This originally appeared on E! Online.
Sammy Hagar knows why there can’t be love between him and Alex Van Halen.
Over 20 years after the musician left Van Halen — which also included the late Eddie Van Halen and Michael Anthony at the time — he shared why he’s not on the best of terms with the band’s drummer.
“I think Al’s angry because I’m out doing it, Mike and I are out doing it and he can’t,” Hagar — who admitted he is no longer in contact with his former bandmate — told Rolling Stone in an article published April 29. “He’s not a singer. He’s not a guitar player. He is not really a band leader. And he seems like he doesn’t want to play drums or can’t play drums anymore, and he can’t go write a new record.”
Indeed, during Hagar’s time with Van Halen — which was between 1985 and 1996 and again between 2003 and 2005 — he acted as the lead singer and penned the band’s songs.
READ: Eddie Van Halen’s Son Reflects on Rocker’s “Unfair” Death on First Anniversary
“Alex wasn’t the songwriter in the band,” Hagar continued. “He was the drummer. Eddie and I wrote the songs. I think that really bothers him that Mike and I are still out there doing it. I would feel bad. If I put myself in his shoes, I would feel terrible if I couldn’t do it anymore.”
But while Hagar, 77, believes the bandmates’ feud stems from his ability to continue on in his music career, he also addressed a few other theories, including his 2012 memoir, “Red”, which exposed Van Halen’s brother Eddie struggling while touring with the band, and Hagar turning the brothers’ band into a profitable venture.
“The book was honest,” Hagar explained. “It was well documented that Eddie was a mess on that tour. But I don’t want to drag Eddie through no coals now. That’s just water under the bridge.”
And as for Hagar taking over control of Van Halen? He slammed the possibility.
“How the f— could they be angry about that?” Hagar argued. “They gave me the damn thing, they walked out on me, left me with it. They made me indemnify them in case I got sued and lost everything. They made me sign off big time. And I’m going, ‘I hope it’s not that.’”
Hagar noted that he made “hundreds of millions of dollars” for the rock band, and their former manager Irving Azoff believes that may be the root of his issues with Van Halen. As he explained of Azoff’s perspective, “Alex is angry about that.”
Van Halen, for his part, has alluded to preferring the version of the band that was led by vocalist David Lee Roth — who sang from 1974 to 1985, and took over again in 2006. As the 71-year-old wrote in his memoir “Brothers,” published in October, “What happened after Dave left is not the same band.”
