Sammy Hagar Fires Bandmate Over His Mom

Sammy Hagar recently explained why he let Jason Bonham go from “Best of All Worlds” and hired Kenny Aronoff instead. He praised the latter as “one of the greatest drummers on the planet.”

Sammy Hagar’s triumphant “Best of All Worlds” career retrospective tour has been filled with good vibes and a lot of fun till now. However, an aspect that contrasted with the otherwise exuberant atmosphere was Jason Bonham’s announcement that he would not be joining Hagar, Michael Anthony, and Joe Satriani for the upcoming Vegas residency and other future projects.

Bonham noted he was “a little shocked” to learn that the Red Rocker would continue with another longtime collaborator, Kenny Aronoff. Aronoff had been brought in as a temporary replacement as Bonham had to step down in late August due to a family emergency. Despite this development, it seems there is no bad blood between the two camps, as Bonham expressed that he still loves Hagar “to bits.”

Hagar told Rolling Stone in a recent interview that the reasons for going forward with Aronoff were twofold. Reflecting on the fact that the drummer delivered a smashing performance despite jumping in at the last minute, Hagar offered:

“Yeah, and that’s why he is still in the band. That’s why we’re moving forward with him. There’s two reasons. Number one, he’s one of the greatest drummers on the planet. I think he’s been on more million-selling records than any musician in the world. And he did so well on this tour, and he plays with Joe on a full-time basis.”

“Keeping this ‘Best of All Worlds’ band together is difficult when you got Jason doing his thing, you got Joe doing his thing, you got Mike and I. We need our beach time and our taco nights, Taco Tuesdays and stuff. Trying to get it together, it really helps by having Kenny’s schedule be with Joe. If Joe’s available, Kenny’s available, and it’s not trying to put pieces together.”

He added:

“Kenny’s right here. We can rehearse any day of the week. And he blew my mind. I played with Kenny in Chickenfoot, and he blew my mind then too, because when we auditioned him, he learns every song. ‘Tell me what songs we’re playing.’ ‘Okay, here they are.’ He charts them out and he sits there, and he f***in’ can read it, and play it with soul and power perfectly, just one time, the first time he plays it. If that don’t blow a musician’s mind, I don’t know what would, especially these kinds of songs. These songs are crazy. They’re fu**in’ Van Halen arrangements.”

Looking back on the situation which led to Aronoff’s arrival, Hagar offered:

“Jason wasn’t sure when he was going to go, and we kept saying, ‘Well, hey, we gotta know, we gotta know.’ Then all of sudden he said, ‘Look, my mom took a bad turn. I gotta go.'”

“It was a day off, and I hit Kenny. I sent him a live recording of the set. We knew it a week ahead of time, that things were possibly going to happen, but anyway, he flew out. He got in at six in the morning. He went to bed, woke up at noon, went to the stage, set his drums up with the guy, got his stuff all set up right, and went through the set a couple of times.”

“We came in for a soundcheck, went through the things he had questions for. We played that night in Cincinnati. It was fu***ng great.”