘90s and Salas’ solo career was doing well. Back from the Living was “blowing up” in Europe and he was still under contract to the label.

David Lee Roth? That’s a more surreal encounter. Salas knew Roth, met him when he was doing his thing with Rod Stewart. He and Eddie Van Halen were good friends.

At the time, Roth was in need of some six-string talent. Steve Vai had left his band for Whitesnake, so he gave Salas a call.

“I was a Van Halen nut, but when Roth called me, I was vacuuming, and I thought when he called, somebody was taking the piss,” says Salas. “But it was him. I turned the vacuum cleaner off, and was like, ‘Oh, shit…’ [laughs]”

Roth made him an offer. But all these years later, Salas is not so sure what Roth was looking for. It sure as hell wasn’t Eat ‘Em and Smile Part II.

“He talked to me for about an hour, but he kind of sounded like he was out of his mind,” says Salas. “He was talking about making a blues album, like B.B. King, and I’m thinking, ‘What am I doing?’ I had a recording contract, and I was like, ‘Shit…’ and didn’t like where Dave was going. I didn’t like the Skyscraper album, and I just didn’t think it was what I wanted to do.”

And so he didn’t, and the rest is history. You can read the full interview with Stevie Salas, coming soon to Guitar World.

Van Halen’s third album with frontman Sammy Hager, For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge, was released in summer 1991, just as the Seattle grunge revolution was poised to explode.

Notable for its absence of keyboards and ballads (apart from the piano-dominated Right Now), it was an immediate success, debuting at #1 on the Billboard charts and spawning several hit singles as well as a hugely successful world tour. It also demonstrated that Van Halen remained a vital force amid changing musical times.

As he had since the band's 1978 debut, Michael Anthony provided the basslines and the high vocal harmonies that remained as much a part of the band's signature sound as Eddie Van Halen's guitar pyrotechnics.

“I loved making that album,” Anthony told Bass Player back in 2018. “Working with producer Andy Johns was great – he wanted a big bass guitar sound, and I think it really came out. The band was firing on all cylinders. It was a great time.”

The lead single, Poundcake, features a thunderous 16th-note bassline that provides much of the track's heaviness and power, while also supporting the other musicians and serving the song.

“I hold things together so Ed can play anything he wants. I don't get to flash as much as I'd like to, but I'd say to any bass players who are critical, ‘Let me see you lay down a groove like Poundcake.’ To me, that's harder than getting up there and soloing.”

While a few earlier Van Halen songs such as Mean Streets featured 16th-note basslines, they generally followed the guitar riff. On Poundcake, however, the bass works in contrast to Van Halen's syncopated riff, driving the track relentlessly from down among the low frequencies.

“Back then, we always tracked everything live as a band – we would play, and Sammy would sing or scat any ideas that he had. A lot of times when Eddie would show us a riff, Alex would just bust into a beat and we would jam.”

In the case of Poundcake, he notes that “the openness of the chords and the beat pretty much lent itself to a 16th-note pulsating groove underneath.”

The track begins with Eddie Van Halen revving up a power drill before Alex Van Halen's four-bar drum groove. Anthony enters with a booming swoop down the E string, and then he immediately starts laying down 16th-notes under the sparse guitar riff. Chromatic, melodic, and bluesy minor-pentatonic licks provide contrasting tension-and-release to the steady flow of root notes.

For the first verse, and Sammy Hagar's vocal entrance at 00:53, the constant rumble of the bass is especially striking under the false harmonics provided by Eddie Van Halen.

The pre-chorus at 01:58 is the only part of the song where Anthony’s bassline doubles the guitar riff for an extended period. He returns to previous form for the second chorus, and a brief bridge at 02:34 .

The guitar solo begins at 02:52, marked by a key shift up a whole-step to F#, and a funk-inflected bass groove by Anthony for the first eight measures (before returning to 16ths for the final 12 bars). The return of the pre-chorus at 03:38 is also a whole-step higher, to correspond with the guitar-solo key.

The final chorus finds Anthony shifting up an octave for the first seven measures (and an octave higher yet for the eighth). To play the part requires excellent time, considerable stamina, and an ability to groove without sounding mechanical.

“I suggest you get out the metronome, set the tempo, and just start locking into it. You do not want to sound like a machine playing the line; you have to make it pulsate, rather than playing it straight. That's when you get it grooving!”

Anthony used Rotosound roundwounds, and he believes he played a Music Man StingRay on the song, although he isn't certain. The amp was an SWR.

“I don't remember which model it was, but it was a bi-amp system, with one 4x10 speaker cabinet and one 1x15 cabinet.”

Sammy Hagar's Best of All World tour is making its way to the UK, with an arena tour kicking off on July 4, 2026. The Red Rocker will be joined by his all-star lineup consisting of Joe Satriani, Van Halen's Michael Anthony, and renowned session drummer Kenny Aronoff.

It's Hagar's first UK tour since 1996 and one which celebrates his five-decade-plus catalog, including a healthy dose of Van Halen. Joan Jett & The Blackhearts will also be joining as special guests, alongside opening act JAYLER.

“I can’t wait to cross the Atlantic with the Best of All Worlds Band,” comments Hagar. “Fans in the UK and Europe have waited a long time – and so have I!”

The supergroup is set to take the stage at Manchester’s AO Arena on July 4, followed by BP Pulse Live in Birmingham on July 5, Leeds’ First Direct Bank Arena on July 7, and finally, the O2 Arena in London on July 9.

Last year's US Best of All Worlds tour saw Satriani tackle some tasty Eddie Van Halen solos – a role that the virtuoso hasn't taken lightly. In fact, Satriani switched up his rig to make sure that it could capture Van Halen's iconic tone, even calling it “a different animal.”

“My rig doesn't work because my live rig is designed so that I can play above the 12th fret on the first strings and still have everything sound fat,” he told Guitar World. “I realized there's no way to play the Van Halen stuff on my rig.”

Elsewhere, Satriani also discussed his years-long search for the quintessential Van Halen tone, which will be on full display during the upcoming Best of All Worlds dates.

Tickets for the UK leg of the tour go on sale this Friday (October 31) at 10 am BST/5 am ET. For more information, visit Sammy Hagar's official website.

Sammy Hagar has responded to David Lee Roth’s apparent trolling of him at a recent show by saying he believes the singer’s fairly outlandish 'ghost of Eddie Van Halen' claims.

In fact, he’s read it as an attempt by the Yankee Rose singer to rebuild their broken relationship.

Hagar claimed that his new single, Encore, Thank You Goodnight, was written after the ghost of Eddie Van Halen appeared to him in a dream and showed him a lick. The original statement dates back to 2022, but it wasn’t until he’d tapped up Best of All Worlds bandmate Joe Satriani to complete the song that Eddie’s supernatural shredding saw the light of day, with the song released in April 2025.

In response, Roth told his audience at a recent show in Hampton Beach that he, too, had been visited by Van Halen’s spirit at his hotel room. There, he told Roth that the lick he showed Hagar was actually Iron Butterfly’s In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida backwards.

Many thought Roth’s tongue-in-cheek claims were hilarious, but Hagar doesn’t see the funny side. His take is rather different.

Commenting on an Instagram post by Metal Addicts reporting Roth's claims, Hagar wrote: “I can't believe social media is trying to make something out of this. This is the first compliment and real olive branch moment Dave and I have had in 100 years.”

In Hagar’s mind, Roth is trying to find common ground between the band’s two biggest singers after years of tension and animosity.

“Listen closely and you will see that this is not negative whatsoever,” the Red Rocker continues. “And I believe Dave had the dream as well. Dave's a good storyteller, but there's some truth in between the showmanship. All good with me, keep it up, Dave. These songs we both wrote with Eddie need to be carried on forever.”

Hagar’s response may be unexpected, but it’s dignified. The two singers have been perpetually at war with one another since Roth left Van Halen in 1985 and hired Steve Vai to launch a solo career that, he hoped, would overshadow his former outfit.

They’ve both come and gone from the band in the intervening years, and fans have constantly compared and contrasted them. But since Eddie’s passing in 2020, Hagar has been determined to pay tribute to the virtuoso on stages.

Last year, Alex Van Halen revealed that David Lee Roth’s refusal to pay tribute to Eddie was the reason a reprised Van Halen, featuring Joe Satriani, never got off the ground. Since then, Hagar has put the Best of All Worlds band together in its stead to celebrate Eddie’s legacy by playing songs from both Roth and Hagar eras of the band.

Mind, it probably didn’t help the cause that Hagar recently said Eddie Van Halen was a richer musician because of him, believing he was more fulfilled creatively with him in the band.

The beef between David Lee Roth and Sammy Hagar is showing no signs of simmering down, with Roth firing shots at Hagar after his claims about the origins of his new single.

The Red Rocker released Encore, Thank You, Goodnight back in April, after the late Eddie Van Halen came to him in a dream and showed him a new lick. Joe Satriani and the rest of the Best of All Worlds band were then tapped up to complete the song’s transition from dream realm to the real world, with Hagar seeing it as a celebration of the guitar hero’s life and legacy.

Roth, who fronted the band’s swan song album, A Different Kind of Truth, doesn’t seem convinced that Hagar’s story is true. Now he’s responded in typically flamboyant fashion.

During his recent show in Hampton Beach, the band pulled back midway through Dance the Night Away so Roth could tell the crowd that Eddie's ghost had visited him, too.

“One of my esteemed colleagues, he's a contemporary, he's got a great voice, he's got a great catalog. You all know Sammy Hagar, right?” Roth began, teeing himself up (via Blabbermouth).

“Sammy, aloud, described to the media about six weeks ago that the ghost of Eddie Van Halen had visited him and graced him with a song that he had memorized, and then he went home and recorded it. It's on the internet.

“I don't know what the odds are, but last night the ghost of Eddie Van Halen visited me at the fucking hotel room. I was watching the weather report, and he came in, laughing.

“I said, ‘What did you do now?’ He said, ‘Dave, Dave… Dave, you know that song I gave Hagar?’ I said, ‘What now?’ He said, ‘It's actually [Iron Butterfly's] In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida backwards. Don't fucking tell him.’”

Roth then says the pair shared a “ghost cigarette” before a flash of their wicked sense of humor prevailed.

“I hugged my brother Ed, and I said, ‘Man, do I fucking miss you,’” Roth continues. “And he said, ‘I miss you too, Dave. But you know what? You should still go to hell.’ And I said, ‘Save me a seat.’”

Carlos Santana may be less cynical about Hagar’s story, however. He’s recently claimed that the fingerless spirit of Stevie Ray Vaughan visited him in a dream and asked him to play through his Dumble amp so he could vicariously enjoy playing guitar one last time.

Hagar, meanwhile, has been making some other believe-it-or-not statements about Eddie Van Halen, including that he was “dried up” by the 2000s. That's why the band only produced one album after 1998’s Gary Cherone-fronted LP, Van Halen III.

He’s also said that Eddie was more interested in cello than guitar in his final months, but he refused to show his former bandmate what he could do on the classical instrument.

Meanwhile, Steve Vai has opened up on his time in DLR’s solo band, and how he was hired to “beat Van Halen.”

The Grateful Dead legend Bob Weir recently made a surprise guest appearance with the Best of All Worlds band, playing Sammy Hagar's Gibson Explorer alongside Joe Satriani and co. for a rendition of Montrose's Bad Motor Scooter earlier this week (May 7).

The red rocker is in the middle of his Las Vegas residency with his Van Halen-honoring band – whose lineup comprises Satriani, Michael Anthony, and Kenny Aronoff – at the Park MGM. Weir and John Mayer, meanwhile, have been making The Sphere their second home during their second residency at the futuristic venue across the city.

Dead & Company have been enjoying some downtime recently, with their tour schedule set to resume tonight (May 9). However, Hagar wasted no time seizing the opportunity to get his long-time friend up on stage to play the Montrose classic.

“Bob is fearless,” Hagar wrote on Instagram after the event. “He’s always willing to take chances with music of any kind. This was a blast.”

The clip first shows the band running through the track backstage, with Weir playing a Les Paul. But it's Hagar's go-to Explorer that he takes to the stage, and which he uses to deliver an improvised, scrappy-in-a-joyfully-free-flowing-way, solo.

When they aren't supping tequila together, Hagar and Weir are always grabbing the chance to jam. In 2018, Weir joined Chickenfoot to jam Otis Redding with Taj Mahal and REO Speedwagon's Kevin Cronin during the Acoustic-4-a-Cure concert.

The 2023 edition of the event also saw the revival of the Hagar/Weir partnership, with Taj Mahal, Michael Anthony, and singer-songwriter Chris Isaak also present.

At 77, Hagar has said he prefers residencies to the rigors of touring city-to-city, which explains his current residency slot.

Weir’s own Las Vegas residencies haven’t been without note, either. John Mayer has played Jeff Beck’s Custom Strat at select shows, as well as an off-the-shelf Jerry Garcia Strat replica that was “too good to put down.”

In related news, Mayer also revealed the secret hiding place for his amps as he battles with the venue's stage volume limitations. During their first residency, a hand injury forced him to rethink his playing style.

Weir, who dropped his third signature D’Angelico last August, says he and Mayer have learned a lot about one another from a decade of guitar partnership, believing they now enjoy a “telepathic relationship.”

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.

Like much of the rock and metal community, Sammy Hagar is currently preparing for his spot during Black Sabbath's mammoth final showcase, and he has shared some interesting details regarding Ozzy Osbourne's own involvement.

The Prince of Darkness has already confirmed he won’t be doing a full set with Black Sabbath during what will also serve as Ozzy's last-ever live performance, and such comments have led to plenty of speculation as to just how the show will work.

The band has recruited Tom Morello as Creative Director to put the bumper show together, with sets from Metallica, Pantera, Gojira, Mastodon, and many others all poised to take place. And, as the former Van Halen vocalist reveals, Morello was the man who approached him about getting involved.

“When the word started leaking out, Tom Morello calls me and says, 'Hey man, would you interested,'” Hagar tells Loudwire.

“I went, ‘Yes!’ He didn't have to say what. ‘Yes, Tom, I'm all in.’ I was so flattered that I was one of the early guys on.

“I've been studying,” the vocalist expands. “Everybody asks, ‘What do you listen to?’ Him. I'm listening to Ozzy until the 5th. I got to learn his phrasing. His melodic structures are so unique, he's such a unique singer. I'm so honored.”

Ozzy will be on double duty on the night, it seems, with the show serving as a final bow out for both Black Sabbath and Ozzy Osbourne, the solo artist. It’s for that set that Hagar’s pipes have been recruited.

“I chose to do No More Tears and Tom goes, ‘Oh, that would be great,’” he says of what’s to come. “And then he comes back and says, 'Guess what? Ozzy's going to try and sing five songs and he wants to sing No More Tears.’ I said, 'Okay, Flying High Again, and he goes, ‘You got it.’

“So right now, I'm singing Flying High Again. If Ozzy changes his mind, I'll sing Flying High Again and No More Tears.”

Rumors of the length of Ozzy’s set have been rife, and so Hagar’s revelation that he’ll be tackling a quintet of solo hits feels like a big one. It’s still unclear how long the set as a whole will be – but at least we now have something of a rough idea of Ozzy's own involvement.

Hagar is fresh from releasing his new song Encore, Thank You, Goodnight, which was inspired by a dream he had about Eddie Van Halen. The track features the full Best of All Worlds band and plenty of EVH-inspired shredding from Joe Satriani.

In related news, Anthrax riff warrior Scott Ian has also given an insight into how the Black Sabbath portion of the night will go ahead. A host of guest stars are set to perform with the band, particularly aiding Ozzy and drummer Bill Ward in light of their ongoing health issues.

“I’m on a couple of other Sabbath songs in one of the all-star lineups that I get to be in,” Ian recently told Guitar World. “I don’t know how any of the production stuff is working.

“They’re going to have seemingly 200 different things going on before Sabbath gets on stage – but I don’t have to worry about that stuff. I just have to know the songs.”

Slayer have also revealed they will cover a Sabbath song during their set, but Zakk Wylde, who is set for a starring role, hopes this won’t be the end of Ozzy’s solo career.

Sammy Hagar, as he often does during interviews, turned heads recently when he said he'd written a song inspired by a dream he had about Eddie Van Halen, and had tapped Joe Satriani to bring it to life. Now, the Red Rocker has released the song, Encore, Thank You, Goodnight, and it represents a surprise new chapter in the Van Halen storybook.

With Michael Anthony on bass and esteemed session drummer and long-time Satriani collaborator Kenny Aronoff behind the kit, it takes the current iteration of the Best of All Worlds band to the studio.

For his part, Satriani is clearly reveling in his role, peppering the song with tapping licks, stadium-size chords and a potent recreation of Eddie’s legendary tones.

The song starts with a wild flurry of tapping that, while evoking Eddie’s virtuosic flavors with startling accuracy, still carries a little Satch spirit. It gives way to rolling drums, some pick slides, and massive power chords before Hagar takes the spotlight.

“This song is my final bow to that part of my life,” Hagar said of the song prior to its release. “It’s not meant to be anything more than a thank-you – with love, with respect, and with one hell of a guitar solo.”

Before Hagar had approached Satriani for the Best of All Worlds tour, the guitarist had previously said he never wanted to learn Eddie’s riffs and leads, fearing it would imprint too much on his own ideas.

But when he took the job, he left no stone unturned as he had a custom amp built to recreate his favorite era of Eddie Van Halen’s tone, rebuilt his live rig, and made some choice mods to his guitars.

