The beef between David Lee Roth and Sammy Hagar is showing no signs of simmering down, with Roth firing shots at Hagar after his claims about the origins of his new single.
The Red Rocker released Encore, Thank You, Goodnight back in April, after the late Eddie Van Halen came to him in a dream and showed him a new lick. Joe Satriani and the rest of the Best of All Worlds band were then tapped up to complete the song’s transition from dream realm to the real world, with Hagar seeing it as a celebration of the guitar hero’s life and legacy.
Roth, who fronted the band’s swan song album, A Different Kind of Truth, doesn’t seem convinced that Hagar’s story is true. Now he’s responded in typically flamboyant fashion.
During his recent show in Hampton Beach, the band pulled back midway through Dance the Night Away so Roth could tell the crowd that Eddie's ghost had visited him, too.
“One of my esteemed colleagues, he's a contemporary, he's got a great voice, he's got a great catalog. You all know Sammy Hagar, right?” Roth began, teeing himself up (via Blabbermouth).
“Sammy, aloud, described to the media about six weeks ago that the ghost of Eddie Van Halen had visited him and graced him with a song that he had memorized, and then he went home and recorded it. It's on the internet.
“I don't know what the odds are, but last night the ghost of Eddie Van Halen visited me at the fucking hotel room. I was watching the weather report, and he came in, laughing.
“I said, ‘What did you do now?’ He said, ‘Dave, Dave… Dave, you know that song I gave Hagar?’ I said, ‘What now?’ He said, ‘It's actually [Iron Butterfly's] In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida backwards. Don't fucking tell him.’”
Roth then says the pair shared a “ghost cigarette” before a flash of their wicked sense of humor prevailed.
“I hugged my brother Ed, and I said, ‘Man, do I fucking miss you,’” Roth continues. “And he said, ‘I miss you too, Dave. But you know what? You should still go to hell.’ And I said, ‘Save me a seat.’”
Carlos Santana may be less cynical about Hagar’s story, however. He’s recently claimed that the fingerless spirit of Stevie Ray Vaughan visited him in a dream and asked him to play through his Dumble amp so he could vicariously enjoy playing guitar one last time.
Hagar, meanwhile, has been making some other believe-it-or-not statements about Eddie Van Halen, including that he was “dried up” by the 2000s. That's why the band only produced one album after 1998’s Gary Cherone-fronted LP, Van Halen III.
He’s also said that Eddie was more interested in cello than guitar in his final months, but he refused to show his former bandmate what he could do on the classical instrument.
Meanwhile, Steve Vai has opened up on his time in DLR’s solo band, and how he was hired to “beat Van Halen.”
