Sammy Hagar wishes Van Halen had pushed through their issues: “I probably could have done a better job”
The music business is a tricky one to navigate, and no band has ever done everything right. Between artistic decisions, internal relationships, and external collaborations, everyone is bound to make a wrong turn at some point in their career, whether it’s because of burnout or just an accidental misstep. Even the most successful musicians have certain things they would have done differently, and Van Halen vocalist Sammy Hagar is no exception.
Taking over from the original vocalist, David Lee Roth, in the mid-1980s, Hagar helmed later Van Halen hits like ‘Why Can’t This Be Love’ and ‘Dreams’. He enjoyed a successful run with the group for just over a decade before his creative differences with Eddie Van Halen became too much for them to bear. Hagar was out of the band by 1996, but now, he wishes that they had had the strength to push through that difficult period.
Though the singer stated that he had “no regrets” from his career during a conversation with LA Mag, he admitted that both he and his bandmates “probably could have done a better job”. While they were seemingly doing a great job with the music from the outside, charting and winning over even more rock fans, they weren’t doing quite as well behind the scenes.
Hagar credited their issues partly to his own desire to go solo. During the decade he was releasing with Van Halen, he released just one solo record – 1997’s I Never Said Goodbye. After he left, he pumped out four within five years. Though he seemed to have fulfilled his creative aims of going out on his own, he retroactively wished he had pushed through those urges.
“I would’ve gotten over my desire to be a solo artist where I could do everything my way,” he admitted, “which is so stupid.” His solo desires weren’t the only thing he wished had gone differently. He also suggested that time – and perhaps a psychologist – could have helped the band through their internal issues. “Everything, marriage, everything after ten years needs an overhaul,” he stated.
This is certainly a realistic viewpoint to take. A decade into a project, creative differences and stagnation are to be expected. Van Halen’s experience wasn’t a novel case – the likes of Oasis, Eagles, and even the Beatles all began to experience internal issues as they approached a decade of existence, leading to the recruitment of new members and even break-ups.
Working with anyone for that long, you’re bound to disagree with them sometimes, but Hagar simply wished that the band had had the power to push through those moments rather than giving up. Perhaps if they had done so, Hagar and Van Halen could have repaired their relationship and continued to create hits together.
In retrospect, it sounds like an easy fix to push through creative differences and solo desires. In reality, Hagar can do little to change the way things went down with Van Halen. Though his departure from the band wasn’t seamless, his time with Van Halen still secured him an enduring place in music history.
We will never know how things would have turned out if Van Halen and Hagar had pushed through that period if there had been an overhaul of the band, but we do know that their time together produced some of the most well-loved rock tunes of all time.
