Sammy Hagar Wants Peace With Alex Van Halen: ‘I Will Not Take This to My Grave’

Earlier this week, Sammy Hagar announced plans to bring his Best of All Worlds show to Las Vegas next year for a residency at Dolby Live at Park MGM. Like last summer, he’ll be joined by bassist Michael Anthony, guitarist Joe Satriani, drummer Kenny Aronoff, and keyboardist Rai Thistlethwayte for a show that is heavy on Van Halen classics, but also makes room for Montrose tunes and selections from Hagar and Satriani’s solo careers.

“Every night the set list will be a little different,” Hagar told Rolling Stone. “I think the fans are going to go, ‘Oh, my God, he played that on Friday night? Oh, man, I should have went Friday!’ There’s going to be a lot of that kind of stuff, which gets people excited, and it keeps me excited. I hate doing the same set every night.”

Our conversation touched on much more than the upcoming Vegas residency. We also talked about singing David Lee Roth-era songs like “Jump” and “Panama” for the first time in 20 years, Satriani’s incredible job replicating Eddie Van Halen‘s parts, Aronoff stepping in for Jason Bonham midway through the tour, a new song he wrote with Satriani, Alex Van Halen leaving him out of his memoir, and hopes for an eventual reconciliation with the drummer.

Did the summer tour exceed your initial expectations?
It exceeded it as far as business goes. I mean, we knew we were going to do good business because we came out of the box so strong. We sold 250,000 tickets the first day it went on sale. That was for 28 cities. Then they just kept selling; in some places we had 17,000 or 18,000 people.

But the biggest surprise was how well the people responded. From the bottom of my heart, I knew it would be good. I know the band was good, but these people…it felt just like the old days in Van Halen. I can honestly compare it to a Van Halen tour, the audience response and what we delivered and what it drew out of me. I really, really got into it.

How did it feel singing “Jump” and “Panama” for the first time in 20 years?
“Panama,” I’ll sing that song every day of my life. It’s a great song. I love doing covers. In Cabo I do Led Zeppelin all the time. I do Cream, I do the Stones. I like to play my favorite songs, and “Panama” would have to be one of them.

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“Jump,” to be honest with you, I enjoyed, because all the songs from my era are in so high of a register to sing. At the end of the show, to do “Jump” almost at the end after two hours and ten minutes on stage, it was like I get a vocal break. It’s a cool song, and that was for the fans, and we only did half of it. We didn’t do the full song. I felt good about doing that. I felt good for the fans.

Do you talk at all about doing more Dave-era songs in the set, or you thought that was enough?
Oh, that’s enough, three, and that’s because we played so long. If we only played an hour and a half, I would just do one, and it would always be “Panama.” Well, maybe two, because I like when Mikey sings “Ain’t Talkin’ ’bout Love.” He’s singing it so good now, and the way Joe’s playing it…it’s the best that song has sounded in many, many years, and I’m not criticizing anybody. I’m just saying we’re bringing that mother home, and I get to go sit down and ice my knees and my back.

Let’s talk about what Joe brought to this show. In many ways, he had the hardest job since he had to play Eddie Van Halen parts all night.
It really was, but he’s so good and he’s so focused. Joe’s a very serious musician, and so he took it serious, and he really brought it. Every night, I’m sitting there watching him do his long solos and stuff in a song like “5150.” And I’m watching the fans and they’re checking him out, man. Their jaws are dropping, like, “Holy shit, he’s doing it.”

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He brought his own thing to the music, but he honored the most important parts, the essence of the songs, and the essence of the solos. He didn’t play note for note. Some things were almost note for note, because a solo like “Jump” is so iconic, “Ain’t Talkin’ ’bout Love” is iconic. You can’t stray from that. Other than that, when Eddie jammed, Joe knew he was jamming and Joe jammed.

There are plenty of people on YouTube who can play “Eruption” flawlessly, but you wouldn’t want any of them onstage with you. Joe brings something very distinct.
A 12-year-old kid that can probably play “Eruption” and those songs. There’s plenty of them, I’ve seen them They’re just mimicking the song. Joe knows what Eddie was doing, and so Joe does what Eddie was doing. He’s playing it in a musical sense, and feeling it, and knowing what it is.

