Sammy Hagar just expressed that “the best was yet to come” from Van Halen.
The 77-year-old rock star, who has also remained the front man of the band Jump from 1985 to 1996, before returning 2003 till 2005, was in touch with the legendary guitarist Eddie Van Halen before his demise in October 2020.
Speaking on Detroit’s WRIF radio station, Sammy was quoted by Blabbermouth saying, “Oh, hell no. Oh, no regrets whatsoever.
“I regret that we broke up, just to see what else we could have done. I would’ve loved to have made another record or two with Eddie writing,” he added.
Additionally, Sammy gushed over the partnership he had while writing songs with Eddie and said, “Eddie and I wrote some great songs together, and I think the best stuff was yet to come; it could have been yet to come, because Eddie was really reaching out on instruments.”
“Last time I talked to Eddie before he passed, I said, ‘Man, what are you playing?’ He said, ‘Oh, man, I’ve really been playing a lot of cello.’ And I’m going, ‘Cello? Holy shit.’ [Laughs] ‘Play me something, dude. I’m ready to write a song with you on cello,’” he recalled.
The Red rocker went on to claim that his rival, David Lee Roth, who Sammy replaced as front man in 1985 and had three tenures until they disbanded in 2020.
“As artists, Eddie and I were really capable of doing a lot of stuff that he couldn’t do before me because the other guy didn’t want keyboards,” Sammy stated.
He continued, “And when I walked in the room with Eddie, he showed me two guitar songs when I joined, on [the] 5150 [album] – he showed me Good Enough and he showed me Summer Nights. Those are two riffs he had. And then what did he do? He went and sat down at the piano and he started playing all this stuff.”
“And I’m going, Whoa. What? He starts playing the riff to Dreams. He’s sitting there playing Love Walks In. He’s just playing all these things on keyboards, and I’m going, ‘Whoa, I had no idea he was that good of a keyboard player.’ So, he really wanted to expand as a musician,” Sammy Hagar added and concluded by saying, “To me, I think that’s what his dream would’ve been.”
