David Lee Roth on why Sammy Hagar was “sex probed” by aliens
Rock music was born out of rebellion, and as such, most people who are in some way involved within the genre cannot be anything but rebels. Of course, the definition of a rebel varies depending on who you ask; some would see it as standing up against austerity, some see it as casual mischief, whereas others, such as former Van Halen frontmen David Lee Roth and Sammy Hagar, interpret it as a fundamental inability to shut up.
David Lee Roth first joined Van Halen back in 1974. When he entered the fold, the band was called Mammoth and focused primarily on covers. Lee Roth wanted to take them further down the original music route and, in doing so, created the band that many know and love today. Due to his involvement, it may be that he felt some ownership over the group because when he left in 1985, he could never truly let go.
Van Halen struggled to find a replacement for Lee Roth. Initially, they were going to tour with a rotation of singers, but a chance meeting with Sammy Hagar at a gas station led to him taking up the microphone full-time. He had just left his band Montrose then and was pursuing a solo career, so the encounter couldn’t have been more serendipitous.
Naturally, Roth had no faith that the band would work without him. He was one of the driving forces behind the development of Van Halen, so the idea of them having any hit in his absence was a pipe dream. Well, not exactly; the band became more successful than ever. The LP 5150 became the band’s first record to reach number one, and for the next decade, they continued to enjoy commercial success.
This sparked a rivalry between Lee Roth and Hagar, which has never entirely resolved. The closest they ever came to a handshake was when they called each other’s bluff about performing together before Hagar eventually announced that there was “no fucking way”. The two ultimately performed together on the Heavyweight Champs of Rock and Roll, but even that performance just led to more arguments about who was better and who was more successful.
The past couple of decades have been a back-and-forth of insults, as both parties seem completely unrelenting in their disdain towards one another. Hagar has previously described Lee Roth as a “chest-beating motherfucker”.
He said: “He’s not a fun guy. He doesn’t play well with others. I’m not sure what his problem is… He just always is about, ‘How can I make this guy look bad?’ And not just me – in life. He’s a chest-beating motherfucker. And God bless him, cause the early stuff is fricking great. I personally, I’ve tried to say… [I thought] he’d be a fun guy to know. But he ain’t like that. He ain’t like his persona. When you get around him, he ain’t that guy. He’s some other cat.”
David Lee Roth disagrees, saying that Sammy Hagar is a bitter man who lashes out at him, and he could only think of one reason why. The explanation provided by Lee Roth as to why Hagar acts the way he acts is, to put it plainly, out of this world.
“According to Sam, he was abducted by aliens,” said Lee Roth, “I know that when you’re abducted by aliens, you get sex probed. I am compelled to solicit this sordid subject in an effort to explain Sam Hagar’s conduct… I think we’ve arrived at both the technical and the medical answer that may explain some of Sammy Hagar’s conduct and his constant spew of diarrhoea vitriol in our direction. Sammy Hagar was abducted by aliens, and he was sex probed.”
Lee Roth also confirmed he didn’t know how alien probes work, but said, “What I do know with absolute accuracy is that if you take a half of a popsicle and you jam it into a cassette tape player, no matter how carefully you extract it, that tape player will never play the same again. No matter how carefully you try and fix those delicate little parts. And it’ll get worse, and it’ll seem like the singer that you used to [be] will stop making sense whatsoever. A lot like Sam.”