Now, fully immersed in the task, it feels like he’s really letting fly on Encore…, and it’s something that will delight Van Halen and Satch fans the world over.

Speaking to the Los Angeles Times about life after Eddie, Hagar says, “I miss the guy so much. Thank God we connected towards the end, otherwise I'd be heartbroken.

“It was so important to me that we did connect in that last year. Eddie said to me, 'Don't tell anyone about us talking because I don't want to be answering questions about rumors of a reunion.'

“But he said, 'Next year, we're gonna get together – we're gonna make some noise. Let me beat this shit, and let's do it.' He goes, 'Please don't talk to anyone – not even Al [Van Halen].' I've never said that to anyone, and I bet you Al is gonna have a fucking fit.

“It hasn't been the same since Eddie died,” he adds. “Things aren't the same without that hope. After the 2004 tour, with Eddie being in the condition he was in, I was very angry with him. I was hoping that we'd get together and play [again] someday.

“I've never gotten back to that level since. That was the pinnacle of my career. But more than that was the creativity and the energy we had together writing songs like Right Now, When It's Love, and Love Walks In. He brought something out of me that just ain't the same without him. At my age, you sit there and wonder: If Eddie was alive, could I reach that again? Now that dream is gone.”

Hagar and Michael Anthony were absent from Van Halen’s last album and the subsequent tours, with David Lee Roth back in the fold and Eddie’s son, Wolfgang Van Halen on bass.

The Best of All Worlds tour allowed Hagar to pay tribute to Eddie in his own way, and after their successful first tour, he admitted “a million guys” could have taken Satch’s spot, but he trumps the rest for one specific reason.

A few months after Sammy Hagar announced his semi-retirement from touring, he’s now unveiling a new single – Encore, Thank You, Goodnight., out April 25 via Big Machine Rock.

The track, co-written with Joe Satriani, and co-produced alongside Satch and his frequent collaborator Eric Caudieux, was inspired by a dream Hagar had about Eddie Van Halen and serves as a homage to that life-changing part of his career.

“This song is my final bow to that part of my life,” says Hagar. “It’s not meant to be anything more than a thank-you – with love, with respect, and with one hell of a guitar solo.” Satriani's contribution is also unmistakable – bringing about a sound that's nostalgic but equally forward-looking.

“Joe was the perfect partner to help me shape the sound – he brought in that big, emotional, guitar-driven energy that feels like Eddie’s spirit but is entirely of Joe’s creation.

“With Michael Anthony’s thundering bass and stellar Van Halen-esque background vocals and Kenny Aronoff’s relentlessly powerful driving rhythms, the song really came together on all levels.”

According to Hagar, the dream that sparked the song came a year after Van Halen’s passing – and rather than a somber farewell, the song is meant to celebrate the unforgettable times they shared in Van Halen.

Aside from the song’s official release on Friday, fans attending the launch of The Best of All Worlds’ Las Vegacy residency at the end of the month will get to experience the song’s first live outing at Dolby Live at Park MGM.

Speaking of Joe Satriani’s many exploits, the guitar maestro recently told Guitar World about the lengths he went to in order to nail Eddie Van Halen’s playing and tone.

Meanwhile, the late guitarist's former wife, actor Valerie Bertinelli, has ruled out the possibility of a Van Halen biopic materializing anytime soon.

Though he’s fast approaching his 70s, Joe Satriani remains one of the busiest guitar players in the game. There’s a new live album out, documenting the original G3 lineup’s sold-out reunion tour of last year.

He’s been paying tribute to Eddie Van Halen in the ongoing Best of All Worlds tour alongside Sammy Hagar, Michael Anthony and Jason Bonham. And there’s the recently announced Surfing with the Hydra tour with the Satch/Vai band, where they’ll be performing new original music written together and solo tracks as one group for the very first time.

For a six-stringer who released his debut EP way back in 1984 and now has 18 solo full-lengths under his belt, plus two albums with Chickenfoot and all kinds of collaborations stretching across the last four decades, there’s no shortage of wind in the sails.

Perhaps it all comes down to his work ethic – despite all the awards and accolades, he’s still humble enough to see himself as a student of music with plenty of room for expansion.

You can hear it on G3 Reunion Live, where Satriani, Steve Vai and Eric Johnson play some of their most famous tracks alongside more recent innovations that document their growth as world-commanding purveyors of melody and harmony.

“It’s pretty remarkable,” says Satch from a studio room where he’s surrounded by 3rd Power heads, Marshall cabs and Fender combo amps, as well as nearly every iteration of his Ibanez JS series.

“Every night I’d be watching them create new worlds to inhabit. Steve is the kind of player who wants to redesign his whole space before filling it with new music. Then you have Eric, who has pursued a sonic refinement that’s very special.

“He’s tireless in trying to enhance the sound of a Stratocaster going through his pedals and his amps. I have the best seat in the house. They are both so original and yet so different to each other in how they play.”

The tonal differences are also huge. Eric uses a lot less gain than you and Steve, and it’s more of a fuzz sound than overdrive or distortion.

“Funnily enough, the day after we recorded the live album, we were at EastWest Studios. The three of us stood together and plugged into my Marshall, passing the cord around. The one thing Eric said to me was, ‘Wow, there is so much gain!’

“We all have different ways of building our own gain structure to create melodies that soar. Eric has more of a germanium fuzz sound. Steve is more of a preamp gain guy. And I’m more of a power amp circuitry kind of player. It didn’t matter who had the cable, we all sounded like ourselves, but you can hear the differences in our own rigs.”

Eric’s take on Jeff Beck’s Freeway Jam is terrifically moving.

“Eric knows how to reach into a song and find something unique. Jeff was a fantastic example of someone who was always moving forward. He was continually reinventing himself.

“Beck’s Blow by Blow is loose and makes you go ‘Wow!’ because the performances were comped and no one’s really in tune. But the vibe and compositions supersede that and achieve this magical thing.

“Whenever I saw Jeff, he was always in the moment. Every time he played Where Were You, one of the most brilliant things any player has conceived, it would be different. All of his recordings were mostly improvised. He would prepare but then invite danger into every performance. That’s why he sounded fresh.”

Is The Sea of Emotion, Pt. 1 a good indication of what to expect from the Satch/Vai debut?

“I wrote that song as a first volley. I pictured us growing up and referenced all the classic bands we loved – Hendrix, Zeppelin and Sabbath – almost like private jokes between us. Then I wrote a second part and Steve wrote a third. It sounds like a Spinal Tap joke, but it’s a trilogy. The rest of the album is quite diverse. Stylistically, it’s all over the place. We’re both venturing into unknown territory.”

You designed a new amp for the Best of All Worlds tour, geared more toward chordal ideas than single-note lines higher up. Talk us through the 3rd Power Dragon 100.

“Going back some years, when David Lee Roth and Alex Van Halen first called me about a tribute, I started this deep search into Ed’s tone. His sound was lighter and thinner than my JVM, which was designed to make all my high notes super-fat.

“That’s what I usually do for two hours on stage. I’m not playing many chords. But when I play with Sammy, it’s 95 percent rhythm and then eight or 16 bars of solo. A quick rip before coming back.”

Edward’s tone changed a lot through the years, which probably makes this gig even more challenging.

“Ed had a million sounds. Ain’t Talkin’ ’Bout Love to Panama is a huge jump, then to Summer Nights is a crazy jump. He went from mono to mono with a little bit of stereo from the Eventide to widen the pitch, and then full stereo. He used Marshall, Soldano, Peavey and EVH. Those are huge changes in terms of preamp gain and compression.

“He went from a lot of midrange to quite scooped. So I asked Dylana Scott at 3rd Power Amplification to solve it for me. We went for the 1986 Live Without a Net tone, because it was all Marshalls but with the extra stereo-ness.”

What have been your favorite tracks on the setlist and why?

“Opening with Good Enough, Poundcake and Runaround is amazing. I quickly realized that the order of Eddie’s embellishments is really important to the fans. Even though Ed would move things around, this audience knows the studio versions and they will want the scream here, the harmonic cascades there and the finger tapping there.

“As for challenges, the Poundcake drill is hard to nail. The beginning of Summer Nights is difficult because of the picking and gain structure. I don’t think I got the intro right until halfway into the tour. It felt so odd to my fingers.”

• G3: 25th Anniversary Tour is out now via earMUSIC.

“RONNNNIIIIEEEE!”

With that epic battle cry, Mr. Big vocalist Eric Martin opens the floodgates on Heavy Traffic, the lead track on 10x10, the recently released final album from the late Bay Area–bred guitar giant Ronnie Montrose. It’s a fitting call to arms that immediately leads into a patented chunky power riff to signal that, yes, Montrose is in the house, he’s kicking major fretboard ass, and he’s taking names.

The hard-charging and hellbent bed track of Heavy Traffic lays down the gauntlet for a labor of love Ronnie initially set in motion with his early 2000s power trio tourmates, bassist Ricky Phillips (Styx, the Babys, Bad English) and drummer Eric Singer (Kiss, Alice Cooper), almost a decade before he passed away in early 2012.

With the full blessing of Ronnie’s widow, Leighsa Montrose, Phillips took over the reins as executive producer and spent another five years bringing 10x10 to the finish line by enlisting 10 different soloists, including Rick Derringer (Love Is an Art), Brad Whitford (One Good Reason), and Joe Bonamassa (The Kingdom’s Come Undone), as well as 10 different vocalists, such as Sammy Hagar (Color Blind), Gamma’s Davey Pattison (Head on Straight), Tommy Shaw (Strong Enough), and Glenn Hughes (Still Singin’ with the Band).

It’s a level of egoless teamwork that enabled Ronnie’s razor-focused vision to finally achieve fulfillment.

“I had to make some hard decisions to get the album completed, but I always followed the mantra of, ‘What would Ronnie do?’ He was right there with me, on my shoulder and in my ear, as my spiritual guide,” Phillips says.

10x10 is awash in the seductive blend of harmony, tone, and groove that fueled the internationally influential 1973 debut album from the singularly named Montrose.

When Ronnie joined forces with then-unknown vocalist Sammy Hagar, bassist Bill Church, and powerhouse drummer Denny Carmassi, the Montrose blueprint had already been stamped during his stints with Van Morrison (that’s Ronnie driving the melody on 1971’s Wild Night) and the Edgar Winter Group (the chilling runs on 1972’s chart-topping instrumental Frankenstein and its galloping hit partner track, Free Ride, are pure Ronnie to the core).

Indeed, all throughout the self-titled Montrose and its 1974 follow-up, Paper Money – both concurrently reissued by Warner Bros./Rhino, each packed with a treasure trove of bonus tracks, live cuts, and demos to boot – Ronnie forged an electrifying groove stencil that polarized guitar players on both sides of the Atlantic.

Songs dripping with endless hooks like Rock Candy, Rock the Nation, Space Station #5, and I Got the Fire were all seen as the sonic booms spearheading America’s mid-Seventies response to the British Invasion.

Many players and listeners alike felt Montrose was the missing red, white, and blue-blooded answer to Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, and Black Sabbath all rolled into one, not to mention being the precursor to the ensuing virtuosic likes of Eddie Van Halen and Joe Satriani.

“I do remember people saying Montrose was our answer to Led Zeppelin, which is a bold statement,” observes Phillips, who spent many of his formative years gigging in the Bay Area.

“I think we were all influenced by what was going on in England, and there were very few American bands firing back. But Ronnie, Sammy, Denny, and Bill – they were certainly firing back.”

Adds Marc Bonilla, the Bay Area guitar wizard who deployed Ronnie on a pair of his own early-Nineties solo albums and later filled Ronnie’s slot in a reformed Gamma, “The thing that was most impressive with Ronnie is what I call the deliberacy of his guitar playing. He was a carpenter, so he knew how to build things, which is what he did with his solos. He would start with a foundation down low on his Les Paul, and then he’d build his way up into a climactic event.”

British players also recognized Montrose’s singularity.

“I was a huge, huge fan,” admits Def Leppard’s Phil Collen. “My cousin got me into Montrose when the first album came out in England. I thought we were the only people who had it. Years later, when I met [Def Leppard lead singer] Joe Elliott, he said, ‘I thought I was the only person who had that record!’

“My wish would be for people to hear 10x10 and the two Montrose reissues and then go, ‘Ohh, this is where that legendary American rock guitar archetype comes from!’ That’s my hope, anyway.”

Ronnie was the kind of artist who followed his own muse, commerciality and lofty sales be damned. He was always on the hunt for the next challenge, rather than looking back on his past triumphs.

Notes Phillips, “People who truly want to break ground and not repeat themselves leave themselves open to not reaping the obvious successes of a repetitive performance. In many ways, Ronnie reminds me of Jeff Beck.”

Concurs Steve Lukather, “Artists like Ronnie never stop wanting to push themselves to learn other stuff that inspires new ideas and new music. That’s how Ronnie approached it.”

In his later years, Ronnie continued to veer between styles like a man possessed, moving from more challenging solo ventures (1978’s Open Fire and its massively popular instrumental gem, Town Without Pity) to the secure structure of a four-piece band (à la Gamma), seemingly at will. But like many a sensitive creative soul, Montrose suffered crippling bouts of depression, ultimately (and quite sadly) culminating in the taking of his own life at age 64, in March 2012.

But with all the buzz surrounding 10x10 and the pair of reissues, the subject of Montrose’s legacy has moved back into the spotlight for a timely reassessment and reaffirmation.

Echoing Collen’s thoughts, Bonilla theorizes, “It may just take something like 10x10 to spur questions like, ‘Well, who is this Ronnie Montrose guy?’ It’ll all happen at the time it’s supposed to happen.”

The time for it to happen is clearly now, so with that in mind, Guitar World reached out to many of Ronnie’s friends and peers to have them tell firsthand tales about the man’s highest highs, along with some of his lowest lows.

Have you heard the news? There will always be some good rockin’ in store tonight whenever Ronnie Montrose is the one playing that guitar.

Edgar Winter

“When I put together the Edgar Winter Group in 1972, the whole idea was for it to be the quintessential all-American rock band – guys who were not just good musicians but all-stars in their own right, fully capable of fronting their own band.

“It was a huge talent search. We listened to a thousand demo tapes that were sent into the office. When we were looking for a guitar player, I wanted contrast and balance. Ronnie had played with Boz Scaggs and Van Morrison, and even before I met him, I said, ‘Well, he has to be good.’ And as soon as I saw him play – even the way he flung the guitar over his shoulder – I said, ‘Ohh! This is the guy.’

“What I most appreciate about Ronnie was his total commitment. He wasn’t a technical virtuoso – but neither was B.B. King, and he was the king of the blues. What Ronnie had was a virtuosity of the heart. And that rebellious edge of his? It was very spontaneous.”

Sammy Hagar

“We were thinking about calling ourselves Jupiter, and we were also thinking about White Dwarf. We’d be the biggest planet in the solar system! That’s what Montrose would have been called, if not for cooler heads. [laughs]

“Everybody else I’ve worked with, like Joe Satriani, Eddie Van Halen, and Neal Schon – they wrote the music, I listened to it, and then I’d write lyrics to it. When Ronnie and I used to write in Montrose in the Seventies, he would dig through my lyrics, and he’d write music to them. That’s what he did for Space Station #5, I Don’t Want It, Spaceage Sacrifice, The Dreamer – all of those different songs. I guess it was kind of like a Bernie Taupin/Elton John kind of thing, only with guitar instead of piano.

“The weirdest thing about Rock Candy is the tempo we had on the first take. I wonder how it got slowed down, because we didn’t know any better.

“When we were writing it and jamming on it, it was all bouncy, almost like a shuffle. But then, somehow in the studio – it might have been [producer] Ted Templeman, Ronnie, or anyone in there saying, ‘Slow it down.’ I don’t know how that happened, but it sure made a difference when that song was pulled back into the right tempo.

“And that should be a lesson for any young bands out there – find the right tempo for your song. The power of Rock Candy came when it was slowed down. When it wasn’t slowed down, it wasn’t as powerful.

“Denny Carmassi was capable of coming up with badass grooves like the one on Rock Candy and Ronnie was capable of coming up with badass riffs. I was capable of writing lyrics and coming up with the words and Bill Church was very capable on the bass.”

Marc Bonilla

“Everything Ronnie did, he did with his heart. Ronnie was definitely one of those guys who never subscribed to, ‘Let’s just play Rock Candy and get it over with.’ He never did that. He always pressed the envelope, probably much to his financial chagrin and his popularity, because you couldn’t put him in a box. He’d slither out like an octopus. He was always onto the next thing.

“Ronnie never traveled in a circle. He went in a straight line. He never repeated anything. After the Montrose stuff was over, he said, ‘That’s enough of that. I’m not doing vocals again. I’m doing instrumental stuff. Then I’m gonna do acoustic stuff.’

“But that’s what a real artist does. They go from one thing to another: ‘Okay, I’ve already done that. Let me try and push the envelope a different way.’ He was always pursuing a place where he was a little out of his comfort zone – which is where you should be as a musician. You should be out there on the water enough to where you don’t quite touch the sand. That’s a good place to keep your life.”

Dave Meniketti

“Ronnie was a big influence on me and the band when Y&T first got together [in 1974]. The classic first two Montrose albums and Gamma were like the standard for hard rock tunes in the Seventies – they were always on our record players. Pretty much every musician was playing one or more of these songs in their cover bands.

“Ronnie and I worked together on songwriting in the late Eighties. It was a cool experience to see how he came up with song ideas and arrangements. He had a knack for getting to the best bits of a song, and quickly.