Eddie and Joe don’t have the same style at all. A lot of people think, “Oh, yeah, he was a perfect match.” No, he wasn’t a perfect match. There’s a lot of guys that play much more like Eddie than Joe, but I just knew Joe could do it and adapt.

Since we finished that tour, Joe and I have written a song … which I won’t go into too much about it, but we’re going to record a new song for this residency. I said, “Let’s take ‘5150,’ let’s take this, let’s take that, the essence of all these things,” and he crushed it with me. I mean, it was like this could be a song that Eddie and I would’ve written. It’s not copying nobody, but it’s like I said, because he knows where Eddie was coming from and now he knows his style. When you hear the intro on this song, you’re going to shit, man. It’s just as iconic as anything I’ve ever been involved with.

It goes without saying, but having Mike in the band adds such a critical element to the show.
I feel like having Mikey there allows me to go deeper into Van Halen, like to go back and do a song like “Panama” standing there with Mike. I mean, there’s bands out there right now…Practically every iconic band in the world’s only two of the original members, some of them not even two really, if you look at it that way. Having Mikey with his voice and everything, to me just validates what we’re doing. This is legal. We’re not trying to be Van Halen, but we’re gonna bring those Van Halen fans a lot of love.

It couldn’t have been easy for Kenny to parachute in last minute and learn all these songs.
Yeah, and that’s why he is still in the band. That’s why we’re moving forward with him. There’s two reasons. Number one, he’s one of the greatest drummers on the planet. I think he’s been on more million-selling records than any musician in the world. And he did so well on this tour, and he plays with Joe on a full-time basis.

Keeping this Best of All Worlds band together is difficult when you got Jason doing his thing, you got Joe doing his thing, you got Mike and I. We need our beach time and our taco nights, Taco Tuesdays and stuff. Trying to get it together, it really helps by having Kenny’s schedule be with Joe. If Joe’s available, Kenny’s available, and it’s not trying to put pieces together.

Kenny’s right here. We can rehearse any day of the week. And he blew my mind. I played with Kenny in Chickenfoot, and he blew my mind then too, because when we auditioned him, he learns every song. “Tell me what songs we’re playing.” “Okay, here they are.” He charts them out and he sits there, and he fuckin’ can read it, and play it with soul and power perfectly, just one time, the first time he plays it. If that don’t blow a musician’s mind, I don’t know what would, especially these kinds of songs. These songs are crazy. They’re fuckin’ Van Halen arrangements.

After Jason Bonham had to go to the U.K. for a family matter, you called Kenny up and were like, “We need you to fly in right now and learn 24 songs”?
Yeah, that’s exactly what happened. Jason wasn’t sure when he was going to go, and we kept saying, “Well, hey, we gotta know, we gotta know.” Then all of sudden he said, “Look, my mom took a bad turn. I gotta go.”

It was a day off, and I hit Kenny. I sent him a live recording of the set. We knew it a week ahead of time, that things were possibly going to happen, but anyway, he flew out. He got in at six in the morning. He went to bed, woke up at noon, went to the stage, set his drums up with the guy, got his stuff all set up right, and went through the set a couple of times. We came in for a soundcheck, went through the things he had questions for. We played that night in Cincinnati. It was fucking great.

How did the Vegas residency come together?
I’ve been working towards it. I’m going to pat myself on the back. I’ve got restaurants in Vegas. I got the Cabo Wabo, got the Sammy’s Beach Bar & Grill at the airport, and I had the Island at the Palms for the summer. I’m thinking I want to be part of the fabric of Vegas, so how am I going to do this?

I did a residency of 14 shows at the [Stratosphere Hotel] a couple years ago, right after Covid. It was people wearing masks and all that shit. I did 14 shows, only a thousand people a night, but we sold them all out, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Then I came for the Birthday Bash. I did the two nights at the Pearl. It was 5,000 seats, and we sold that out in one day, one hour. The MGM just said, “Wow, you interested in doing a bigger venue, and are you interested in doing another residency?” I said, “Yeah.”

