“We gotta keep these guys apart”: The closest Sammy Hagar ever came to fighting David Lee Roth
No band has to necessarily have warm feelings about their ex-bandmates behind the scenes. There’s a lot that can test a musical marriage after years of being together, but it’s only a matter of time before that tension starts to get openly hostile and people start hurling insults about each other left and right in the press. But while Sammy Hagar always tried to keep things professional when working in Van Halen, he remembered coming dangerously close to causing serious bodily harm to David Lee Roth.
Then again, ‘The Red Rocker’ is far from the only one that Roth has managed to piss off during his time in the spotlight. From day one, Eddie and Alex had their reservations about Roth joining the band because of how much of a showman he could be, and by the time that he left the group in the 1980s, it was a breath of fresh air to see Hagar approach his craft from a musician’s perspective rather than the Las Vegas-style sideshow act that Roth was putting on.
But when Hagar was fired from the group, Eddie wasn’t ready to kiss and make up with Roth, either. The whole point of them getting back together for the VMAs was to announce they would be working on new music together, but given how Roth couldn’t stop mugging for the camera at every opportunity, Eddie squashed that idea before anything could happen and got Gary Cherone from Extreme behind the mic.
Since Van Halen III went over about as well as someone bringing a massive slab of meat into a vegan restaurant, though, Eddie knew that it was time for a change, and what could have been better than bringing the two titans of singing together for a tour? It may have been a bit of a gimmick, but the Roth and Hagar eras together on one stage would have been a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for fans. Before anything started, though, you know how different Hagar and Roth are as people, right?
Compared to Hagar’s down-to-earth mentality whenever he plays music, Roth enjoys every single minute in the spotlight, so seeing both of them on the same stage every night was bound to be awkward, especially considering how Hagar took a few jabs at his predecessor live. It was easy for them to keep up appearances for a while, but after being on the road together, Hagar remembered having to be restrained by certain crew members before every show.
Roth may not have been the easiest person to work with, but Hagar said that the management kept them at a safe distance from each other at all times, saying, “They made the wall since we nearly got into fisticuffs one night. The promoters were like, ‘Oh, we gotta keep these guys apart. This tour’s doing too good. We don’t want to see it break up because there’s some lawsuit.’ And so they put up a barricade between our dressing rooms.”
It’s not like Hagar couldn’t hold his own, either. Ever since he emerged as a solo artist, one of his hobbies in between has been boxing, and given how much effort he put into his craft, it’s not shocking that he could manage to look after himself if Roth figured it was time for him to use that samurai sword for the wrong reasons.
Even if Hagar never got to make amends with Eddie like he hoped he would before his death, there has been no bad blood lost between him and Roth over the years. Both of them did some incredible things for the band during their years with them, but the chemistry on the stage doesn’t always translate into the backstage area.
