Sammy Hagar and Alex Van Halen are back in the headlines, and it’s not for a reunion tour.
So, what’s the deal?
Sammy Hagar recently opened up about his strained relationship with Alex Van Halen. Apparently, the two haven’t spoken in over two decades. That’s right—21 years of silence between former bandmates.
But here’s where it gets spicy. Sammy claims that every time he tries to include Van Halen material in his projects, Alex’s lawyers swoop in to shut it down. We’re talking about legal threats to prevent the use of Van Halen songs in documentaries and other media.
Now, let’s talk about the elephant in the room: the Van Halen biopic. With biopics being all the rage, you’d think a band as legendary as Van Halen would have one in the works. Sammy’s all for it, even saying he’d do it for free. But he believes Alex is the roadblock, unwilling to greenlight such a project.
Speaking with Rolling Stone, Hagar said: “Oh, I would love it if it was done right. But Van Halen is so dysfunctional, as you well know. Because it’s Sam and Dave, and then Al. There’s no Ed now… There’s just no way we would all agree on anything. Dave wants it to be all about him. Al wants it to be all about him and Ed, nobody else matters. Just a bunch of singers in the band. It is all about him and Ed. It’s really all about Eddie, to be honest with you, and his co-writers, David Lee Roth and Sammy Hagar. That’s what the music’s about.”
The interviewer said: “You should all just let a great filmmaker make a documentary.”
Sammy replied: “A hundred percent. I’ll tell you some dirt. I’ve received offers all the time to make a documentary about me. They did one on a couple of different channels. And every time I try to put anything about Van Halen in there, Alex jumps in and calls his lawyers and they stop me from using it. He stops the use of any Van Halen music. It’s like, ‘I wrote these songs. You played drums, okay?’ Your brother and I wrote this song. I sang it. You didn’t sing it. You played drums. Come on, dude. But because Eddie’s not there, and he has the Van Halen power, and it just… Yeah, I’m over it.”
Sammy added: “I don’t think there’s a director on the planet that wouldn’t do it. Martin Scorsese would do it.”
When the interviewer suggested that it could be a three-part, six-hour Netflix documentary, Sammy said: “It should be. It should be the early times, my times, and then where everybody’s at in their life now. What a wonderful documentary, and what a beautiful story. And I’m in. Okay, see, I raised my hand. I say, let’s do it. I’ll do it for free. I don’t want any money. Alex can have all my money that resonates from it. I’ll just say okay for it to be done, and let me have approval on my parts.”
The interviewer brought up ‘The Beach Boys’ documentary on Disney+, that introduced them to a new generation of fans, and said that a Van Halen one could do the same thing.
Sammy then replied: “Yeah, it would be wonderful. And it’s well deserved, but I don’t see it happening. The closest thing that can happen to that will be probably some kind of a… What is it? Some of these frickin’ things they’re doing with holograms and AI generated stuff and all that. It’s probably the closest you’re going to see. That’s why my song feels so important.”