I acted like I was surprised, but in my head that’s what I wanted. I’m the luckiest guy in the world. I don’t have to brag about that. We all know I’m the luckiest guy in the world. Things just fuckin’ happen. I’m sitting in here after this tour going, “This band would be so good for a residency,” because we’ve got so many songs to choose from.

The whole Van Halen catalog, mainly my catalog…. I feel like I own it now, because nobody else can do it. It’s like there’s no one that can do that catalog except a cover band. Mikey and I, we feel like we own it, and we feel this obligation to the music and to the fans to carry it on. It was the most expensive tour I’ve ever had. It costs more than the Van Halen Monsters of Rock tour to take this tour on the road.

Why?
The production. I could have done it cheaper, but I wanted this to be a Van Halen show. I wanted people to be going, “Wow, that’s as good as any Van Halen show I’ve ever seen.” I spent a huge amount of money on production and six, seven trucks, seven buses. That’s big by today’s standards for an amphitheater tour. That’s pretty much a stadium tour. And to be honest with you, I pay my musicians extremely well, probably better than anyone, because I don’t want to have to replace them, and I don’t want to work that much.

So, I wanted a residency. When you’re on tour, you can’t rehearse and you can’t put new songs into the set. It’s really hard, because you don’t have time. You’re either traveling, then when you get to your bed, you’re like, “Fuck it, I don’t want to go rehearse.” With the residency, we’re playing Wednesday, Friday, Saturday every week. We have Thursday off. The building’s [dark], so we can go in and change songs.

What songs that you didn’t do over the summer do you hope to bring in?
Oh, shit, many of them. “Love Walks In.” The Twister song, “Humans Being.” “Don’t Tell Me What Love Can Do.” I’m talking deep tracks. “Can’t Stop Loving You.” Those Van Halen songs, and from me, “Three Lock Box,” “Fall in Love Again,” “Your Love’s Driving Me Crazy.” I want to play Montrose. I want to play “Rock Candy,” “Bad Motor Scooter,” and “Space Station #5.”

I want to play more Chickenfoot, because basically this band is Chickenfoot with a keyboard player. Every night we’ll just switch a Chickenfoot song, we’ll switch a Montrose tune, we’ll switch a couple of Van Halen songs. Even Mikey will change. We do “Ain’t Talkin’ ’bout Love,” but we’ll do “Runnin’ With the Devil” sometimes instead. That’s a cool song too. There’s plenty of material. In nine shows, I hope we can get a shitload of them songs in there.

Do you think you’ll add more shows if these first nine go well?
I’m going to wait until I do it. I’m sitting there thinking in my head, “Yeah,” but here’s the problem. I also might not like being in the same place every night. I’ve never done it except for that little place, which was like the Cabo Wabo, where I played a different set every night. I even used different band members half the time. I used the Wabos a couple of shows. I used the Circle. Bob Weir came out and played with me. That was a fun thing, so I didn’t mind being in the same place every night. This is a bigger place with a big production, and it might feel strange, saying, “Wow, we’re playing too much of the same songs we played last night.” It might start fuckin’ with me, but we’ll see.

Might you bring it back out on the road? I’d love to see it at the Garden and other arenas.
I’ve thought about that. I don’t know what I want to do, man. I hate to say it, and I don’t want to scare anybody, but I’m getting old. The road scares me, because I’m so active on stage. I can’t help myself. I cannot just stand there and sing, and these songs are tough. Between the traveling, getting on a plane every day, sleeping in a funky hotel room, gotta have the heater on, gotta have the air conditioner on…my voice, I worry about it, and it’s hard.

This tour, as much as I loved it, the energy kept me going, but we stopped when we did for a good reason, because I’m going, “I think I need to take a break. My knees are killing me.” Half the time I’m having to take anti-inflammatories. I don’t like all that stuff. I don’t want to get out there and be unable to do the job. The residency seems like it’s the answer, without the travel.

You and Wolfgang Van Halen were both at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame last month. Did you get the chance to catch up with him?
Yeah. I walked into Ozzy’s dressing room because I wanted to say hi to Ozz and some of the guys and to Maynard [James Keenan]. Wolfie’s sitting there, and he just looked…We caught eyes and he just jumps up, and we just fuckin’ hugged and just got goosebumps on both of us.

