For Sammy Hagar, it’s like the guys in Van Halen are trying to erase him from the band’s history.
That’s led to the inclusion of a 40-minute segment devoted to his time with Eddie Van Halen in a new solo tour.
Hagar tried a reunion in 2004, but after that turned contentious, he formed Chickenfoot. Hagar’s new concerts celebrate four decades in the music business, touching on his 1970s-era tenure in Montrose, new music, solo hits — and, yes, Van Halen.
Chickenfoot includes Michael Anthony, but that’s as close as Hagar looks to get in reuniting with his old group.
Van Halen, meanwhile, has since returned with David Lee Roth, who fronted the band through 1985 when Hagar arrived. A new studio album followed, as did a world tour.
But Hagar tells Rolling Stone that he’s taken note of a setlist that exclusively blends tracks from A Different Kind of Truth with early, per-Hagar material.
“And now what they’re doing, acting like I was never in that band, just playing all that early material — how can they do that?” Hagar muses. “But Dave can’t sing it, so what the fuck. It is what it is, and I’d just as soon let it be. Let them finish it off in their own way, and whatever happens, it’s all good.”
Hagar’s tour follows the completion of a new star-packed project that finds him joining forces with friends old and new — from Kid Rock to Neal Schon, with whom Hagar collaborated in the pre-Van Halen band HSAS.
“I don’t want to go backwards anymore,” Hagar adds. “At my age, I have a hard enough time rehearsing and playing those old songs at a rehearsal. And I certainly can’t go back and listen to them. I just want to keep moving forward.”
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