Sammy Hagar interprets David Lee Roth’s Eddie Van Halen ghost story as “olive branch moment”
Sammy Hagar has described recent onstage comments by David Lee Roth about being visited by the ghost of Eddie Van Halen as an “olive branch moment”.
Earlier this year, Hagar released the single, ‘Encore, Thank You, Goodnight’, which he first spoke about in 2022 when he said that the ghost of the late guitarist visited him.
At a show last week, Roth made a similar admission, which many believe was his way of mocking Hagar. While performing in New Hampshire on August 13th, he said, “Sammy, aloud, he described to the media about six weeks ago that the ghost of Eddie Van Halen visited him and graced him with a song that he memorised and then went home and recorded. It’s on the internet.”
Roth continued: “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 and he was laughing. His fucking ghost was laughing. I said, ‘What did you do now?’ He said, ‘Dave, Dave…’ Actually, you want me to do his accent? ‘Hey, Dave.’ He said, ‘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.’”
He then joked that they shared “a ghost Marlboro” and enjoyed an emotional conversation before Van Halen’s ghost left the hotel room.
These comments were widely interpreted as Roth poking fun at Hagar, who have been feuding for several years. However, Hagar doesn’t see it that way.
In response to a Metal Addicts post on Instagram, Hagar wrote: “I can’t believe social media is trying to make something out of this. This is the first compliment and real olive branch moment Dave and I have had in 100 years.”
The rock vocalist continued, “Listen closely and you will see that this is not negative whatsoever.” Hagar went on to add, “And I believe Dave had the dream as well. Dave’s a good storyteller, but there’s some truth in between the showmanship. All good with me, keep it up, Dave. These songs we both wrote with Eddie need to be carried on forever.”
While the two former Van Halen vocalists have exchanged their fair share of insults with each other over the years, they did embark on a successful co-headline tour together in 2002.
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