“Like me, he was a gear nerd and a tweaker. He would do things like buy a console, completely disassemble it, and then replace the parts to make it better-sounding. He was always after something new and exciting to mess with. I loved that about him – the quest for better gear, and the constant search for interesting things on the horizon.”

Steve Lukather

“Ronnie was a star in his own right. A lot of people cite him as an influence and those early records as great Seventies rock and roll. You can go to those YouTube clips and see him playing his ass off, and it’s all for real! It’s all very real and raw.

“We did have a brief conversation years ago. When Ronnie called, we hit it off and there was talk of maybe doing something together, but it never came to fruition, for whatever reason. And when I got the call to do the solo on [Hagar’s] Color Blind for 10x10, I was very honored. I kept asking Sammy and Ricky, ‘Are you sure you want me to do this? There must be other guys!’ I was told, ‘No, Ronnie really liked your playing.’

“There are no tricks. I brought a little Kemper profiling amp, plugged in, and that was it. There were no effects; nothing. I was trying to play something with a little heart and soul; I wasn’t trying to be the fastest gun in the west. And I certainly wouldn’t try to play like Ronnie. That would be weird, because I respected him too much as a musician.

“I thought about Ronnie the entire time I was working on that solo, and everything that had happened with him. I’ve lost some close people in my life recently and it makes you become pretty emotional, to the point where you go, ‘Wow, this is some heavy stuff.’ I’m a very highly sensitive person, so those sorts of things really affect me.”

Ed Roth

“I had the good fortune to play all kinds of music with Ronnie, including his electric and acoustic instrumental music, and some of his soundtrack music. Whatever he wrote and produced, he wanted to try different and new things. Ronnie would always say he never wanted to be a nostalgia artist. His career is proof of that.

“As OCD as he could be about some things – like making sure each rack screw matched in his rig, spray-painting the faceplates of some of his gear black, making his own cables so the lengths and looks were the same – somehow, he wasn’t overly anal about his performances. He knew how to make you feel comfortable and recognized when you had the right take.

“He was great to work with in the studio, and knew when something had the vibe it needed. If something felt good, that was it, whether a clam snuck into the performance or not. If it had feel, Ronnie would go with it.

“Everyone always talked about his tone, and other players tried to use gear Ronnie used to try to emulate it. The truth was, his tone was in his hands. He used super-heavy strings, which also contributed to it. And he loved his Baker guitars, which he played from the time he got them until his death.

“Like all musicians, he had his ups and downs. Sometimes he would sell some of his gear and replace it with gear he was given by companies, so it would change. No matter what he used, he had a rich tone that was all his own. He played with conviction in a way that you felt every note.”

Hagar

“I’m really surprised Leaving the Warmth of the Womb, the track we did together for Marching to Mars [Hagar’s 1997 solo album] with Carmassi on drums and Church on bass, didn’t get a lot more attention. I was really excited: ‘Hey, it’s Montrose Montrose Montrose!’ I love that song. I thought it was very deep, and very cool. It’s a fucking killer track.

“I actually left the studio for a bit after I thought it was finished. I thought Ronnie had done a great solo on it. When I came back about three or four hours later, he had redone it. Originally, the solo didn’t go to the four, I believe, but Ronnie put another chord change in it, and he replayed the solo. When I heard that, it was fucking goosebumps city, man. It just had it.

“A few years later, we were talking about doing my 65th birthday in Cabo [Hagar's club in Mexico, in October 2012]. I was going to have Ronnie and everybody in Montrose come down. I was saying to him, ‘I want to bring everybody down there and take it to another level while we’re all still alive.’ That was always our big joke: ‘We gotta do it one more time.’

“I loved the fact that we were starting to groove again, and he and I were getting back together. I was really looking forward to that. I called him again to confirm it, and he told me he was committed to doing it. And then a month later, Carmassi gives me the call.

“It was so shocking. [slight pause] I thought Ronnie was tortured. Sometimes it was so difficult, but that was the last thing I ever thought Ronnie Montrose would do. No one knew he was like that – that he had that ability; that he was really that tormented. He was so private. I don’t know what he was protecting, but whatever it was, obviously, it tortured him enough to have him take his own life.

Ricky Phillips

“After Ronnie got prostate cancer, he didn’t pick up a guitar for two years. He went through a lot of stuff emotionally and physically, not to mention pain-wise. When he came out on the other side of that, he put a band together, started gigging, and he was playing so great.

“Hearing about his passing was shocking news, especially after how positive he seemed to be in the last conversation we ever had. Right up to that, he still wanted to finish 10x10. Every time I brought it up, Ronnie was really positive about working on it, as best he could.”

Leighsha Montrose

“Ronnie once told me his personal philosophy: ‘Listen – I don’t want to live my life like this,’ and he held his hand out flat. ‘I want to live my highest highs, and I want to live my lowest lows. I want to be in both, and savor both.’ And to say that – I mean, wow. That means you’re willing to feel the pain of the pain, and the joy of the joy – and he sure did.

“But you can’t define him by that one final day. He always found a way to make all of his interactions very personal, and he had that ability to make you feel like you were the only one in the room, even if it was the first time he had met you. I still feel there’s a piece of him that remains in all of us.”

Hagar

“I’m really glad Ricky Phillips took the initiative to finish 10x10, because it’s a nice little memory. It truly is Ronnie’s last work. It’s a cool project. And it’s always valuable to have something like this as a last work, rather than digging up some stuff from his past. This was something he truly had a vision for. There was always a special energy whenever I sang with Ronnie, and I’m still humbled by that experience.”

Ronnie Montrose

[In conversation with Ricky Phillips, explaining why he liked to leave most of his takes “as is”] “Let’s keep it real. Those aren’t mistakes. That’s life. That’s music breathing.”

This feature was originally published in the March 2018 issue of Guitar World.

Touring for over five decades might be enough for Sammy Hagar – especially after traversing the States, Canada, and Japan with the Van Halen-coded Best of All Worlds Tour last year, alongside Joe Satriani, Michael Anthony, and Jason Bonham.

“I don't think I want to go on tour anymore. I hate to say that, because I don't want to piss my fans off,” the 77-year-old Hagar tells the Las Vegas Review-Journal, ahead of a recent guest appearance at Caspian’s Cocktails & Caviar at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas.

“I'll go out and do a one-off show and do things like that, but the residency is going to give me a good extension of my career. That's what I'm hoping for.”

The Red Rocker points to his upcoming Las Vegas residency – The Best of All Worlds Tour: The Residency, scheduled for April 30–May 17 at Dolby Live – as his ideal format to continue his stage career without being forced to retire.

“With this, I don't have to travel, I don't have to unpack and pack and get on an airplane every day,” Hagar explains. “You know, at my age, it hurts my shoulders to do all this. And I have to perform. I'm a performer, at the end of the day.

“I keep telling my manager, ‘Don’t take any tours, let me do this residency. If I like it enough, I’ll do another one. And if that’s successful I’ll do another one, and I can squeeze a few more years out of my career.’”

Last November, Hagar shared plans to continue paying tribute to Eddie Van Halen via a song he's written with Best of All Worlds bandmate Joe Satriani and Van Halen, Chickenfoot, and Sammy Hagar and the Circle bassist Michael Anthony.

Sammy Hagar has revealed he’s written a tribute song to Eddie Van Halen with Joe Satriani and Michael Anthony.

While Satch and Anthony have their parts recorded already, Hagar says he’s holding the process up because he gets “emotional” when recording his vocals.

After Alex Van Halen revealed that the previous attempt at putting an Eddie Van Halen tribute tour together failed because David Lee Roth didn’t want to pay homage to Eddie’s legacy, Hagar plans to take his tributes one step further.

“It’ll be a single,” he tells Rolling Stone. “We’re working on it right now. Mike [Anthony] and I just finished the bass and the background vocals. I took a shot at a lead vocal, but I don’t know if it’s done yet.

“Joe’s got his parts done. Kenny [Aronoff] played drums. I gotta tell you, it was emotional singing it, because the song, it’s about Eddie. That’s the best I can put it. It’s a thank you to him, and it’s a thank you to the fans, and it’s a thank you to that era.”

He adds that fans can expect its release in “February or March”, but no other details were spilled.

He did, however, say that he and Wolfgang Van Halen “got goosebumps” when they saw each other at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame last month.

The singer, who has announced the return of his Best of All Worlds shows via a Las Vegas residency at Park MGM in 2025, is full of admiration for Van Halen Jr.

“I walked into Ozzy’s dressing room and Wolfie’s sitting there,” he says. “We caught eyes and he jumps up, and we just fuckin’ hugged and got goosebumps on both of us.”

Wolfgang starred at the glitzy event which saw Ozzy Osbourne inducted into the Hall’s annals for the second time, this time for his work as a solo artist.

Taking the stage to perform Crazy Train – and nailing its iconic solo – alongside Tool’s Maynard James Keenan, and Red Hot Chili Peppers’ drummer Chad Smith, he’d helped pour cold water on the muchly contested Randy Rhoads versus Eddie Van Halen rivalry that began in the early ‘80s and hasn’t been properly quelled since.

“It’s so funny, every time I’ve ever run into him and we embrace, I get the goosebumps because I feel like it’s Eddie,” Hagar says of meeting Wolfgang backstage.

“I really feel he’s the closest thing to Eddie on this planet right now. He looks like him, when you look him in the eye. He does his gestures. He takes his finger and he pushes his hair out of his face like Eddie.

“He did that when I was talking to him,” he continues. “I said, ‘I can’t even look at you, Wolf. I’m getting teared up.’ Yeah, I love him and what he’s doing.”

Wolfgang has, understandably, been cautious about his positioning in regard to his late father’s monumental musical legacy, preferring to tread his own path with Mammoth WVH.

In August he told the WTF with Marc Maron Podcast: “I think people are sitting there waiting for me to outdo my dad in some way, but that's impossible. I'm not him. I'm doing my own thing and if anything I'm outdoing him in that way... I'm a better drummer than him and no one says that!”

Though he did inherit one technique from his dad, in a new chat with Bass Player, he's further distanced himself from his father by dispelling the belief that Eddie taught him every trick from his book.

“My Dad called me a ‘rhythm bassist’, but all he taught me was a power chord and an AC/DC drum beat,” he says. “From there, I just played along.”

Nonetheless, Hagar has previously expressed his desire to involve Wolfgang in the Best of All Worlds extravaganza at some stage, saying “I’m sure our paths will cross”.

Few guitarists, let alone a virtuoso like Joe Satriani, would dare to touch on the legacy of Edward Van Halen. Insinuating as much usually gets fans hot and bothered – and that’s been the case since rumors of Satch paying homage to King Edward began to swirl in 2022.

That was different, though, as it featured David Lee Roth and Alex Van Halen. But things changed when Satch’s old pal, Chickenfoot bandmate and former EVH cohort, Sammy Hagar, came calling with his version of Van Halen (and more) tribute-paying, The Best Of All Worlds Tour – alongside Michael Anthony and Jason Bonham.

“The vibe on tour has been great,” Satriani tells Guitarist. “It’s a party, but everyone expects everybody to play their best each night. There’s this beautiful anticipation before every show to celebrate the legacy. And the fans’ reaction has been heartwarming.”

As Satriani is tasked with the impossible, to imitate EVH, the fan reaction is important.

“I’m just speaking for myself,” he says. “But I feel it. I’m not the guy who says, ‘I’m the only [one] that can do it.’ None of that bullshit. I want to do it right. I spent all this money on gear and want to make it a great night to celebrate these songs. And I think everybody gets it.”

Satriani’s mindset is also heartwarming. The idea that he’d set aside his iconic style and cache of songs to pay Eddie his due is the secret to why he’s the man for the job. But in true Satch fashion, he’s managed to do it so that his and Eddie’s worlds happily collide.

“I’m throwing in all the stuff I normally would,” he says. “But I’ve added some things I never really did because I thought, ‘Well, that’s Eddie. I’m not gonna copy that.’ It doesn’t come naturally to me, but I’ve made it work. Though I’m not copying the parts; that’s not me, I’m not in a tribute band.”

While there are more shows to come – and they are yet to be announced – Satriani is already feeling a sense of gratitude for being a part of it and a deeper appreciation for EVH.

“There are moments when I have to center myself,” he admits. “I’ll say, ‘Okay, switch guitars, step on that thing, reduce the chorus, increase the delay,’ you know… keep it together [laughs]. It’s like I’ve said all along: what I do is not a real job, but somebody’s gotta do it.”

A couple of years ago, as rumors of you doing something Van Halen-related were percolating, you said something to the effect of “not wanting any part of it” when you were first approached.

“When Alex [Van Halen] and Dave [Lee Roth] first approached me to do it, I said, ‘Yes.’ Three weeks later, I called Alex back and said, ‘No way. I can’t do this. This is too hard.’ But he convinced me that I could do it, and then another couple of weeks later, it was the same kind of thing. I thought, ‘Man, some of these songs are… they’re just not me.’

“Eddie played in a completely different way. Where he put his timing… it’s so different from what I cultivated in my playing for decades. So that was the hardest part; I was just always pushing like Eddie did, and I was always trying to find the deepest pocket.

“Once Wolfgang [Van Halen] started to play some stuff out, I realised that was kind of the closure the fans needed; that’s what we all needed. That was the best tribute show ever. Watching Wolfgang lovingly play a couple of famous EVH songs had a big effect on me because I wanted closure, too.

“So, out of the blue, when Sammy called… and I should preface this by saying when Sammy calls you, you don’t really get a word in edgewise for a while! It was one of those calls where I just listened for a long time, but when he was done, I heard myself saying, ‘Yes. I want to do this.’”

Why was it different with Sammy?

“Because it was a friend calling about a retrospective of his whole career. It did happen to involve anywhere from 15 to 20 Van Halen songs – and they were different from the songs that Dave and Alex wanted to do. Dave was not going to do any Van Hagar stuff, anything from after he left the band.

“When Sammy joined, Eddie went through a real shift. He became far more progressive, a different world for me to jump into. But I also reminded myself, ‘That’s not the show. This is not a Van Halen tribute. This is a tribute to Sammy’s legacy that happens to include this huge chunk of music by Van Halen.’”

When it was confirmed you’d be doing this, many people were stuck on the idea that you’re treading on sacred ground. How did you prepare for this?

“Song by song, these are just tests of what comes naturally to you. One thing that really helped was looking on YouTube at the thousands of guitar players who’ve dedicated a lot of their time to trying to figure out Eddie’s stuff. It goes from serious impression to crazy interpretation. And there were not enough clips of Eddie playing live where you can see what he’s doing.”

It also doesn’t help that he rarely played anything live the same way twice.

“He just couldn’t help himself; he was just creative. He and Alex had so much fun twisting things and turning them upside down every show. After I got over the whole timing thing, which took me a lot of time to figure out, and I got comfortable with how that would work, Jason and I found common ground at rehearsals.”

We can’t talk EVH without digging into gear. How did you climb that mountain?

“Starting with the phone call from Alex and Dave, I got EVH amps, 5150s, Marshalls – I tried everything. I realized I would need a specific piece of gear to get the strings to make the same sound [as EVH].

“[For my own music] I’m using my signature [Marshall] amps on stage so I can play the melodies and solos non-stop for two and a half hours. It’s a lot of high notes and melodies up there; it had to stay really fat. Otherwise, people get fatigued. But that doesn’t really work: it’s the opposite of what I need for this gig where I’d be doing these Van Halen songs.”

“I couldn’t find the right amp [for this tour]. I realized it was a personal thing because I’d seen other players imitate Eddie online perfectly, but it just wasn’t me. I’m not the type of player who can imitate any other player. After trying every amp, I came back to 3rd Power Amplification, called them and said, ‘Here’s my problem: I don’t play like Eddie, but I gotta sound like Eddie.’

“In guitar terms, I described what I was looking for and they knew how to interpret all my colorful language about harmonics, and they created an amp for me [the 3rd Power Amplification Dragon 100, pictured above].

“In general, I went back to the Live Without A Net era from 1986. I loved that approach. Eddie pretty much had one guitar sound, and he played all the music from the earliest to the most current era of 1986, and it all still sounded like a Marshall. It didn’t have that Soldano, 5150, extra gain, fuzziness thing going on. And it certainly didn’t have the modern EVH super-gain and compression. It was still lively sounding but also stereo. And he had sustain.

“It wasn’t what we’d call high-gain distortion; it sounded like loud amp distortion. I knew I wouldn’t be turning Marshalls up to 10. You don’t do that any more – especially when your singers have been around for a while. They won’t tolerate a guitar player with three Marshall stacks on 10. So the volume is more normal on stage with Sammy. Let’s say it’s more reasonable, so the amps really have to sing at low volume. So, that’s pretty much it… unless you want to talk guitars!”

Of course! Oh, we’re going there. You’ve purchased a Frankenstein copy. Some say ‘sacrilegiously’ modified it, but that’s not fair, as you’re not here to duplicate Eddie, and you can’t, because it’s all in the fingers, surely?

“Yeah, that’s true. It’s all in the fingers; that really is true. We’ve heard Eddie play acoustic guitar, and it’s freakishly just as good as electric. I don’t know how he did that. [laughs] I’ve seen players online get close, but there’s that magic thing that Eddie had, which was his personality and his heart. No one comes close to that.

“The spirit of Frankenstein… it used to be the white-and-black striped guitar – many people don’t realize that. Eddie would take this thing apart from album to album, put different necks on it, and spray paint over it again. If there was anybody who loved making Frankenstein guitars, it was Eddie. He just went crazy with it.”

