Sammy Hagar revealed details about his last phone call with the late rocker Eddie Van Halen.
The legendary rock guitarist died at age 65 earlier this year after a long battle with cancer. Speaking to Variety in a recent interview, former band lead singer Van Halen explained that he and Eddie buried their years-long rivalry in a final phone call after the former found out about the latter’s declining health.
“Poor Eddie, it broke my heart, but thank God we connected before [he died], ”Hagar told the outlet. “I heard that he was in bad shape and wanted to get in touch; Finally he said, ‘I’m just calling him.’
However, the singer recalled that getting in touch after so many years was a challenge.
“I was calling his brother, I was calling his manager, I was calling his friends and saying, ‘Hey, tell Ed, give him my phone number. Tell him that if he wants to talk to me, I really want to talk about it, help him and see what I can do, ‘”explained Hagar. “I [told them], ‘I want to be friends with him, I want to bury the hatchet’, but they never made it. “
Hagar replaced David Lee Roth as the lead singer for Van Halen in 1985. In 1997, tensions led Hagar to split from the band before returning for a brief reunion in the early 2000s. However, it seems that the tension between the two rockers never left.
In the end, it was comedian George Lopez who connected the pair before Eddie’s death. When they finally got in touch, Eddie explained why he hadn’t responded to Hagar’s calls until then.
“I said, ‘Why don’t you answer? I’ve been looking, ‘”recalled Hagar,“ and Ed said,’ Why didn’t you call me? Don’t call my brother p-king, p-king call me! ‘And I said,’ I love you man, ‘and it was like, boom, we were fine. It was a beautiful thing. “
With his distinctive solos, Eddie Van Halen was the driving force behind California’s best party band and helped pull the disc out of the charts from the late 1970s with his band’s self-titled debut album and later with the album by hit “1984”, which contains the classics “Jump,” “Panama” and “Hot for Teacher”.
Her son, Wolf, announced news of his death on Twitter on October 6th.
“I can’t believe I’m having to write this, but my father, Edward Lodewijk Van Halen, lost his long and arduous battle with cancer this morning,” he wrote at the time.