The Van Halen song Sammy Hagar punished himself with: “Beat myself up”
Not every album cycle is meant to be the most pleasant experience in the world. For all of the inspiration that might flow out of every musician working in the studio, there are often times when the artist can’t think of anything, leading to long hours where nothing can get done. While any album can do a number on an artist’s ego, Sammy Hagar was on the verge of self-harm when working on this Van Halen project.
Before Hagar joined the band, Van Halen was used to having tumultuous times in the studio. Throughout their time with David Lee Roth, several of the group’s studio sessions were marred by creative disagreements between Eddie Van Halen and Roth, including the massive compromises made on their blockbuster album 1984.
Even though Roth wouldn’t stick around for the rest of the 1980s, Hagar fit in like a glove when brought in for a jam session. Recommended by Eddie’s mechanic, Hagar would be responsible for launching the next era of Van Halen, including making chart-topping songs on his debut with the band 5150.
While Hagar may have offered a more musical style than Van Halen used to, the next album would be a more difficult beast to tackle. With keyboards taking up a primary focus in the studio, OU812 would become one of the more fractured Van Halen releases, including the band producing most of the album themselves for the first time.
Self-production brought with it a new kind of pressure. Without an external referee to streamline ideas or call time on indulgence, every creative decision lingered longer than it might have otherwise. What had once been friction between personalities now became friction within the process itself.
While Eddie had worked on finetuning several albums with his engineer Donn Landee, much of the project suffered from a fair bit of bloat, leading to songs that went in far longer than they should have. Despite ‘When It’s Love’ getting a prime spot on MTV then, the opener ‘Mine All Mine’ would become one of the most challenging tracks for Hagar to get right.
For Hagar, songwriting had always been instinctive. Whether working solo or with previous bands, lyrics tended to arrive fully formed, driven by melody and emotion rather than overthinking. That natural flow became much harder to access within Van Halen’s increasingly dense studio environment, where ideas were constantly evolving and rarely settled. Instead of reacting to a finished piece of music, Hagar found himself chasing something that kept shifting beneath his feet.
That uncertainty took a heavy toll. As Eddie continued refining parts and adding layers, the pressure on the vocals grew exponentially, turning what should have been collaboration into a mental endurance test. With no clear endpoint in sight, Hagar began internalising every perceived failure, questioning his role in the band and his own creative worth. What had once been a source of joy slowly became a source of anxiety.
Since most of the song comes from the vocal, Hagar would spend weeks trying to get the lyrics to fit right with Eddie’s riffs, only to rewrite them when he thought they didn’t work out. As Eddie was churning out riffs left and right, Hagar was practically on the verge of a breakdown when he started putting pen to paper.
The imbalance only heightened his frustration. Eddie’s fluid command of the instrument seemed effortless, whereas Hagar was left wrestling with syllables that refused to settle. In a band built on bravado and velocity, standing still inside your own head can feel like the worst possible place to be.
For all of the great lyrics that he had before the album got underway, Hagar admitted that getting ‘Mine All Mine’ correct was torturous, saying, “That wasn’t a magical moment, but it was the first time in my life I ever beat myself up, hurt myself, punished myself, practically threw things through windows, trying to write the lyrics. I went through it, I rewrote that song lyrically seven times. And it was the last song I did vocals on for the record.”
By the time he had gotten into the vocal booth, Hagar still wasn’t convinced of the song, even refusing to sing it on some occasions because of how dissatisfied he was with his words. Regardless of his feelings towards the tracks, the melodies he created for the final track were perfect, stacking multiple harmonies on top of each other with bassist Michael Anthony’s soaring falsetto.
Even though Hagar was unsure how to approach this new era of Van Halen, it wouldn’t be until For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge that the band landed on top again with the hit single ‘Right Now’. Hagar may have suffered for his art more than a few times, but it takes that extra elbow grease to turn in a song for the ages.