“When I went out there and got a Frankenstein, I tried seven and had to have the shop owner tell me how they sounded. Besides me feeling it – because it can be difficult to pick – the one that sounds good now didn’t come that way from the factory. It was lifeless and I struggled with keeping the guitar in tune. It must have taken two weeks of tweaking to wrestle that thing to the point where it would stay in tune.

“[After that] we contacted all of Eddie’s techs to ask how they’d take things apart and redo them. How they’d file down this, put this screw there, change this or that – anything to keep the thing in tune. Eventually, I changed the pickup to a Sustainiac. I knew I would need it because we’re playing Van Halen, Chickenfoot, and even one of my songs. I said, ‘Okay, I may not have time to switch guitars. I’ll make each of these guitars work for several things.’”

Messing with the pickup seems to be the thing that hardcore EVH devotees keyed in on as sacrilege.

“I was like, ‘The dummy pickup in Frankenstein? You really think that’s sacrilege?’ I thought replacing it with something that worked was a good idea [laughs]. That aside, I tend to rub my fingernails in the area where a pickguard would be. If the guitar’s got any kind of interruption of a solid surface or has a rough surface, I have to put a pickguard down. So that’s what I did with all the guitars I bought.”

You’ve been playing in D standard, which is not what Eddie did back in the day.

“That is a weird thing to deal with. It allowed Sam to play and sing a lot of the songs. Going back to when we did The Howard Stern Show, I called Vic Johnson, who is in [Sammy Hagar and] The Circle, and said, ‘How do you play in D standard?’ He goes, ‘I’m using 11s. It’s the only way to keep the guitar in tune.’ But I put some 11s on and, boy, that didn’t work for me. It was a real struggle.

“The intonation was insane – especially if you haven’t done it for months. Eventually, I went back to 10s and had to just not play my regular guitars to focus on getting used to that kind of tension. Eventually, I got there – it’ll probably be a real shock when I go back to my usual setup [laughs]. But that was difficult because the guitars don’t shimmer in the same way and sound darker. I had to strum differently and can’t be too crazy with the strings.”

And Eddie’s vibrato rested on the guitar’s body, rather than floating.

“I think the only song that feels weird to me is when we do Judgement Day because Eddie does this pounding of the vibrato bar, and the springs and the strings will bounce back based on tension. But he wasn’t tuned to D standard, so they come back differently for me. Every night, I think, ‘How’s it going to sound tonight?’”

And what about the solo for Jump? How would you go about playing that live?

“Well, it’s obvious that solo is a comp. It’s basically four or five phrases, and they’re all rushed. Some players have learned it from manuscripts and are comfortable pushing it, but my whole career has been trying to sell a melody on the electric guitar.

“I’ve taught myself to sit way in the backbeat like a singer, and this [approach] is the total opposite of the solo in Jump [laughs]. It’s composed of separate ideas that don’t go together. But when you hear the whole thing, you’re like, ‘I love that solo. It’s one of the best I’ve ever heard.’ The artistry is still there.”

“I often think about that because I’ve made so many albums. I’ve done first-takes, done labored punch-ins, and I’ve just had to try and get it to work. And then you eventually play it live and it’s going to change a bit.

“You know, there’s a great story where Eddie and Jennifer Batten were hanging out, and he says, ‘Can you show me the solo for Jump? I forgot how to do it.’ And, of course, Jennifer learned that main version and had it totally organized. She didn’t know how many takes it took or the different ways he played it. So she said, ‘Well, you go like this, and then you go like this…’ Eddie was like, ‘Oh, okay. All right!’ And then you watch Eddie play the solo in different clips and it’s totally different [laughs].

“If you watch him, he does the first high note, he does the second blues lick, then he goes down low and does the tapping, and then he does the minor 9 arpeggio, and then he does the nonsensical thing that he’d done from the very first Van Halen record. But it’s perfect, isn’t it?”

“So when I started doing that solo in rehearsals, Sammy stood right next to me, looking at me, like, ‘What are you doing?’ He was laughing because he’s seen so many guitar players try to meet up with that challenge and they all have a different way of doing it. Either they try to follow it or they memorize it, or they deconstruct and reconstruct it for their own sensibility.

“I can tell you that every night I realize as I’m playing it, ‘You did it again, Joe. You slowed everything down.’ Because I always put it in the backbeat. So I say, ‘Okay, tomorrow night, I’m going to speed it up like Eddie.’ I don’t know if I’ll keep that promise to myself…I’ll find out tonight!”

Are there any Joe Satriani habits or techniques you’ve had to set aside to take this challenge on?

“No, it’s all been additive. I realized early on that reducing my bag of tricks by, say, 50 per cent and trying to fill the void with somebody else’s wouldn’t work. I needed to add 150 or 200 per cent! For instance, I had to learn to play with a power drill.

“Now, this is really something. It’s like the spin-down of old drills: when you take your finger off the trigger, it goes right off. People who have worked for a living – not like me – and used these drills didn’t want them to power down. They wanted them to go zip and stop. When you buy a drill today, they all stop, which means you can’t do the beginning of Poundcake because it just zips and stops.

“You want that old zoom, zoom. Luckily, my production manager found one and it worked. He found batteries, which was lucky because they don’t make them any more. He painted it chrome because he knew I’d be playing my chrome guitar during Poundcake.

“It’s so rock ’n’ roll to bring out a power drill. But I did decide not to do it during the song. Eddie used to hang out by the drum riser and in between phrases sometimes he would pick it up and put it down. I found that really disconcerting, so I thought, ‘I can do the beginning, but after that I’m going to imitate the drill with some of my tricks.’”

As a contemporary and a fan of Eddie, what has this experience meant to you?

“The level of appreciation for his artistry, that’s gone through the roof. I was always a fan and thought he was great, but I’ve always avoided learning all of it. Once I stopped teaching, I put it behind me. I said, ‘I can’t learn how he does things because it’ll seep into my playing.’ But we were from the same generation, so what I’ve learned from the whole thing is I can change. I can evolve. I can add this component.

“I keep going back to the Live Without A Net performance because you can turn the sound down, look at it, and go, ‘Oh, my God.’ They were running around, jumping and playing music. And there’s not a moment where Eddie’s not smiling. He’s playing stuff that makes us grimace when we play it, and he’s smiling, twirling around and doing scissor kicks. It’s a reminder of how remarkable he and the whole band were at that moment.”

Sammy Hagar hopes that Wolfgang Van Halen can play a role in the Best Of All Worlds tour in the future, with the vocalist also reiterating that his invitations for David Lee Roth and Alex Van Halen to join the party are still on the table.

Hagar was hellbent on creating the ultimate celebration of Van Halen with the Best Of All Worlds tour. So much so that, speaking on the Eddie Trunk podcast, he’s kept the door open for other Van Halen alumni.

After months of gear oggling and speculation, the tour – with Joe Satriani stepping into play Eddie Van Halen’s electric guitar parts, Michael Anthony reprising his role on bass and Jason Bonham on drums – kicked off earlier this month.

Over two-thirds of the set is made up of Van Halen material, with Hagar and Anthony singing a number of David Lee Roth-era songs.

Hagar has now said he wants to prolong the party with tours in South America and Europe, and he hopes that, if but for one night only, Wolfgang Van Halen can feature at some point down the line.

However, the chances of Wolfgang ever linking up with the Best Of All Worlds crew will all come down to logistics. As Hagar concedes, Wolfgang Van Halen is a very busy man.

“Wolf is more than welcome,” Hagar tells Trunk. “What is it Kings and Queens do? I’m gonna put a command performance on Wolfie if he’s in town. But he’s out there working hard man, he’s playing the world. You can’t expect him to jump off a stage to jam with us but I’m sure our paths will cross.

“I'm telling you, we’re gonna continue this thing. We've gotta take this to South America, we've gotta take it to Europe, we've gotta go to Australia.”

When the tour was first announced, there were few out there who didn’t feel Satriani was the right man for the job. Hagar has since admitted that “a million guys could do it”, but added that only Satch truly understands Eddie.

Of the rest of the assembled band, Michael Anthony’s return was a welcome one, but some eyebrows were raised regarding the absence of OG drummer Alex Van Halen. As Hagar explains to Trunk, he didn’t want it to be this way.

“I just don’t think Alex wants to play with other people,” he says with an accepting sigh. “I think he’s still heartbroken about his brother, I don’t think he could stand up there and put his heart and soul into it like he would with his brother.

“If Alex wanted to play, Jason would stand up and give him his sticks. He looks up to him that much. I made the call to Al before I did Jason. I reached to Al more than once: No reply. And he sold his stuff, that’s quite the statement.”

Indeed, the drummer putting his gear up for sale was a clear indication of where his head is at right now. Michael Anthony reflected on the news, saying, “It's the end of anything that could have been tribute-wise”, but Hagar is determined to keep the flame burning.

Despite their chalk and cheese differences, Hagar says David Lee Roth is still welcome to play a part on the tour, too.

“The guy’s unpredictable, god bless him, but he likes to upstage people,” he says. “I’d love for him to come out and sing Jump at the end of the night.”

Of all those possibilities, it feels like a Wolfgang cameo is the most likely, even if he is insanely busy with Mammoth WVH.

In related Best Of All Worlds tour news, Satriani has been playing a custom-made 3rd Power tube amp, which was designed to replicate Eddie’s 1986 guitar tone. For those wanting a taste of the tour at home, it has now been released as a plugin, with a physical head and combo amps releasing later this year.

Sammy Hagar has continued to talk up Joe Satriani’s Eddie Van Halen chops, with the wheels of their highly anticipated Best of All Worlds now well-greased.

The former Van Halen and Montrose vocalist has picked up where David Lee Roth’s failed EVH tribute left off in 2022 – which saw Michael Anthony and, strangely, Jason Newsted in talks to play a role – by piecing together a band to perform a Van Halen-centric setlist. 

As reported last week, well over two-thirds of the 21-song set performed by Sammy Hagar, Joe Satriani, Michael Anthony, and Jason Bonham consists of DLR and Hagar-era Van Halen material. 

Having previously said that “a million guys” could have stood in Eddie's shoes for the makeshift Van Halen reunion tour, he added that Satch is the only guitarist on the planet who “knows where it's coming from.”

Now, appearing on SiriusXM's Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk, Hagar has continued that narrative. 

Asked about playing Van Halen with Satriani [transcribed by Blabbermouth], the vocalist said: “Oh, I gotta tell you, Joe is a scholar. I can't tell you how good of a musician Joe Satriani is. He's as good as any musician on the planet. 

“He's got his own style. It's a little different than Eddie's. Joe's got his thing. Joe went into the woodshed, and since the announcement [of the tour] he's dialed it in.

“What [Joe has] done, for any of you guitar players out there that wanna come and see what Joe's doing… he has taken the essence of Eddie's guitar solos and parts and he plays the necessary parts to make sure it sounds just like the record, the way it's supposed to. 

“The solo on Jump… he plays it like the record. And then he'll go off in the middle somewhere. He'll do a little tiny thing. He'll do little things that say, 'No, this is Joe Satriani playing Eddie,' but he's doing Eddie right. No-one could complain.

“He's hitting all the right notes that make the essence of what Eddie invented. And he puts his own heart and soul into it, which makes it so much different and so much better, in my opinion, than a guy just mimicking him exactly. 

“And his tone is different. It's kind of like Eddie's, but I don't know – Joe's just so good. I don't know how he's doing this. I really don't know how he's doing this.” 

Satriani’s time in the woodshed extended far, far beyond the remit of simply learning the songs, having previously said he'd never learned to play Eddie's music so his style didn’t seep into his playing.

He linked up with 3rd Power Amps for a custom amp that nailed his favorite Eddie Van Halen guitar tone – from 1986, when the band was transitioning between its DLR and Hagar chapters.

He’s also modded a wealth of guitars, from an EVH Frankenstein – and jokingly said he fears Eddie will haunt him for what he’s done to it – through to several of his Ibanez signature guitars. 

Further still, Satriani has revamped his pedalboard as he’s delicately toed the line between sounding like Eddie, and not losing his sense of self in the process.

Funnily, Hagar says the band are playing more Van Halen songs on this tour than the real Van Halen did while he was in the band.

“This setlist is deep, brother,” he says. “We're playing two hours and 20 minutes. We're only playing like five of my songs, one Chickenfoot and one Montrose. The rest is Van Halen. Get out of here, man.

“In Van Halen, we didn't play as many songs as we're playing, 'cause Eddie did a big 20-minute solo, Al [Alex Van Halen] did a 20-minute solo, Mike did a 15-20-minute solo, and I did Eagles Fly by myself. So, you add that together, we did about 12 songs.”

Reflecting on the shows so far, he concludes: “Honest to God, I haven't felt like this about a show since walking off the stage at some of the greatest Van Halen shows in my life. 

“I've been having fun, but now I've stepped it up and Mike and I, we look at each other every night walking off stage, and we hug backstage for about 20 minutes. It's just fantastic. The whole band – they came to the party. The people are happy, we're happy, and I just never felt like this walking off stage since Van Halen. I can say that. I can honestly say that.” 

Head to Sammy Hagar for details regarding the remaining tour dates.

Sammy Hagar’s all-star band got their much-anticipated The Best of All Worlds tour underway over the weekend, and the vocalist has discussed why Joe Satriani understands Eddie Van Halen better than anyone else.

According to Jason Newsted and Michael Anthony, both bass players were in talks for a David Lee Roth-fronted, but ultimately failed, Van Halen tribute in 2022. That tour would have put Satch at the helm, to many the perfect player to step into his enormous shoes – a sentiment Hagar shares.

Hagar has since gone one step further, recruiting Satriani, Michael Anthony, and drummer Jason Bonham for a tour that so far has featured 15 Van Halen songs, from both Roth and Hagar eras of the band.

In a new conversation with Classic Rock, Sammy Hagar hailed Satriani’s attention to detail and pointed out that there’s no-one better for the job.

“I think probably the smartest move I made if I was gonna go out and do this was to get Joe Satriani,” the vocalist says.

“A million guys could've done it – well, not a million. But you walk into a music store and you see a 12-year-old kid sitting on an amp with one of Eddie's guitars and he's playing Eruption.

“These genius little kids can do it now, but they don't necessarily know what he's doing. You ask him to write a song like that, and he's going, 'Ah, I don't know how.' You say, 'Joe, write me a song like that,' Joe'll write you a song like that 'cause he knows where it's coming from.”

That last line is especially interesting – is Hagar hinting that this band could be looking to work on original music together, or is he simply making a point?

The tour setlist – look away if you want to avoid spoilers – includes a raft of Van Halen anthems, from Jump to Ain't Talkin' 'bout Love, as well as lesser-played deep cuts such as Judgment Day and The Seventh Seal. The tour also marks the first time Hagar has performed Panama with his solo band.

Speaking to Guitar World back in November, with the tour an intimidating speck in the distance at that time, Satriani had said he would need to go through some “mental therapy” to get over the fact his playing wasn't going to sound exactly like Eddie's.

He also added that he expected .9 gauge strings “will be part of the secret formula for the Eddie Van Halen sound. Without those, you don't get the expressiveness and the slinkiness.”

It was an early indicator that no stone would be left unturned during his exhaustive tone quest.

Indeed, Satch has felt the pressure of emulating/honoring his idol for the tour. As such, he’s worked with 3rd Power amps for a custom amp to nail Eddie's 1986 guitar tone, built a new pedalboard, and modded several EVH guitars after saying his live rig needed to be "a different animal”.

In fact, so conscious was the guitarist not to let Eddie's influence dull the shine of his personality, he revealed he'd never learned how to play Eddie's music before the tour opportunity came along.

“After being a super-fan of Van Halen when they first came out, I realized that if I learned how to play this stuff, it would seep into my playing,” he said. “So, around ‘88, I consciously decided not to figure it out. I'd put it on and have a good time, but I never looked to figure out what Eddie was doing.

“And then, I got the call from Alex [Van Halen] and Dave [Lee Roth] a couple of years ago, and I realized, 'Wow, I don't know how to play any of it.’ I explained that to them, and maybe every three or four weeks, I'd call them up, saying, 'I'm not doing it. I'm sorry; I'm not your guy.' So many guys were good at it, but they would talk me back into it, saying, 'No, you're the guy.’”

The rest, as they say, is history.

After months of build-up, Sammy Hagar and co. kickstarted their Best Of All Worlds tour in style over the weekend, with a Van Halen-heavy setlist.

Just over 70% of the 21-song set performed at West Palm Beach, FL on July 13 saw Joe Satriani stepping into his idol, Eddie Van Halen’s shoes – with Sammy Hagar, Montrose, and Chickenfoot material also getting an airing.

The tour features Hagar joining forces with Joe Satriani, Michael Anthony, and Jason Bonham to perform David Lee Roth-era tracks and Hagar hits alike – making for a comprehensive tribute to all things Van Halen.

Launching into Good Enough, the set's foot-stomping opener, Satch looked in his element pounding out the song’s sizeable riffs on his chrome Ibanez signature. He revealed last week that the light-catching axe would be his main guitar for the tour.

The guitarist hasn’t taken his role lightly. Footage captured from opening night shows a wall of 3rd Power Dragon amps decorating the stage behind him. Satriani has worked with the firm on a custom tube amp that can replicate Eddie Van Halen’s 1986 guitar tone.