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. 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. I said, “I can’t even look at you, Wolf. I’m getting teared up.” Yeah, I love him and what he’s doing.

I’m sure you read about Alex Van Halen’s book. He ends the narrative in 1984, doesn’t mention you, says the essence of Van Halen ended when Dave left, and seemed very reluctant to even say your name on the promotional tour.
It’s sad. I haven’t read the whole book, but I’ve seen all the excerpts, and I heard some of the interviews. It breaks my heart, because if I think what Alex is going through, losing his brother, never played with anybody else in his life, and then his health… When I saw how rickety he is, I realized, “No wonder he’s not answering my call when I say, ‘Do you want to go out and play with us?'” He can’t.

That breaks my heart, because I can only put myself in those shoes and say, “What if I couldn’t sing and perform anymore?” The thing that I did my whole life, the thing I devoted my life to, the thing that made me rich and famous and gave me the most beautiful life on the planet, and all of a sudden I can’t do that anymore? I would feel like I was robbing the fans, to start with. When you put yourself in his shoes, I’m saying, “Okay, I feel sorry for him.”

Why he left me out, I would like to hear him explain that someday, because I don’t get it completely. I know that he’s bitter about some things, whatever that is… It’s like, “If you don’t want that era, that even gives me more justification to say I own it then,” because no one else can do it, and he can’t do it even without me. It makes it easier for Mike and I. We’re sitting there going, “Okay, I guess we own this,” and we have the obligation to bring this to the fans to keep this music alive, keep it live and alive.

This music is too good to throw away. When you see the way these fans react, like I said, when we go out and play these songs. When we played ‘5150’ and ‘Summer Nights,’ it’s like, “Oh, my God.” You’re sitting there going, “Is this real? These people are happy.”

Before he hurt his back, he was talking to Dave about a possible tour. According to him, the whole thing fell apart because Dave didn’t want to do a tribute to Ed in the middle of the set. Are you able to understand that at all?
Yeah. Pure fuckin’ ego. “This show’s about me. What are you talking about?” That’s so wrong. I shied away from doing too much about Eddie on the Best of All Worlds Tour. It was an agreement between all of us, that we don’t want to look like we’re trying to suck vibes off of Eddie Van Halen’s death. I’m so careful about that. There’s haters out there that would misinterpret that, saying, “Oh, yeah, he’s out there making money off Eddie being dead.” No.

We showed Eddie’s picture on the screen a couple times and I said a couple nice things, always, but it wasn’t a tribute to Eddie himself. If it would’ve been, it would’ve been a whole different kind of vibe. I would’ve gotten every great guitar player in the business today, Steve Vai and all of them, and brought them all out, and everybody would’ve taken a turn at a different Eddie song, and made it all about Eddie. No, this was about the music of Van Halen and my legacy too.

Like I said, I played seven of my songs. I think it’s important that people know that. If I was making it a Van Halen tribute, I’d call it Van Halen or Van Hagar. This is a celebration to the fans, a celebration of the music and my songs.

Tell me more about this new song you made with Joe. Will it be a standalone single?
It’ll be a single, I guess. We’re working on it right now. Mike 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 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.

Is the song coming out before the Vegas residency?
I hope so. We should be out in the first of the year, maybe February or March.

I interviewed Art Garfunkel a few weeks back. He told me about making peace with Paul Simon recently after a decade of estrangement. They sat down, talked, cried, and hugged it out. These are guys in their eighties. It shows that it’s never too late for you and Alex.
It’s on my bucket list that I will not take this to my grave, and I don’t want Al taking it to his grave. I’ve put the olive branch out there many times, and I just put it out again to Irving Azoff. I want to give him some more credit about that book. The way he wrote it is soulful and touching. I mean, about their childhood. It’s like a love letter to his brother, and that’s touching to me. I want to give him some love for that. I understand he probably couldn’t have done the whole era in one book. It would’ve been the Bible, the dictionary, so maybe he’s got plans for a Volume 2. Who knows?

I want to be friends, though. I don’t want to play in a band with Al. I’m not asking for that. I can see that he’s not capable of doing that. If he was, I’d be happy to play with him, but it’s not what I’m looking for. I just want to friends again.