Sammy Hagar claims that he helped Eddie Van Halen become a better musician when they were together in Van Halen — and says that Eddie didn’t make new music in the 2000s because he was “dried up”.
In a new interview with Rolling Stone, Hagar says that Van Halen fans have misunderstood the creative dynamic between himself and EVH.
Hagar states: “When I joined the band, everyone says, ‘Oh man, they started playing keyboards, and Hagar wants to write all these love songs.’
“I didn’t bring the music to Eddie. Eddie brought the music to me.
“He had used that guitar neck up. He did everything and anything that that neck could do, and changed his amps and got his sounds. And over the years, he kept changing his sound to try and re-inspire some new guitar things.
“That’s why he wrote Can’t Stop Loving You. It’s a classical piece of music, and so is 5150.
Hagar says of his role in Van Halen: “I had to find a place to sing. But he [Eddie] sat down at a keyboard. It felt fresh.
“And I always say that to the hardcore Eddie heads: Eddie’s musicianship blossomed when I joined the band.
“People don’t realise that Eddie expanded as a musician because he got a singer that could say, ‘I can sing that.’ And we went on a fucking musical adventure.”
Between 1986 and 1995, Van Halen made four studio albums with Hagar as singer, all of which made No.1 on the US chart.
But after the 1998 album Van Halen III (with Gary Cherone replacing Hagar), the band made no new music until the 2012 album A Different Kind Of Truth, which featured original singer David Lee Roth and turned out to the final Van Halen album.
In the Rolling Stone interview, Hagar refers to this fallow period and says of Eddie Van Halen: “He stopped writing, I think, because he just ran out. Shit, how much do you need? How much can you squeeze out of the dude? He gave his blood, brother.
“Look, everybody gets fuckin’ dried up a little bit. And also, he had to be inspired by something.”
Hagar also says that working with guitarist Joe Satriani reminds him of the years he spent with Eddie.
“I loved Eddie like a brother,” he says. “I miss him so bad.
“Every time I play music, every time I pick up a guitar or go to rehearsal or jump on stage or try to get with Joe Satriani rehearsing a song we might want to play or write, I miss Eddie.
“Joe is the closest thing on this planet for me, not for the world, but for me, to Eddie Van Halen. The way Eddie and I wrote, Joe and I, we write that way, and it’s very special.”