Speaking to Guitar World back in November, Satriani believed a fairly dramatic shake-up of his live rig was needed ahead of the tour, saying:

“My rig doesn't work because my live rig is designed so that I can play above the 12th fret on the first strings and still have everything sound fat. I realized there's no way to play the Van Halen stuff on my rig – it's a different animal.”

The move has seen him also make some mods to several guitars, including loading a Sustainiac neck pickup and a kill switch into an EVH Frankenstein. But it's still his Satriani’s own signature guitars that are taking most of the limelight.

While the Chrome model was employed for the likes of Poundcake and Ain't Talkin' 'bout Love, his Red model, which he said was “a bit sweeter” for its basswood body during a guitar rundown last week, was picked up for a Michael Anthony-led Why Can't This Be Love, Judgement Day, and Summer Nights, which was played live for the first time since 2006.

As he previously stated, his Black Ibanez was entrusted for the chorus-lathered licks of 5150, and Satch has captured Eddie’s guitar tone here with aplomb.

A rendition of Satriani's own Satch Boogie let the guitarist return to more familiar territory, while Heavy Metal and I Can't Drive 55, two of Hagar's biggest solo songs, featured late on.

A medley taking in Space Station #5, Chickenfoot’s Oh Yeah, and Jump chartered three very different eras of Hagar’s career, but it was Van Halen’s When It’s Love that got the honor of closing the show.

Notably, as much as Satriani adores Eddie’s guitar playing, there is a pleasing degree of his personality seeping into these legendary displays of guitar acrobatics. Satch has painstakingly assembled a fit-for-purpose live rig, but this isn’t pure mimicry.

Beneath all that, though, is a Van Halen superfan simply having a blast.

“It’s one thing to listen,” he said during November’s chat with GW, “but when you play these songs, you go, ‘It’s no wonder Eddie had so much fun playing this’.”

The tour continues with three more shows this week. Head to Sammy Hagar for the full schedule and tickets.

Best of All Worlds first show setlist

1. Good Enough
2. Poundcake
3. Runaround
4. There's Only One Way to Rock
5. Judgement Day
6. Panama
7. 5150
8. Summer Nights
9. Ain't Talkin' 'bout Love (Michael Anthony on lead vocals)
10. Top of the World
11. Best of Both Worlds
12. Satch Boogie
13. The Seventh Seal
14. Right Now
15. Why Can't This Be Love
16. Eagles Fly
17. Mas Tequila
18. Heavy Metal
19. I Can't Drive 55
20. Space Station #5 / Oh Yeah / Jump
21. When It's Love

As the Van Halen-honoring Best Of All Worlds tour draws ever closer, more information about Joe Satriani’s painstakingly crafted rig is being revealed.

Having previously been seen playing a heavily modded EVH Strat, which lead fans to believe his trusty collection of Ibanez electric guitars were to get a little rest, Satch has now been snapped in new rehearsal footage that seemingly suggests otherwise.

Satch’s preparations for the tour, which will find him playing Eddie Van Halen's guitar parts alongside Sammy Hagar, Michael Anthony, and Jason Bonham, have been well documented.

He’s called his role “a great honor and a terrifying challenge,” having come to terms with the fact he doesn’t sound like Van Halen.

But that’s not stopped him from going to great lengths to nail the Van Halen vibe, having teamed up with 3rd Power Amps for a custom tube amp designed capture Eddie’s 1986 tone, and revamping his pedalboard in the process.

Despite such efforts, it seems Satch still has a role for his Ibanez signatures guitars. Now, Satriani has been captured using one to rock out to Poundcake in a clip posted on Sammy Hagar's Instagram.

To his side, there is a whole rack of interesting six-strings, including the modified EVH Striped Series model, and a red, white, and black version of it, too. This is purely speculative, but we’d assume it’s been given similar mods.

The video passes by the rack only briefly, and the video quality leaves a little to be desired, but we believe we can make out his ever-present red Ibanez JS2410, an EVH Striped Circles, and even an EVH Wolfgang Special.

There are a total of eight guitars on the rack, including two or three other Ibanez guitars. A further two can be seen loitering at the back of the room near Bonham's drum kit – one might also be an Ibanez – and of course, there's another Ibanez in his hands. That's a lot of gear.

There's also what looks to be a red Gibson Explorer, which could perhaps be taking the place of an EVH Shark.

While exact details are scarce, the clip has certainly set pulses – and imaginations – racing, with the tour set to kick off in West Palm Beach at the iTHINK Financial Amphitheater on July 13.

Head to Sammy Hagar for all dates and tickets.

Joe Satriani takes tone very seriously. When it was announced he’d be joining Sammy Hagar, Michael Anthony, and Jason Bonham for the Best of All Worlds tour this summer, Satch clearly wasn’t content with simply grabbing his Ibanez signature guitar and learning the songs.

The tour is set to include Hagar and Roth-era Van Halen songs, and Satriani has previously explained he's been working with 3rd Power Amps for a custom unit designed to capture Eddie Van Halen’s guitar tone. 

Now, new rehearsal footage has revealed he’s taking his tone-hunting mission even further. The clip, posted on Hagar’s Instagram, shows Satch has seemingly put down his iconic Ibanez in favor of an EVH electric guitar. 

The clip is short, but it looks like Satch has opted for an EVH Striped Series ‘78 Eruption guitar for the shows. It’s unclear whether this guitar is another custom-spec build or simply an off-the-shelf EVH guitar – and if other EVH models will join it on the road – but it sounds incredible either way. 

There’s also a glimpse of his pedalboard, which confirms Satriani his dived even deeper into the waters of Van Halen’s tone. Two EVH pedals – an MXR Phase 90 and Flanger – can be spotted. 

There’s also a Boss CE-2w chorus pedal and a Boss DM-2w delay pedal, as well as what appears to be a TC Electronic Sub 'N' Up Octaver and Vox wah.

Considering how many of Van Halen's preferred pedals have been selected, it's interesting Satch would go for Vox over Jim Dunlop for the wah pedal. Satriani does have a signature wah, but EVH tended to opt for a Cry Baby, and even has his own signature model.

Regardless, it's clear Satch wants to get as close to Van Halen’s tone as possible, and it’s a determination we applaud. 

A gear overhaul was always on the cards for the virtuoso. Satch previously told Guitar World of his intentions to fine-tune his rig to meet the tour's demands.

“My rig doesn't work because my live rig is designed so that I can play above the 12th fret on the first strings and still have everything sound fat,” he said. “I realized there's no way to play the Van Halen stuff on my rig; it's a different animal.”

“Gear is so important for the performer,” the guitarist expanded while discussing his 3rd Power amp. “I know that when we step out on stage and whether I'm playing Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love or 5150, I'm gonna need to feel and hear that sound to convince myself to keep going.

“I know, in my heart, that I wanna hear that mythical Eddie Van Halen sound that we all hear in our mind, and I wanna be able to feel it.” 

The Best of All Worlds tour begins on July 13 in West Palm Beach, Florida and concludes on August 31 in St. Louis, Missouri. A full list of dates can be found on Sammy Hagar's website.

Van Halen bassist Michael Anthony has set the record straight regarding the much-talked-about Van Halen tribute concert and why it never materialized. According to Anthony, “one of the ingredients was not, let's say, playing ball with everybody else.”

In 2022, Van Halen's fans speculated that a tribute project was in the works. Joe Satriani confirmed he was involved in project discussions with Alex Van Halen and David Lee Roth. 

Ex-Metallica bassist Jason Newsted claimed Joe Satriani and Alex Van Halen had approached him to participate in the Van Halen tribute project. However, the project seems to have fallen through entirely, with Anthony confirming the tribute is not happening due to internal disputes. 

In a recent interview with The Hooks Rocks podcast, Anthony said [transcribed by Blabbermouth], “Now I, myself, I got a call from Alex and Dave a few years, a right around that same time. And they wanted to put something together, and Joe was in the mix. I remember talking to Joe a couple of times after that, too. And Joe was telling me, 'Yeah, well, they gave me some of that album and told me to listen to it or whatever.'

“All I can say is – I'm not gonna point fingers – but through all of this, one of the ingredients was not, let's say, playing ball with everybody else. And that's all I'm gonna say. I'll let you all figure it out. 

“It's pretty sad, because even when the band was inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame – this was in 2007 – Sammy [Hagar] and I were the only two from the band that showed up, and we weren't even in the band at the time.”

The upcoming Best of All Worlds tour, spearheaded by Michael Anthony, Joe Satriani, and Sammy Hagar, seems to be the closest Van Halen fans will get to a star-studded tribute project tour.

“It’s crazy to think that it’ll be 20 years since Mikey and I played these songs with Van Halen on the 04’ Best of Both Worlds Tour,” commented Hagar. “With Joe on board, we can take a deeper dive into those years.”

The Best of All Worlds tour kicks off on July 13 West Palm Beach, Florida. Fans can expect to hear post-David Lee Roth Van Halen classics such as Best of Both Worlds, 5150 and Right Now, as well as material from Hagar/Anthony/Satriani supergroup Chickenfoot and Sammy Hagar and the Circle.

Joe Satriani has revealed that he’s working on a new guitar amp designed specifically to capture Eddie Van Halen’s 1986 guitar tone. 

The guitarist, fresh from releasing his first original song with Steve Vai, is preparing to perform hits from across Van Halen’s back catalog with Sammy Hagar, Michael Anthony, and Jason Bonham this summer. 

Speaking to Talking Shred onboard the Monsters of Rock Cruise, Satriani spoke about his love for the tone on Van Halen's 1986 live album, Live Without A Net – and added that Sammy Hagar loves it, too.  

David Lee Roth had left to embark on a solo career a year earlier, and as the band began to transition to life with Sammy Hagar at the helm, Eddie Van Halen had started to move away from Marshall amps. 

It was a journey that would ultimately see him create his fruitful partnership with Peavey, but along the way, he drove a tone that superfan Satriani can’t get enough of. 

“Once I'd taken this deep dive into the technicalities of trying to play these songs, and spoken to Sammy about his favorite tone, we focused on that [album],” he says. 

“He was still playing the Roth era rig, but was leaning towards what was to become the Hagar era rig – the transition from Marshall amps to Soldano, to Peavey, and ultimately the 5150IIIs. 

“So I've been working with 3rd Power Amps out of Nashville to make the ultimate '86 era Van Halen amp. We'll be able to do both eras with that setup. Getting that started has been the important thing for me.”

When pressed as to whether the amp will be tube-powered or solid-state, Satriani admitted that he doesn’t know yet, but did shed some light on the thoughts behind the amp's creation.   

“The Dragon amp, which 3rd Power does, you could plug into two cabinets and turn up really loud, and it'll sound great,” he believes. “But Eddie would plug into a Marshall, it would go into a Palmer speaker emulator, and that would go into stereo power amps and there'd be Eventides and delays. It was just insane. [His rig] looked like the ENIAC, the computer from the '40s.  

“I'm not gonna emulate that,” Satriani adds, “I want it to be simple. But there's something about the transient response of having all that wattage behind you, the speed of the tone is really important. Fingers are crossed that once I start playing Ain’t Talkin’ ‘bout Love that'll be like ‘I'm here, I'm in the zone.’” 

Satriani also revealed that, until it came to writing and touring with Chickenfoot in 2008, he hadn’t learned to play any of Van Halen’s music “so that I wouldn’t steal anything.” 

Talking about receiving a phone call from Hagar, where he pitched the Best of All Worlds tour to Satriani, he said: “I knew I was going to say yes because he's had a fantastic career, and with Chickenfoot, I'm part of that legacy, which is fantastic. 

“The scary part was the Van Halen part – I've tried my best to avoid playing like Eddie forever. I'm a big fan and I've never learned the songs on purpose so I didn't steal anything. Then I had to learn the songs and I was like ‘This is gonna be torture.’ 

It's an experience he's likened to his brief stint in Deep Purple. 

“When I was playing in Deep Purple,” he says, “all I heard was Ritchie Blackmore's parts in one ear, and in the other ear was me. It didn't sound like Ritchie.  

“So, once I get off the ship, my practice will be about playing all those things that Eddie used to do that don't come naturally to me, and make them feel natural.”  

For now, Satriani will return to practicing Van Halen’s crazy acrobatic licks ahead of the much-anticipated Best of All Worlds tour in July and August. 

• For dates and tickets to the Best of All Worlds tour, visit Hagar's website.

Earlier this week, it was announced that a new supergroup comprising electric guitar icon Joe Satriani, Sammy Hagar, Michael Anthony and Jason Bonham would be embarking on The Best of All Worlds tour.

With the announcement came the news that the ensemble would be performing a Van Halen-heavy setlist and, given Satch’s long-touted association with the project, it’s safe to assume this is as close to a Van Halen tribute tour as we’ll get.

Soon after the news broke, the newly formed quartet took to the Sirius XM studio to give listeners a taste of what can be expected from their upcoming tour, tackling five tracks from the VH repertoire in front of host Howard Stern.

But in the midst of those performances, Satriani and Hagar took the opportunity to name what they believed to be the hardest guitar riffs Eddie Van Halen ever played.

For Hagar, it was initially a toss-up between 5150 and Summer Nights but, as he explains in the video above, there was another option: one that prompted Satriani to admit, “This is impossible to play,” when asked to demo the hook.

“There’s something else from the early days,” Hagar revealed, “that everytime Eddie would play and every time Joe plays… it’s fucking nuts.”

The riff in question is the opening hook from Mean Street – a mind-boggling exercise in harmonic, double-stop and two-hand tapping, as well as percussive muting, that would be enough to send shivers down most players’ spines.

Satch being Satch, though, navigates the melodic minefield with effortless aplomb (regardless of any humble protests from the man himself) resulting in an outpouring of praise from Hagar.

In a discussion of why Satch was cast for his role in the band, Hagar said, “The thing about what Eddie did, and the reason Joe is in this band for this tour, is because, if you’re going to go deep into his stuff and the Van Halen catalog, you need a guy like Joe Satriani that’s not just imitating Eddie.”

“So many kids in grocery stores just pick up a guitar... but they don’t necessarily know what they’re playing,” he went on. “They’re just imitating Eddie because he’s so distinct. Joe knows what he’s playing, and Joe can do something like that and know what it means.

“That’s the difference between playing this stuff with Joe and just having some guitar player in the band that can imitate Eddie.”

In what later transpired to be Satch, Hagar, Anthony and Bonham’s first-ever get together ahead of The Best of All Worlds tour next year, the group also made their way through Hagar’s other hardest riffs picks – 5150 and Summer Nights – as well Right Now, Good Enough and Best of Both Worlds.

“Let it be known. This was our first rehearsal/get together,” Hagar wrote on Instagram after the performance. “Can’t wait to put in a couple weeks of hardcore practice. This lineup will be on fire.”

Despite it being a first-time performance, Hagar and co were in fine form indeed. Satch and his assortment of Ibanez guitars once again made light work of 5150 and Summer Nights, and further demonstrated why he was ultimately selected for the gig with a faithful performance of Best of Both Worlds’ two-hand tap-tinged solo and the pinch harmonic-loaded pentatonic noodles of Right Now.

The latter solo, it should be said, prompted yet more praise from Hagar mid-song: “Joe Satriani – come on, man. No rehearsal!”

The Best of All Worlds tour will begin on July 13, 2024, in Florida, and is currently scheduled to run until its closing show in Missouri on August 31. 

Head over to Sammy Hagar’s website for more dates and information.

Joe Satriani has a busy 2024 ahead. Not only has he reformed the original G3 lineup for an upcoming tour, but he is also working on new music and live dates with Steve Vai.

Sammy Hagar, Michael Anthony, Jason Bonham and electric guitar legend Joe Satriani have announced a summer 2024 North American tour that's set to feature a very Van Halen-heavy setlist.

Its participants have been careful not to explicitly call The Best of All Worlds, as the tour is being called, a “Van Halen tribute tour,“ as original frontman David Lee Roth, drummer Alex Van Halen, and Eddie Van Halen's son – Mammoth WVH leader and one-time Van Halen bass guitar player Wolfgang Van Halen – do not appear to be involved.

Needless to say, though, given that Satriani was long involved in discussions for an official tour with Roth and Alex Van Halen that eventually petered out, it appears that this is as close to a genuine tribute tour as we're going to get.

“It’s crazy to think that it’ll be 20 years since Mikey and I played these songs with Van Halen on the 04’ Best of Both Worlds Tour,“ Hagar said in a statement. “With Joe on board, we can take a deeper dive into those years.

“We’re going to touch on some hits from my entire career, but seeing fans old and new really embrace [The Collection II, a new box set featuring remasters of Van Halen's four Hagar-era albums] set off something in Mikey and I. We were at my Birthday Bash in Cabo for my 76th and looked at each other and high five-d, like, ‘let’s do it.’ We pulled out a couple of them and it was an instant lovefest with the fans from our first riffs. 

“The music we created is going to outlive us all,“ the singer concluded. “[The songs] deserve to be heard, so it's time we go out and serve the fans that music, while we still can.“

The statement announcing the tour highlighted latter-day Van Halen classics like Finish What Ya Started, 5150, Good Enough, Best of Both Worlds, Poundcake, and Right Now as examples of what fans can expect to hear at the shows, along with material from Hagar/Anthony/Satriani supergroup Chickenfoot, and modern-day project The Circle.

From there, one can naturally infer that – in Roth's absence – the setlists will be light on material from Van Halen's first six albums.

The Best of All Worlds tour is set to begin on July 13 in West Palm Beach, Florida and will conclude on August 31 in St. Louis, Missouri, and will be supported by Loverboy. Tickets go on sale this Friday, November 17, at 10 a.m. local time.

