Sammy Hagar shares key to Van Halen’s success, reveals if he’d ever reconcile with David Lee Roth

The singer, who recently opened his new Cabo Wabo Beach Club & Bar in Huntington Beach, reflected on his years with the rock band

Sammy Hagar reflected on the key to Van Halen's massive success during his years with the rock band.

The 75-year-old singer joined guitarist Eddie Van Halen, Eddie's brother and drummer Alex Van Halen and bassist/vocalist Michael Anthony in 1985. At the time, Van Halen, co-founded by the Van Halen brothers in 1974, was already one of the biggest rock bands in the world.

Hagar rose to fame in the early 1970s as the lead singer of the hard rock band Montrose and later established himself as a successful solo act before becoming a member of Van Halen. In an interview with Fox News Digital, the Red Rocker explained how the musical partnership he formed with Eddie after he replaced David Lee Roth as lead vocalist took the band to the next level.

"When I joined Van Halen, they were already big, and they were a great band. And I was already a solo artist with platinum albums and selling out arenas all over the world. So, the thing that made Van Halen great — stay great — when I joined the band is that Eddie and I, as musicians and as human beings, we connected real strong," Hagar said.

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Sammy Hagar reflected on the key to Van Halen's massive success. (Getty)

"I mean, real strong. I connect with Alex, too, and Mike. He's still my dearest friend in the world. But Eddie and I found this bond because Eddie was a frustrated musician because the former singer didn't have a range and a type of voice that could sing a lot of music that Eddie could write.

"So Eddie was always stuck with, you know, playing these guitar riffs," Hagar added. "And when I walked in, it was like, he starts playing a piano part and I start singing. He goes, ‘Whoa!’ So the second he said, ‘You can do that?’ I said, ‘Yeah.’ I'm going, ‘You can do that?’ I had no idea he played keyboards that good.

"And so that's what made us a better band. We elevated. We just went, ‘Whoa, you can do that? Oh, yeah, I can do that! Well, I can do that. You can do that!’ And we just went [raises hand up to the ceiling] and the music got really, really sophisticated."

The singer joined the rock band in 1985 after David Lee Roth's departure. (Paul Natkin/WireImage)

After Hagar joined Van Halen, the band scored its first No. 1 album on the Billboard 200 chart with the 1986 release "5150," which became certified six-times platinum by the RIAA. Over the next 10 years with Hagar as the lead singer, Van Halen released three consecutive No. 1, multi-platinum albums, including 1988's "OU812," 1991's "For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge" and 1995's "Balance."

While recording "Balance," Sammy and Eddie began to clash over creative differences. Tensions escalated further when Van Halen began recording songs for the soundtrack of the 1996 disaster movie "Twister."

Hagar parted ways with the band after an explosive argument during a phone call with Eddie on Father's Day in 1996. The two had differing accounts of how Hagar's departure unfolded. Eddie said that the singer quit the band, while Hagar has maintained he was fired. 

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After a brief reunion with Roth in 1996, Van Halen replaced Hagar with Gary Cherone, the former frontman of Extreme. Their release with Cherone, 1998's "Van Halen III," was a commercial disappointment, and the singer subsequently exited the band.

In 1999, Van Halen went on a four-year hiatus before Hagar returned in 2003. Hagar recorded new tracks for Van Halen's second greatest hits album, 2004's "The Best of Both Worlds," and the band embarked on the successful Summer Tour 2004.

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However, relations between Sammy and Eddie began to sour once again, and the singer left the band again after the tour wrapped up. Hagar's second departure led to an estrangement from Eddie that lasted for years. In 2007, Roth returned to the band, and Van Halen set off on its 2007-2008 North American tour, which became its best-selling tour.

In October 2020, Eddie died at the age of 65 after a battle with throat cancer. Shortly after Eddie's death, Hagar revealed they had reconciled a few months earlier.

Hagar revealed he and Eddie Van Halen reconciled before the guitarist's death in 2020. (Ron Galella/Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images)

In his interview with Fox News Digital, Hagar expressed gratitude he and his former bandmate were able to mend their relationship before Eddie died.

"To be able to have talked to Eddie and have a wonderful rapport with him on text, it means everything to me," Hagar shared. "If he would have died and we would have not ever said, ‘I love you' to each other, I would have felt really bad.

"I wouldn't be able to talk to you about it. So that means a lot to me. And it means a lot, I think, for me to feel good about talking about being in Van Halen now. Because I feel like we buried the hatchet. Otherwise, I'd be saying, ‘Well, those guys.’ Because, you know, I was mad. I was hurt. And it's very important that we connected."

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While Hagar was able to make peace with Eddie, he told Fox News Digital chances are slim he and Roth will ever reconcile. As both singers fronted Van Halen during different eras, they maintained a rivalry for decades. However, the two teamed up in 2002 when they co-headlined the "Song For Song, The Heavyweight Champs Of Rock And Roll" tour.

However, the two clashed behind the scenes and in the media. Hagar noted that their relationship hasn't improved much in the past two decades.

Hagar expressed doubts he and Roth would ever be friends. (Kevin Kane/WireImage)

"David is a strange person for me. We're oil and water," the California native said. "We just don't gel. I mean, I've tried. I thought it would be really cool if him and I were friends. It would be really cool if him and I went out with a great band and did all those great Van Halen songs together, but he's just not user-friendly.

"And I just really think he's kind of past his prime of being able to do his stuff the way I would like it to be done if we were going to do something together. I don't think he cares enough about his voice. But, other than that, I would be happy to be friends with him, but I just don't think it can ever happen. He's not my kind of person, and I'm not his kind of person."

Since his stints with Van Halen, Hagar has continued releasing new music and performing both as a solo act with the backing band The Waboritas and as a member of the supergroups Chickenfoot and Sammy Hagar and the Circle. 

He formed the latter supergroup with former Van Halen bandmate and fellow Hall of Famer Michael Anthony, guitarist Vic Johnson and drummer Jason Bonham in 2014. Last year, Sammy Hagar and the Circle released their second album, "Crazy Times," Hagar's 28th studio album. 

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Yet, Hagar told Fox News Digital his years with Van Halen were "absolutely" the pinnacle of his career.

"I don't think I could ever accomplish what we accomplished on my own," he said. "I can do a more personal version of who and what I am, like on my new records that I've done, the two I recorded in the last five or six years.

"But I think my last record, "Crazy Times," really is the best work I've ever done by myself. But I have a great band again. So, it's kind of like I feel like I can try something and that the guys can stand up.

"A lot of times when you're messing with some experimental thing and you have musicians that aren't quite competent, you go, 'Oh, well, it's just not working, and you blow it out.' My band, I can go, 'Let's try this and that. Whoa, here it is.' So they're really good. They just don't have the kind of genius creativity — nobody did— that Eddie Van Halen had. So, I just think that was just the peak of my musical thing."