Sammy Hagar says Eddie Van Halen wanted the pair to "make some noise" again

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.”