For tickets and more info, visit Hagar's website.

Billy Corgan joined Sammy Hagar & The Circle for an impromptu onstage jam last Friday (October 20) during the latter’s show at Hammond, Indiana.

For the occasion, Corgan and co elected to play a track from the Van Halen catalog – the 1978 classic Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love – which saw the Smashing Pumpkins frontman pay homage to his hero Eddie Van Halen and trade off with Hagar’s all-star band.

Said band comprises Van Halen bassist Michael Anthony, drummer Jason Bonham and guitarist Vic Johnson, the latter of whom (after a brief intro interlude) kicked off with the main hook while Corgan followed suit with the track’s progression.

Corgan, who swapped his own Reverend signature guitar for Hagar's Gibson Les Paul for the occasion, remained firmly rooted in the rhythm pocket while Johnson and his Peavey Wolfgang took care of lead duties.

“What a surprise to meet/jam with @BillyCorgan last night,” Hagar wrote on social media after the gig. “One talented due brought even more fun than we were already having.”

“What a great night we had last night!” added Bonham, who after the rendition announced on stage, “That was for you, Eddie.”

That Corgan was present to help Hagar perform a Van Halen track is made even more significant when the Smashing Pumpkin founder’s admiration for Eddie Van Halen is taken into consideration.

In fact, Corgan admired Van Halen so much that back in the mid ‘90s he asked Guitar World if he could interview him for the magazine – an interview that featured in the April 1996 issue – in order to introduce him to “a generation of alternative guitars”.

Not too long ago, the Reverend signature artist reflected on his conversation with the late guitar hero, calling it “a religious experience”.

“I was lucky because, around 1997/’98 [the April 1996 issue of GW], there was a guitar magazine in America, and I went to them, and I said, ‘I'd really like to interview Eddie Van Halen,’” Corgan recalled to BBC Radio 6 Music. “They said, ‘Why do you wanna interview Eddie Van Halen?’ 

“I said, ‘Because I'd really like to introduce him to a generation of alternative guitar players.’ To me, he really is an alternative guitar player; I know he gets kind of lumped in the other way.”

“I got to sit two feet away from Eddie and watch him play, and I'm telling you, it was like a religious experience. I mean, the man was so gifted, so kind.”

The extent of Corgan’s admiration for Van Halen is further highlighted in his tribute to Eddie, first posted following the guitar hero’s passing in 2020.

“What a musician, what a legacy, what power and mastery,” the Smashing Pumpkins frontman wrote on social media at the time. “I don’t think it’s possible to sum up what his inspiration did for me as a musician. No man made his playing so effortless that I endeavored to make mine sound the same.”

Between the years 2016 and 2020, Sammy Hagar released five seasons of his popular Rock & Roll Road Trip TV series – a show that saw the former Van Halen frontman link up with a number of A-list electric guitar players for performances, interviews and other activities.

On March 5 2017, the second series of Rock & Roll Road Trip aired in spectacular fashion, with Hagar recruiting Joe Satriani, James Hetfield, Melissa Etheridge, Pat Monahan and Tommy Lee for his annual Acoustic-4-A-Cure concert.

In that same episode, Hagar also tapped John Mayer for an acoustic-meets-electric performance of Van Halen’s 1988 track, Finish What Ya Started.

With Hagar wielding his Yamaha AES-620SH signature guitar – complete with a “Red Rocker” inlay – Mayer opts for what looks like his Martin OMJM acoustic guitar, supplying the song with a bountiful supply of bouncy strums and blues-y fretboard improvs.

Though he’s using an electric guitar, Hagar also employs a pristine clean tone, which complements Mayer’s Martin almost as well as the two singer-guitarists’ vocals complement each other. 

As the song progresses, Mayer eases more and more into the track, treating his rhythmic progressions to subtle melodic embellishments and off-the-cuff lead licks that color his chords with some tasty seventh notes and beyond.

These flourishes come to a fore at the 24:30 mark in the video above – the whole song starts at the 22:00 mark – when Mayer breezes through track's solo.

Earlier in the episode, Mayer and Hagar sat down to discuss their performance of Finish What Ya Started, with the Sob Rock star admitting he attempted to learn the chicken pickin' solo by ear on the spot.

“It’s a really fun challenge. It’s a batting cage,” Mayer said of learning songs by ear. “It’s like, someone says, ‘Here’s a song,’ and if you’ve heard the song and if you’ve played guitar long enough, you sort of have to Beautiful Mind it really fast, and that’s always really fun for me.

“We did Finish What Ya Started and I went, ‘Oh there’s a pretty involved chicken pickin’ solo in here,’” he continued. “And I go, ‘How do I get around it?’ You just go through it. Just do it. And it ends up being somewhat like it, but you end up getting the love for having attempted the jump.”

Mayer is no stranger to covering Van Halen classics. Back in the summer of 2008, the PRS signature artist harnessed his inner Eddie Van Halen on multiple occasions and used a Frankenstein model to treat audiences to a cover of Panama.

The new footage is the second pro-shot clip of the March 5 2017 episode of Rock & Roll Road Trip to be released. Almost exactly a year ago, footage from the Acoustic-4-A-Cure episode was released, which showed Mayer, Hagar, Etheridge, Satriani and Hetfield perform Piece of My Heart.

The footage of Mayer and Hagar performing Finish What Ya Started is the latest Rock & Roll Road Trip episode to drop, after a clip of Steve Lukather jamming Crossroads with Sammy Hagar and Kenny Aronoff arrived in September.

Sammy Hagar keeps it simple. Finding joy in life through music has never been an issue. And as his name scrolls across my cellphone screen, I can't help but crack a smile because, at least for a short while, the stress of the world fell away. 

I knew that with Sammy on the line, I was in for a good time. “Hey man, the sun is shinin' by me,” he says. “How's it by you? I'm glad you got to me early; that's when the good stuff flows.”

Like Hagar, if you're one to look on the bright side, surely, you'd agree that the fever dream we share today is often only balanced out by the constant stream of new music. And it seems that the forever young rocker would concur, as he channeled some of his most forward-facing music in years during dark days shrouded in uncertainty resulting in Crazy Times.

“It starts with my vocals, and I'm singing as good as I ever have,” says Hagar. “And I think I write better lyrics now than when I was in Van Halen. I mean, some of those songs were great, but a lot of times, I was clowning around because Eddie and I were always goofing off so much. 

“Back then, Eddie and I were doing these crazy acrobatics where I would sing crazy lines, and he'd go nuts on the guitar. When I was in Van Halen, at least in the early days, it was all about having fun. But with this record, the difference is that I didn't goof off and throw silly lyrics into the mix. I hate to say I did that in Van Halen, but I did.”

In many ways, Crazy Times is unparalleled within Hagar's iconic discography. Still, it's bold to compare a record made at this stage of Hagar's career to Montrose, let alone Van Halen. But somehow, Hagar's urgency checks all the appropriate boxes. So, if you're thinking that Crazy Times is just another record, think again. And if you've locked in your end-of-year lists for rock album of the year, reconsider.

“I've never had one quite like this before,” Hagar continues. “And it was intense for me at first because I didn't write during the pandemic. I just saw it as a break, and I said, “Don't stress. You don't have to do anything,” so I didn't. 

“So, as crazy as it was, I enjoyed the relaxation and allowed myself to reboot for the first time in like 50 years. [Laughs]. And not having that pressure of having to get my voice in shape and rehearsing was great; I didn't realize how much I needed it.”

At 75 years of age, Sammy Hagar knows that his place in the world as an unmitigated rock star is set in stone. With his legacy cemented, Hagar has nothing left to prove, but when it came to Crazy Times, he had an enduring statement to make. And with that statement shined the beauty of Hagar, his music, and his aesthetic; he's forever young and full of enough energy to power all of Cabo Wabo and beyond. 

As for The Circle, with Hagar being flanked by the likes of Michael Anthony, Jason Bonham, and Vic Johnson, it's not hard to see why the music is flavorful. But what's most enchanting is the fact that Hagar's energy is seemingly only matched by his passion to create.

“I don't know where this one will land when it's all said and done. It's too early for me to say,” relents Hagar. “But I will say that it's my favorite record that I've made since I don't even know when. At my age and in my position in life, there are a lot of other things I could be doing besides going into some stinking studio with a bunch of guys and slaving, but it wasn't like that this time. 

“So, buy the hype because it's good shit. If it was bullshit, that would be different, but I'm hyping some good shit. I guess this shows I ain't done yet; I still got a lot more to do. I'll rock 'til I'm dead.”

While Hagar remains tightlipped on the ever-swirling Van Halen tribute show rumors – “It’s Alex’s call” – he does have quite a lot to discuss on his new album with The Circle.

Eternally young and with a smile curling over the edges of his perpetually blonde locks, Sammy Hagar dials in with Guitar World to recount the inception of Crazy Times, the evolution of his songwriting from his days in Van Halen, and the importance of Michael Anthony in his personal and musical life.

You've made a lot of great music over the years, but Crazy Times feels incredibly vibrant.

“Man, I agree. I don't know if it was the rubber band effect of being held back by Covid for damn near three years, but this record fuckin' rocks. It's like when we finally let go and got to do something; this record came flying out of me. 

“I've made a lot of records in my life with a lot of different people and a lot of different producers, but something special happened here. I felt like I needed to make this record. My mind, body, and soul were all screaming to make this record, and there was no need to fake it; it came out effortlessly.”

From my perspective, these tracks have a very relatable feel to them. What moved the needle in that direction?

“I realized I had all this pent-up stuff, and it came pouring out. It was automatic to the point that I was writing lyrics on the spot. And for the first time in a long time, I felt like I was writing about things relative to everyone. 

“Because the whole world was going through the same stuff, I didn't have to write about my life selfishly. I really do feel that I'm the most in touch with reality than I have been in years, man. 

“I've been a rock star for a long time, be it coming from Van Halen, Montrose, or all the other stuff, I had painted myself into a bubble. And once you're in the bubble, you start living a different life than the rest of the world. And when that happens, the songs start getting very personal or completely irrelevant to anyone but yourself in your world unless you make things up.”

Have you been in a position where you needed to make things up before?

“I wouldn't say I like doing it, but I've done it my whole life when I've needed another song or two to flesh out a record. It's something where I'd write a love song that's not necessarily coming from the heart, but you gotta do it. You make up some cool rhymes, remember when you were madly in love, and then you get a song. [Laughs]. 

“But with this album, it wasn't like that, it was much easier to let it all out with confidence, and it came quickly. The energy is so high because it came out the first time, and we didn't beat it to death. 

“And that's different from how I've ever made records, except maybe the first two Van Halen records I did. With those, we jammed, and boom, it was done. That's how we did it with this record, and I think it's a testament to the chemistry of this band.”

This seems to be one of the heaviest records you've made in a long time, but that wasn't your initial intention, right?

“I agree with you, especially things like Slow Drain and Childhood's End. But you're right; initially, I was thinking of making an acoustic record, but Dave Cobb – the world's greatest producer time as far as I'm concerned – vetoed that. [Laughs]. 

“Dave said, ‘I want to make a definitive Sammy Hagar record. I want you to be singing and screaming your ass off like you did in Montrose.’ Even with the ballads, he wanted them to be more like Behind Blue Eyes, and when he started giving me direction, I tweaked my approach and said to myself, ‘This guy knows what he's talking about.’ 

“I trusted him because it's Dave Cobb, but it didn't take much; I'm an open-minded guy. When I walk into the studio, I'm usually half-cocked; I've never walked into the studio, going, ‘Hey, everything's written. It's all finished. It's all done. All we have to do is one take, and we're done.’ [Laughs]. I don't walk in the studio like that. I always try to leave some room for new ideas.”

How did putting your guitar down for this record alter your vocal approach, if at all?

“Well, that's really observant of you because it did make all the difference in the world for my vocals. I put the guitar down, and suddenly, I was in Montrose and Van Halen again. Every time I would do a solo record, I would play the guitar parts with a full band, and I wouldn't even sing my parts until the record was almost done. I would even do background vocals first, then I would go in to do my lead vocals. 

“And the result is I found myself uncomfortable because we singers, we're freakazoids, and we're never as comfortable as we seem, and we hate the sound of our own voices, so we get stuck. Honestly, singing is fucked up, man. [Laughs]. 

“So, by not playing guitar, I was able to focus on singing each song, and I was able to nail a lot of them quickly. I tried some things I usually wouldn't try, and it made for some of the best vocals I've ever done in my life. They're right up there with Montrose and Van Halen.”

This record has the sound of a band recording live in the studio. Was that the case?

“Yeah, man, we did. But the people in that band have to be damn good to be able to do that. And the musicianship in this band with Jason [Bonham], Mikey [Anthony], and Vic [Johnson] is off the charts. And when you've got that level of musicianship, all you have to do is let the creativity take over. 

“But if you've got lousy players, somebody's gonna fuck up every take, and you're gonna have to overdub their parts or keep going until everybody gets it right. I've been in the studio with people that take four or five days to do one song. But for this record, we did two songs a day and were partying by five o'clock. [Laughs].”

Many would attest to the musical chemistry of Van Halen. But I would wager what you share in The Circle rivals that.

“Oh, for sure. The chemistry in The Circle is unique because we all grew up on the same music. When one of us brings up a song like Won't Get Fooled Again, we all know what we're talking about. We don't have to explain anything, and we don't have to argue. We all carry the same reference points, which helps us stay on the same page. 

“But as far as rivaling Van Halen, I cannot drive this point home enough: Jason Bonham plays exactly like his dad. I never played with his dad, but I've seen Led Zeppelin so many times, and Jason has the goods. When Jason plays, you close your eyes, and you're hearing his pop play. 

“And Alex Van Halen: all he ever wanted was the John Bonham drum sound. With every producer, Alex would say, ‘I want my drums to sound like When the Levee Breaks. I want to sound like Bonham.’ 

“So, you've got Jason Bonham on drums, and then you've got Michael Anthony, who plays better now than he ever played in Van Halen, and you've got Vic Johnson, who is an absolute maestro on guitar.”

Why do you feel that Michael plays better now than with Van Halen?

“Because in Van Halen, Eddie was so busy with the way he played guitar that there wasn't much room for Mikey to do anything. Eddie played lead, rhythm, melody, and in some ways, the bass line all at once because he was just a master. 

“So, Mikey rarely got to stretch out, but the truth is that he’s up there with John Paul Jones, John Entwistle, Geddy Lee, and Jack Bruce, but he never got to show it with Van Halen. But now, we've got Mikey off the leash, so we get more from him than we ever got when he was in Van Halen.”

Michael's background vocals on this record are front and center. Was that intentional?

“Yeah, it was. We knew we wanted the classic Van Halen backing vocals. And Mike sings just the same as he did back then, so we totally embraced that. We tried to use every trick Van Halen would use in the studio for the background vocals, but we couldn't find the sound. 

“So, I called Ted Templeman in the middle of the session to ask how he made them happen on those classic Van Halen albums. I remember saying to Dave, ‘How are we going to get those backing vocals down? I want Mike to sound like he did on Runnin' With the Devil and Top of the World.’ 

“And Dave said, ‘I don't fucking know, man. We're not getting it. Can you call up Ted?’ So, I called up Ted, he gave me his formula, we went in, and boom, we had Mikey's vocals. And with those vocals, we have an album rivaling Van Halen. I genuinely believe that.”

How do you measure the importance of Michael Anthony on you personally and musically?

“Mikey is like my brother from another mother. So much so that back in the early Van Halen days, Eddie would get all jealous. Because Mike and I would get into these soulful conversations for hours, and Eddie would be on the outside looking in. 

“And this was when we were all getting along great, not towards the end when our marriage fell apart. But even in the early days, Eddie would say, ‘Hey, I wanna hang out like you and Mike do.’ And I was like, ‘Cool, man. Let's do it. So, what's the problem?’

“The way it was in Van Halen was Eddie and Alex would get together and do their family thing. And Mike and I would always be the ones that would get tacos and margaritas and talk about life when we were on the road. And in the end, when we were arguing, and Van Halen was falling apart, me and Mike had our own plane because they were trying to keep Eddie and me apart. 

“I guess Mike and I are cut from the same cloth. Eddie hated it, would get mad on stage, and called it stupid, but we had our inside lingo and were always very close. 

“And that's accented by the magical sound of his background vocals layered over my lead vocals. It's a unique sound that can't be described and that I've never had with anyone else.”

I can see that this record means a lot to you. I know it's early, but how do you measure its importance as you move forward?

“When I think about it, I get goosebumps. I know that it's high up there, and I have this feeling that it's gonna stand the test of time. Lyrically, I don't see it having a problem holding up for a long time because there's no trash on here. 

“The first Montrose record is a massive landmark in my life because it's held this test of time. You know you're in good shape when you kick off a career with a song like Rock Candy. [Laughs]. 

“And then you've got the Van Halen stuff which, for me, comes down to For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge. That's my favorite Van Halen record. I think it's even better than 5150 because the writing, vocals, and the way the band was playing tops it. So, I'll have to let someone else shuffle the deck with Crazy Times because I'm too close to it.”

I know you're a man who loves a good cocktail. So, what's your recommendation for listeners to enjoy while they listen to Crazy Times, Sammy?

“I love it! [Laughs] You'd have to start with one good shot of Tequila Blanco. [Laughs]. And then go in and make yourself a nice margarita. And that would be one ounce of fresh lime juice, one ounce of triple sec, and a little squeeze of an orange slice. Then squeeze some fresh orange juice in, add about two ounces of Santo Tequila Blanco, and shake the crap out of it. 

