Sammy Hagar is no longer in contact with Alex Van Halen
The Red Rocker, Sammy Hagar, has opened up on the rumours surrounding a Van Halen tribute concert. He claims to be interested in performing, but Van Halen drummer Alex Van Halen has not responded to his messages. Hagar formerly fronted Van Halen between 1985 and 1996 and between 2003 and 2005.
Ex-Metallica bassist, Jason Newsted, shared plans for the tribute concert with the public, claiming that he had been contacted to get involved alongside virtuoso guitarist Joe Satriani. Eddie Van Halen’s son, Wolfgang, later added that the initial plans for the concert had fallen by the wayside.
Wolfgang said: “What I can say is that there was an attempt at doing something. I don’t like to speak negatively about people, but there are some people that make it very difficult to do anything when it comes to Van Halen. We made an attempt, and some people can be hard to work with, and made it not happen.”
Hagar has now offered his thoughts on the potential tribute gig, saying, “As far as I know, [there is] nothing. There was that talk everybody heard about Jason being the bass player and Joe Satriani playing guitar and Alex and all that. Then I got the call from the management; I got the call from Irving Azoff. [He] said, ‘Hey, you wanna do you, Mike [Anthony] and Al, with a superstar guitar player?'”
The Red Rocker added, though, that he is not on talking terms with Alex Van Halen, despite him trying to make contact with him. He said, “I reached out to Alex. I’m gonna tell you right now – I reached out to Alex again recently, and he wouldn’t return my call or my e-mail. And so I said, ‘You know what? Fuck it.’ It’s not on the top of my list, my agenda. I think Eddie deserves, definitely, a tribute. And the whole world would show up, and the whole world would do it. But Alex has got a stick up his ass about something with me still, and he’s gonna take it to his grave, I guess.”