“After that, lightly salt the rim, sit down, and listen to the record. And when you get a break, you might want to go and do another shot and mix yourself up just one more of those margaritas. 

“So, when you're finished, you'll have two margaritas and two good shots in you, and you'll be feeling good. So good that you're gonna say, ‘You know what? I'm gonna play this fucker again.’ [Laughs]. The idea of drinking my booze while listening to my music, I'd say that's a prescription for a good time if I ever heard one.”

• Crazy Times is out now via Universal Music Enterprises.

In the past year, rumors have swirled relating to a potential tribute concert or tour honoring late electric guitar legend Eddie Van Halen. 

Back in April, former Metallica bass guitar player Jason Newsted revealed that he had been approached by Alex Van Halen and Joe Satriani about a proposed tribute tour – with discussions even going far enough that Newsted traveled to California to jam with Van Halen and Satch – though the idea eventually “fizzled."

And last month, Satriani recalled his misgivings about signing on to play guitar on such a tour, adding that if anyone were to fill six-string duties it should be Eddie Van Halen's son, Wolfgang.

Now, former Van Halen frontman Sammy Hagar has offered an update regarding a potential reunion, although it's not looking promising, because as he says, Alex Van Halen isn't returning his calls.

In a new interview with Eddie Trunk, who said back in July that it was David Lee Roth holding up any Van Halen tribute project, Hagar said [via Blabbermouth]: “It ain't just one guy. Alex Van Halen and I don't talk. I reached out to Alex. I'm going to tell you right now – I reached out to Alex again recently. Mikey [Michael Anthony] had a sad thing happen in his family, and I reached out to Al, and he wouldn't return my call or my email.

“And so I said, 'You know what? Fuck 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.

“Like I said, if Alex came to me and wanted to do it, I'm in,” he continues, “Absolutely – let's go [and] do it somehow. But Alex has got a stick up his ass about something with me still, and he's going to take it to his grave, I guess. [I made peace with Eddie before he died but] 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 adds that he's “not trying to start a feud between the two of us” with his comments.

“He is tough to [break] down and to let go,” he says. “Nope – he's holding on to something. And I just wish he wasn't like that. I love the guy.

“Like I've said a million times, 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.”

Wolfgang Van Halen – who's currently busy recording the second Mammoth WVH album – has said, for his part, that he's in no rush to convene a tribute show or tour for his father, saying that his performance of Van Halen classics at the two Taylor Hawkins tribute concerts in September already gave him a sense of closure.

“I think I already did it [a salute to his father] with the Taylor Hawkins tributes," he told Classic Rock in an interview earlier this fall. "I feel a lot of closure because my part of the show was a tribute to my father... If the Taylor concerts are all that happens then I’m happy with that.”

Talk of the now-shelved, much-discussed Eddie Van Halen tribute show – news of which first broke to the surprise of everyone in April thanks to a loose-lipped Jason Newsted – has been around for sometime now.

Alas, despite the numerous updates, teases, hints and suggestions over the ensuing months – coming from the likes of David Lee Roth, Joe Satriani and more – one thing has become abundantly clear: it isn’t going to happen.

Though that may be the case, that hasn’t stopped Sammy Hagar issuing a fresh call to stage a tribute for the late electric guitar legend, having been inspired by the powerful blockbuster double-event that was recently hosted for the late Foo Fighters drummer, Taylor Hawkins.

Speaking to Rolling Stone, Hagar commended Dave Grohl and Foo Fighters for the emotive spectacle they put on for their close friend and bandmate, rightly describing it as “one of the greatest events in rock history."

To this end, Hagar suggested a similar event could be held for his own former bandmate Van Halen, who passed away in October 2020.

He even went as far as to say he’d happily share the bill with David Lee Roth – another Van Halen vocalist with whom he has a famously acrimonious relationship.

“I would love it if Dave wanted to do a tribute where he’d sing ten of his songs, and then I’d come out and do ten of mine,” Hagar proposed. “That would be great with Alex and Mike and maybe a bunch of different guitar players. 

“Look at what Dave [Grohl] just did for Taylor [Hawkins],” he went on to observe. “That’s one of the greatest events in rock history. That’s right up there with the early Farm Aids, and right up there with Live Aid. That was a great event, and that could be done for Ed with everybody playing.”

Hagar continued, “The only way to do it is to put both eras together and do it for a cause, for a purpose, not for a money grab, not like the whole tour, where we’re going to make 10 million bucks apiece. None of that shit. It could be a residency, it could be two or three nights.”

The vocalist also reaffirmed his stance that any future link-up between the surviving members of Van Halen would be strictly for tribute purposes only, and that he’d never entertain the idea of touring under the Van Halen moniker without Eddie.

“I’m not in love with the idea of being Van Halen without Eddie Van Halen,” he admitted. “Matter of fact, I’m dead against it. But I would love to play music with Alex and Mike again. I would love to play those songs again. 

“And if we did a residency or a tribute, I would sing 50/50. I would sing half the Dave songs too for the Van Halen fans. And those songs are great.”

Hagar also took aim at the fact that Newsted was in the early running for the bass role with Michael Anthony, remarking that an early lineup suggested by former manager Irving Azoff – which comprised Hagar, Anthony, Alex Van Halen and Satriani – was merely “Chickenfoot with Alex Van Halen instead of Chad Smith."

“That would be the biggest failure Van Halen ever had if they call themselves 'Van Halen' if they didn’t have Mikey,” Hagar said. “Also, I’d prefer that nobody attempts to replace Eddie Van Halen. I think that’s blasphemy and should be illegal."

Elsewhere in the interview, Hagar did discuss potential six-string personnel that could be involved in a Van Halen tribute lineup, saying that while Joe Satriani “would be the best” person for the job, Steve Vai and John 5 should also be strong contenders.

Last Friday (September 23), Red Hot Chili Peppers released Eddie, an emotional tribute to Eddie Van Halen that doubled as the latest single from their forthcoming album, Return of the Dream Canteen.

Built off a bass line Flea wrote after hearing of Van Halen's passing, Eddie features some gorgeous lead lines – and a fiery, whammy bar-driven solo – from Chili Peppers electric guitar player John Frusciante.

Former Van Halen frontman Sammy Hagar, for one, was moved by the song. On an Instagram post Flea made promoting the tune, Hagar commented: "Wow, very soulful guys. I love hearing John shred like that – sound[s] like he was having some fun. Beautiful."

Eddie's son, Mammoth WVH frontman and Van Halen bass guitar player Wolfgang Van Halen, praised the song as well, simply commenting "❤️❤️❤️" on the same Instagram post.

“Sometimes we don’t realize how deeply affected and connected we are to artists until the day they die. Eddie Van Halen was a one of a kind," Chili Peppers frontman Anthony Kiedis said in a statement about Eddie last week.

“The day after his death Flea came into rehearsal with an emotional bassline. John, Chad [Smith, the band's drummer] and I started playing along and pretty soon with all our hearts, a song in his honor effortlessly unfolded. 

“It felt good to be sad and care so much about a person who had given so much to our lives," he continued. "Although the song doesn’t speak to Eddie by name, it talks about his early days on the Sunset Strip and the rock n' roll tapestry that Van Halen painted on our minds.

“In the end, our song asks that you not remember Eddie for dying but for living his wildest dream.”

Return of the Dream Canteen is the Red Hot Chili Peppers' second album of 2022 – following April's Unlimited Love – and their second LP since Frusciante rejoined the band a second time in 2019.

Produced, like Unlimited Love, by Rick Rubin, the album is set for an October 14 release via Warner.

To preorder the album, visit the Red Hot Chili Peppers' website.

A couple of years ago, electric guitar legend Steve Lukather sat down with one-time Van Halen frontman Sammy Hagar for a chat as part of the latter's popular Rock & Roll Road Trip show.

Clips from the long-running series have been surfacing on YouTube of late, and last week, AXS TV published the episode with Lukather online.

Aside from sharing a few of his always-incredible session stories (more on that in a minute) during his appearance, the Toto guitar great also picked up his Ernie Ball Music Man Luke III signature guitar to jam on the classic blues, Crossroads, with Hagar and Kenny Aronoff on drums.

You can check out the supergroup-of-sorts' jam on the tune – which features some absolutely sizzling, Clapton-by-way-of-Vaughan-by-way-of-Van Halen lead work from Lukather – below.

About those session stories, though. In just over 10 minutes, Lukather gets through quite a few of them, including a fascinating one about Michael Jackson's smash hit, Beat It.

Due to a studio mishap with analog tape, Lukather says (around the 7:15 mark), he and his Toto bandmate, Jeff Porcaro, were forced to record their parts for Beat It around Jackson's vocal track and Eddie Van Halen's legendary guitar solo, rather than the other way around. 

"Jeff Porcaro and I had to go to Sunset Sound," Lukather says, "and make this record from scratch to that, because they wanted to keep the first generation masters of the lead vocal and Ed's solo.

"So," Lukather continued, "Jeff went out and did a little click track, and put a drum track down – second take, he nailed it. Then, I played the initial guitar riff, then I played bass on it, too."

When asked by Hagar how he's fit into so many situations with "tough" musicians with big personalities, Lukather says simply, "I get along with everybody – I'm Switzerland, man... I just shut the fuck up and play the guitar."

Sammy Hagar is set to share songwriting credits with Eddie Van Halen on one of his new songs, after the vocalist claimed the late electric guitar legend came to him in a dream to help him compose a new track.

Speaking to Ultimate Classic Rock, the former Van Halen vocalist explained the dream-written single, which is titled Thank You, is based on a riff that Eddie Van Halen had shown him before the guitarist passed away.

"I shouldn’t be hyping it now,” Hagar said. “Nobody knows this but Michael Anthony, Jason [Bonham] and Vic [Johnson]. 

"About two months ago, I had this dream and Eddie came. We were in a room like this, [with] a bunch of people around. It was just like he’d been gone. It was not like he was passed, but he had just been out of my life and we hadn’t seen each other for a while. 

“He’s going, 'Man, let’s write some music!' I said, 'Yeah, fuck it, man. Here, let’s go!'"

As per Hagar’s recollection, the pair then "went over into a corner” to piece together the song, which featured a riff similar to “the last lick that Eddie Van Halen showed me, when I went back for the [2004] reunion tour”.

Hagar continued, “I said, 'Eddie, show me your newest shit,' because every time I’d be around him I’d say, 'Show me your newest shit.' He’d say, 'Oh, check this out!'"

“He did this harmonic thing and he slid it up to a chord, like a slide guitar. We wrote a song with that lick.”

The experience clearly made an impression on Hagar, who promptly transformed the dream into a new single. And, owing to Van Halen’s “involvement”, Hagar will also share songwriting credits with his former bandmate.

“I remembered it. I got up in the morning and I wrote the song,” Hagar revealed. “It’s called Thank You. I used the fuckin’ lick that he showed me in the song. I told Jason, 'I just really don’t know what to say lyrically.' 

“I’ve got goosebumps, head to toe, [talking about it]. So I wrote it [about that experience], and we’ll do that song someday.

“Now, that’s going to be an Eddie-influenced song, to the point that I’m going to co-write it with him. I’m going to give him credit and then maybe we’ll donate the money to charity, whatever.

“You see, I feel so embarrassed about it because everyone’s going to say, 'Oh, look at Sammy trying to capitalize on Eddie.' No, I’m not. You don’t understand. This was a real fuckin’ dream, and I told you exactly what happened in it.”

Thank You was pieced together too late to be included in Hagar’s upcoming album Crazy Times, which is due September 30, though by the sounds of it will make its way onto an upcoming offering in the near-future.

No one can accuse Sammy Hagar of lacking a sense of occasion. As the one time master of ceremonies for Van Halen, the Red Rocker knows exactly how to usher in a weekend, and today he did so by announcing a new album with the Circle, and sharing the title track with the world.

Crazy Times is typically weekend-appropriate. Front and center we have Hagar’s voice, which has always been reference quality as to what you’d want from a hard-rock frontman – all syrup and gravel and soul. Hagar is joined by his backing band, the Circle, which features some cats that will be more than familiar to those reading here. 

There is Hagar’s long-time lieutenant on electric guitar, Vic Johnson. He is accompanied by Michael Anthony on bass guitar. Of course, Anthony, like Hagar, enjoyed some success with a modern beat combo named Van Halen. Rounding out the lineup is drummer Jason Bonham, son of John ‘Bonzo’ Bonham, proving that rhythm can in some instances be a hereditary trait.

The whole shebang was recorded in the company of Dave Cobb at Nashville’s RCA Studio A. Stick your best pair of headphones on and listen to the track – you can hear that this choice is money well spent.

Cobb always has this uncanny gift of making it sound as though you are in the room with the band whenever he tracks a rock band. That’s why Slash ft Myles Kennedy and the Conspirators hit him up for their latest album, 4, which was recorded live in the studio. It sounds very much like Hagar enjoyed a similar esprit de corps tracking this.

“Going back in the studio, creating and being with the music is just what felt natural,” Hagar said. “And it was just so different from any record I’ve ever made. There was joy in the hard work, catharsis and the camaraderie we’d craved. It was like those two years of not being able to do very much fell away and we really all came together and let it out in the music and lyrics. We were able to express what we all felt.” 

Crazy Times is out September 30 via UMe. Head to Sammy Hagar for more details.

Shortly after the tragic death of their drummer, Taylor Hawkins, in March, the Foo Fighters canceled all of their upcoming tour dates.

Among these was a headlining slot at the first night (April 29) of the 2022 Beale Street Music Festival in Memphis, Tennessee. A few weeks after the cancellation, Sammy Hagar & the Circle were tapped by festival organizers to take the Foo Fighters' spot. 

In recognition of the Foo Fighters, and as a tribute to Hawkins, Hagar and the Circle included a rather loose but heartfelt cover of the band's classic song, My Hero, in their Beale Street set.

You can see footage of the cover below.

Straying from the original, Hagar and his band – which features fellow former Van Halen member Michael Anthony on bass guitar, electric guitar player Vic Johnson and drummer Jason Bonham – turn the raging rocker into a ballad. Wielding a Les Paul, Hagar imbues the version with some beautifully mournful slide licks. 

"When we were asked by the promoter to fill in for the Foo Fighters at the Beale Street Music Festival, my first reaction was 'No fucking way!'," Hagar wrote in the video's caption. "We discussed it as a band, and we came up with 'Why not! Let's just go play music – [put on] a big ass Circle party for those people, just do what we do!'

"Then, with Dave Grohl's blessings, we decided to do a broken down version of one of my favorite songs from one of my favorite bands. It felt appropriate. No rehearsal. After all this is rock 'n' roll and thats what it's all about."

Hawkins' death prompted an outpouring of tributes from the likes of Paul McCartney, Slash, Tom Morello, Brian May, John Mayer and Ozzy Osbourne.

During their March 26 show at Boston's Big Night Live, Wolfgang Van Halen's Mammoth WVH also saluted Hawkins with an impassioned cover of My Hero.

Sammy Hagar & The Circle performed at The STRAT Hotel, Casino & SkyPod in Las Vegas on Friday (March 25), and recruited The Runaways guitarist Lita Ford for live cover versions of Montrose's Rock Candy and Led Zeppelin's Rock and Roll.

After blazing through an assortment of his original material – including Your Love is Driving Me Crazy and Three Lock Box – and Van Halen covers, including Good Enough and Run Around, Hagar brought Ford onstage first for Rock Candy, and then later in the set for Led Zep's Rock and Roll.

Armed with a Strat-style B.C. Rich electric guitar, Ford can be seen in new fan-shot footage cruising through both track's selections of crunchy riffs, and trading leads with The Circle guitarist Vic Johnson. Check it out below.

Earlier this month, Hagar let The Circle's long-tenured Van Halen bassist Michael Anthony cover lead vocal duties during a rendition of Ain't Talkin' 'bout Love, from Van Halen's 1978 self-titled debut.

Sammy Hagar is no stranger to covering Led Zeppelin's Rock and Roll. Back in 1986, the track was a mainstay on Van Halen's setlist during Hagar's first tour as the band's frontman.

As for his performance with Ford over the weekend, it was the penultimate show in Sammy Hagar & The Circle's residency at The STRAT Hotel, Casino & SkyPod, which concluded a night later (March 26).

Hagar and his band are set to embark on another tour later this year, with their first show currently scheduled to take place on May 7 at Laughlin Event Center in Nevada. The comprehensive tour will conclude on October 1 at California's Thunder Valley Casino Resort.

For a full list of dates, visit Sammy Hagar's Red Rocker website.

During a typical performance, Sammy Hagar & the Circle run through a fast-paced setlist of Hagar solo hits, some favorites from Hagar's time as the lead singer of Montrose, a few classic rock standards and, of course, a healthy helping of Hagar-era Van Halen cuts.

Comprised of Hagar on vocals and electric guitar, fellow former Van Halen member Michael Anthony on bass guitar, guitarist Vic Johnson and drummer Jason Bonham, the band recently took the stage at the Wish Farms Soundstage in Plant City, Florida, at which they surprised the crowd with a rendition of the David Lee Roth-era Van Halen hit, Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love.

Wishing to give his voice a short break, Hagar let Anthony take center stage and sing lead vocals for the cover, which you can check out above.

Anthony has quite a bit of fun with his turn in the spotlight, even letting the fans help him out with the song's third verse. Johnson, meanwhile, remains faithful to the frenetic lead guitar work and fills of the original recording.

That evening (March 6), the Circle also played a number of other Van Halen hits, including Right Now. 

During a recent interview with Guitar Player, Hagar revealed that – once he fit the song's lyrics to Eddie Van Halen's long-in-the-works piano part – Right Now came together "came together like magic," with the guitar solo in particular coming to Eddie spontaneously.

“Usually, Eddie had solos pretty locked down before we started recording,” Hagar said, “but on this song he winged it. He came out of the house in pajamas and slippers, went into the studio and played whatever came out. And as you might expect, it was pretty damn great.”

By Hagar's recollection, Eddie took two passes at the solo, which both “sounded awesome, because as everybody knows, Eddie never played a bad solo.” The end result was a comp of the two takes.

Right Now is often regarded as one of the defining songs from Sammy Hagar's decade-plus tenure as Van Halen's frontman. 

In a recent interview with Guitar Player, Hagar was asked about how the song – which was featured on the band's chart-topping 1991 album, For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge – came to be.

Always an entertaining storyteller, Hagar went in depth on the trials and tribulations of the recording sessions for the song, which Eddie Van Halen had been developing since before Hagar even joined the band. 

Hagar said that, once he finally fit lyrics to Eddie's long-gestating piano part, Right Now "came together like magic," with the guitar solo in particular coming to Eddie spontaneously.

“Usually, Eddie had solos pretty locked down before we started recording,” Hagar said, “but on this song he winged it. He came out of the house in pajamas and slippers, went into the studio and played whatever came out. And as you might expect, it was pretty damn great.”

By Hagar's recollection, Eddie took two passes at the solo, which both “sounded awesome, because as everybody knows, Eddie never played a bad solo.” The end result was a comp of the two takes.

While we have no reason to doubt the veracity of Hagar's overall story, his point that Eddie usually "had solos pretty locked down" before recording, and that Right Now was a bit of an exception to this general rule, doesn't quite stand up to scrutiny.

In a 2012 interview with Guitar World, Eddie told us – when discussing the solo to the A Different Kind of Truth track She’s the Woman – "You know me. I’m the kind of guy who likes to wing it. I don’t plan out my solos. The one solo that I had to plan out [for A Different Kind of Truth] was on She’s the Woman."

Later on in the same interview, Eddie said – in regards to his solos – "The only thing I ever really planned before was the solo in Runnin’ with the Devil. Other than that, nothing else was planned or written out in advance."

It's not the first time a former Van Halen frontman has stretched the truth when discussing the legendary guitarist and his game-changing solos. In 2019, David Lee Roth claimed – rather preposterously – that he "structured" the guitar solos on Van Halen’s debut album.

Best of 2022: It’s safe to say the Gibson vs. Fender debate is one of guitardom’s most hotly contested topics of conversation. For every individual who prefers the double-cut of a Stratocaster, there’s another who favors the Les Paul. The same could be said for the SG and Telecaster.

Former Van Halen vocalist Sammy Hagar undoubtedly subscribes to the Gibson school of thought, having built a reputation for himself as a staunch Gibson wielder, playing almost exclusively Les Pauls.

However, rather than favoring Gibsons for their looks or tones, Hagar in fact avoids Fenders – Stratocasters, specifically – due to issues of playability, with the self-professed “Gibson Les Paul guy” comparing playing a Fender to wrestling a, uh, wrestler.

When asked if he ever had plans to play a vintage Fender during his residency at The Strat Theatre at The Strat Hotel, Hagar told The San Diego Union-Tribune, “You know, I’m a Gibson Les Paul guy. I can’t play a Fender.”

“For me, playing a Strat is like trying to wrestle a professional wrestler,” he reasoned. “I was raised on Gibson guitars, and my hands feel right when I’m playing one. I have Strats; I just don’t play them.”

It’s a fairly damning indictment from Hagar. We can’t think of many things that would be harder than wrestling a literal professional wrestler.

Elsewhere in the interview, Hagar discussed the possibility of unheard Van Halen material getting a release, though the band’s lead singer remained coy about pursuing the subject due to Van Halen’s iconic legacy.

After admitting that there weren’t many completed Van Halen songs that didn’t see the light of day, Hagar did, however, hint there may be some old EVH jams that could be fleshed out with background vocals or new lyrics.

“But I’m leery about doing that,” he asserted. “ Because the legacy of Van Halen is so great, and – prior to me joining the band – the legacy is pure greatness: Eddie’s guitar work, the band’s playing, the songs. 

“Anything left over wasn’t good enough to be on those records. I don’t care what anyone says; putting out [unreleased music] wouldn’t do anything, other than make someone a little money. But I know Eddie had a ton of [unreleased] jamming stuff he made on cassette tapes, because that’s how we wrote songs. 

“So, maybe,” Hagar teased. “Who knows what they could put together?”

Back in 2016, Nancy Wilson and Jerry Cantrell dusted off their acoustic guitars and rendezvoused with Sammy Hagar for an episode of The Red Rocker's Rock & Roll Road Trip series, which included an intimate jam session.

The stripped-back event was hosted by AXS TV, which has now released a 10-minute, pro-shot snippet that sees the newly formed three-piece reel off renditions of Alice In Chains’ Brother, as well as an at-the-time unheard track written by Wilson.

On the meaning of Brother – which was originally released as part of Alice In Chains’ 1992 acoustic EP Sap – Cantrell tells Hagar, who asked what the song’s about, “Well, it’s in the title. I wrote it about my brother.

“My parents split [when] we were pretty young, and there was a time when me and my brother weren’t getting along too well,” he explained. “And my mom was having a hard time raising us, too. My brother moved in with my dad in Oklahoma, so I didn’t see him for quite a long time. We were separated for a while.”

Wielding his Guild D-55E, Cantrell assumes lead vocal and solo duties, while the guitar pick-less, Takamine-toting Wilson and Guild F-55E-playing Hagar are on hand to lend some serene supporting strums.

Following the performance, Nancy Wilson is now the second Heart member and Wilson sibling to have featured on Brother, after her older sister Ann Wilson sung backing vocals on the original ‘92 recording.

Brother was promptly followed by a previously unreleased track composed by Nancy Wilson – which, by her own admission, was “never finished” at the time of the jam – who had written it about the late Alice In Chains vocalist, Layne Staley.

The cut – now titled The Dragon – has since been reworked and can be found on Wilson’s most recent album, You And Me, though at the time of AXS TV’s jam it was still very much a work in progress.

Wilson once again relies on her pick-less strumming style – which sees her right hand hover unusually high around the 12th fret area – with the quasi-improvised track receiving some subtle, percussive-esque backing from Cantrell.

The lack of a lyrical structure proves to be no problem for Hagar, however, who throws caution to the wind and subjects the emotive track to an abundance of off-the-cuff, classic-rock vocal hooks.

Fancy watching the entire 20-minute episode? You can find the jam session in its entirety at AXSTV.

Professionally shot footage from 2016’s Acoustic-4-A-Cure concert has been released, which sees an all-star lineup of John Mayer, Joe Satriani, James Hetfield, Sammy Hagar and more join forces for a spine-tingling acoustic rendition of Piece Of My Heart.

Though the performance – which also features Melissa Etheridge, Pat Monahan, Tommy Lee and Kris Kristofferson – initially took place five years ago, it’s the first time high-definition video and audio footage has been shared with the public.

Seeing the rare sight of Mayer and Satriani wielding acoustic guitars alongside one another is made even more of a spectacle with Hetfield clapping along.

Hearing legends of the heavy metal, hard rock, blues, and pop worlds perform the funk/soul song – originally written in 1967 by Jerry Ragovoy and Bert Berns for Erma Franklin, and performed by Janis Joplin in 1968 – proves to be one unmissable listening experience.

And, while it’s easy to get caught up with watching the stars on stage – it is a pretty ambitious crossover, after all – there’s an abundance of tasty guitar playing on show, too.

Etheridge, who assumes lead vocal duties, calls upon Mayer to deliver the first solo of the track – “I want John to play, you’ve got so much soul in you, sweetheart,” she says – who answers the call by unleashing a bend-heavy lead effort. 

Hetfield looks suitably impressed, and Satch’s own solo merely serves to up the ante, thanks to some choice bends and pentatonic passages.

There are some tasty instruments on display, too. Mayer can be seen with what looks like his Martin OMJM slung over his shoulder, while Etheridge can be spotted playing an Ovation 12-string. Satch, meanwhile, opts for his single-cut Ibanez JSA5VB signature acoustic.

The 2016 edition of the Acoustic-4-A-Cure concert was the third installment of the annual event, which was initially established by James Hetfield and Sammy Hagar to support the Pediatric Cancer Program at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital.

Sammy Hagar has opened up on how he and Eddie Van Halen reconnected months before the late electric guitar legend passed away, saying that his former Van Halen bandmate was interested in reigniting their musical relationship to “make some noise” once more.

Hagar recalled the pair’s conversations during an Instagram Live interview with The Washington Post, saying the pair got together “four or five months before [Eddie Van Halen] died” and “made amends”.

“When I reconnected with Eddie,” recalls Hagar, “it wasn’t, like, ‘Oh, you’ve gotta apologize for this.’ When I tried to talk to him after all those years, I said, ‘Hey Eddie, I’ve been trying to get hold of you. I called your brother.’

“He said, ‘'Why didn't you call me?' I'm going, 'Well, it's a good point,'” he continued. “I said, 'I wanted to make sure you were cool with me getting in contact. I didn't want you to call me some names and hang up the phone and stir the whole thing back up.' And he said, 'No, I love you, man.' 

“And I realized at that point that he had elevated his whole thing. He had come to peace with everything. 

“He was totally above it all and elevated. And, man, I'm so glad that that happened at that time, because if it wouldn't have, if we had never made peace and he would have passed the way he did, I would feel terrible.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Hagar went on to reveal that EVH had plans for the pair to make music once again for the first time since he left Van Halen for the second time in 2005.

“I'm so grateful that we connected,” he added. “And he said, 'Hey, let's make some noise. I've got a lot of work to do on myself this year. You ain't gonna believe it. I've been fighting this stuff for 15 years. And now I've got this big thing on my neck and my throat right now. I've gotta get it all straightened out. 

“Next year, you and I have gotta make some noise. We made some great music together, and I wanna do it again.' I was just, like, 'Yes.' 

“I said, 'Eddie, that ain't what I'm calling you about. I'm calling about to see if you're okay.' But hearing those things really made me able to handle his death. Because it's still tough as hell. I miss the guy.”

Hagar also touched upon the pair’s prolific compositional chemistry, revealing that every Van Halen song released between ‘85 to ‘95, as well as three other songs from the 2003-2005 reunion period, was co-written by them both.

“We wrote all them songs together,” he reflected. “You don't write songs like that with a real musician and real musicians getting together – you don't phone that in. You don't do it by email.

“No. We sat in rooms together, him and I, and wrote those songs and went and sang them, and he coached me through things he might hear... I miss that. There's nobody like that.”

Sammy Hagar has apologized for his depiction of his former Van Halen bandmate, the late Eddie Van Halen, in his 2011 autobiography, Red: My Uncensored Life in Rock. 

In his memoir, Hagar depicted in detail the effect alcoholism had on the late guitar hero. In one section of the book, Hagar recalled visiting his house in 2004, saying, “It looked like vampires lived there. There were bottles and cans all over the floor. The handle was broken off the refrigerator door. There were spider webs everywhere.” 

In a new interview with Inside with Paulo Baron, when asked if there was anything he forgot to put in or regretted including in the book, the singer said: “Oh, yeah. I forgot so many really fun little things, and every now and then I’ll wake up in the morning and have a dream and I’ll wake up and it makes me remember something in the childhood, and I think, ‘Oh I should have put that in in the book.'

"But more than anything, because of the untimely and tragic death of Eddie Van Halen, I apologize from the bottom of my heart for exposing his dark side to where I don’t think anyone wants to hear that now, and unfortunately, it’s in the book.”

While he maintains that the book is entirely truthful, he now wishes he would have only included the positive aspects of his former bandmate, praising him as “such a brilliant, genius guitar player and such a great friend and great partner – until everything went wrong, like everything else.”

Earlier this year, Hagar also took to New York’s Q104.3 radio station to reveal that a tribute show to send off the late guitar master is already in the works, with both himself and former Van Halen bassist Michael Anthony involved. 

“It’s gotta happen. Of course, it’s gotta happen. No one has really connected all the dots with everyone involved but I have been told, and I have read interviews with various people involved – with Wolfie and Valerie [Bertinelli, Eddie’s ex-wife] and Eddie’s wife [Janie] that he was married to at the time – they all said as soon as all this is over, we’re gonna get everybody together and do a tribute or whatever: just a thank you, a goodbye, a send-off. And that’s an absolute must.”

Hagar initially joined Van Halen in 1985, replacing original singer David Lee Roth. The band would score four consecutive chart-topping albums with Hagar before his departure in 1996. He would later return for a one-off reunion tour with the group in 2004.

Admit it – we’ve all referred to the Sammy Hagar-fronted version of Van Halen as Van Hagar at least once or twice. But the question remains: did the members of Van Halen ever consider actually changing their moniker after the singer replaced David Lee Roth in the mid ‘80s?

According to Hagar, the possibility was brought up prior to the release of his first album with the band, 1986’s 5150, but never gained traction, thanks to electric guitar great Eddie Van Halen.

“We were in the studio and we played Why Can't This Be Love,” he told Marci Wiser of 95.5 KLOS radio in a new interview. And [Warner Bros. label head] Mo Austin went, 'Oh, I smell money.' He thought it was just the greatest. So then he said, 'Did you guys ever think about maybe changing the name to, like, Van Hagar or something?'

“And I know what they were thinking, because they thought, 'If this doesn't work, at least you can go back with Van Halen again. But if you're Van Halen and it don't work, now you've ruined the name Van Halen.' So they were trying to preserve, I think, the Van Halen name. And Eddie Van Halen – Eddie Van Halen, no one else – said, 'Fuck that.' He said, 'This is Van Halen with a new singer.' And everybody said, 'Okay. Word. Gospel.' Boom."

As for how Sammy felt about Ed’s decision? 

"I was 100 percent on board with it. It was Van Halen with a new singer. I would have been embarrassed to be Van Hagar. I mean, I would have said, 'Let's just change it back to Mammoth [Van Halen’s original moniker] or something. Go back to the beginning."

Recently, Hagar told New York’s Q104.3 radio that there will eventually be a tribute concert to honor Eddie Van Halen, who passed away in October at the age of 65 after battling cancer.

“It's gotta happen,” Hagar said. “Of course it’s gonna happen.”

Heart electric and acoustic guitar icon Nancy Wilson will release her first-ever solo album, You and Me, on May 7 via her new label, Carry On Music.

In addition to eight originals, the effort also features covers of Pearl Jam’s Daughter, Simon & Garfunkel’s The Boxer (with Sammy Hagar) and the Cranberries’ Dreams (with Wilson’s Roadcase Royale bandmate Liv Warfield), along with her previously-released take on Bruce Springsteen’s The Rising.

You and Me was recorded primarily in Wilson’s California home studio, working with band members and  guests remotely.

“Being off the road last year from touring with Heart, and at home with my good guitars and amps out, I felt like I was once again able to reconnect with my pre-Heart self, my college-girl self, creating poetic, intimate and romantic songs, which pretty much is what I first brought in to Heart,” she said.

The eight original tracks are mostly acoustic ballads, but also feature rockers like Party at the Angel Ballroom, with a backing band consisting of Guns N’ Roses’ Duff McKagan and Foo Fighters’ Taylor Hawkins.

The final song, meanwhile, is an instrumental tribute to Eddie Van Halen, titled 4 Edward. Wilson previously recounted a meeting between the two that inspired the song:

"I was the first one to ever give him an acoustic guitar," Wilson said. "When we were touring with those guys in the '80s, he was like, 'I like how you play that acoustic.' And I said, 'Well, why don't you play more acoustic?' And he goes, 'Well, I don't have an acoustic.' And I said, 'You don't have an acoustic? What?'"

You and Me will be available for preorder beginning March 8. The title track, a collaboration between Wilson and longtime co-writer Sue Ennis, will be released digitally the same day. Fans can pre-save the track here.

Wilson also recently teamed up with Epiphone for the new Fanatic electric guitar. 

Last week former Van Halen members Sammy Hagar and Michael Anthony posted a video titled “We Love You Eddie,” paying tribute to their bandmate and friend following his death on October 6 at the age of 65.

The clip, as we reported, was recorded after rehearsals for Hagar’s annual birthday celebration on Catalina Island.

Now, footage of Hagar and Anthony’s performance with their band The Circle at that celebration has been posted online by YouTube user trojanvitty.

During the set, the band played Van Halen’s 1991 smash Right Now in tribute to the late electric guitar player, with Hagar requesting a moment of silence from his band mates and the audience prior to kicking into the song.

“We're about to do a very special song that means a lot to Michael Anthony and myself," Hagar said. "So I would like to ask for just a quick moment of silence, please. And you know why.”

“This music will live forever,” Hagar said later on during the song.

Recently, Hagar revealed that in the months preceding Van Halen’s death the two had resolved their longstanding differences. But, he said, they chose to keep the reconciliation private for fear of stoking reunion rumors.

“Eddie and I had been texting, and it’s been a love fest since we started communicating earlier this year,” Hagar stated. “We both agreed not to tell anyone, because of all the rumors it would stir up about a reunion, et cetera, and we both knew that wasn’t gonna happen.”