Over the last year, a tribute concert in honour of legendary guitarist Eddie Van Halen has been hotly mooted in the rock world, with plans continually yo-yoing from being seemingly in the works to being completely binned.
Most recently, Eddie's son Wolfgang was the last to scrap any hope of the event taking place, after revealing to Classic Rock that he had already found closure with the loss of his father after performing Van Halen songs at the two Taylor Hawkins tribute concerts, held in September.
One person still keen to make the concert happen, however, is former Van Halen vocalist Sammy Hagar, who, in a recent interview on Sirius XM's Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk, discussed why he believes the tribute is still yet to be organised, and why it might not happen.
When questioned by Trunk on if David Lee Roth was responsible for holding up plans, Hagar admits (as transcribed by Blabbermouth): "It ain't just one guy. Alex Van Halen and I don't talk. I reached out to Alex. I'm going to tell you right now — I reached out to Alex again recently. Mikey had a sad thing happen in his family, and I reached out to Al, and he wouldn't return my call or my e-mail.
"And so I said, 'You know what? Fuck it. It's not on the top of my list, my agenda. I think Eddie deserves, definitely, a tribute… And the whole world would show up and the whole world would do it.
"Like I said, if Alex came to me and wanted to do it, I'm in," he continues, "Absolutely — let's go [and] do it somehow. But Alex has got a stick up his ass about something with me still, and he's going to take it to his grave, I guess. [I made peace with Eddie before he died but] I don't think I made peace with Al. And I don't think I'm going to unless he reaches back out to me. I've done it about five times now."
In spite of Hagar's frustrations, he also confirms that he is "not trying to start a feud between the two of us."
He continues, "He is tough to [break] down and to let go. Nope — he's holding on to something. And I just wish he wasn't like that. I love the guy.
"Like I've said a million times, Alex and I actually got along better than Ed and I at times. Through the hard times, Alex and I still got along. But I don't know what happened. Somebody poisoned him. Somebody told him something. Maybe he still doesn't like my book, which was the most honest thing I've ever done in my life. Some people just don't think that that should have been done."
Elsewhere, Hagar, who fronted Van Halen from 1984-1996, states that the band's manager Irving Azoff had previously contacted him with an offer to perform with Alex, bassist Michael Anthony and a "superstar" player. However, even if such a performance was to take place, the singer is insistent that it won't be the real Van Halen.
"There is no Van Halen; I don't care what anyone says. Wolfie is Van Halen, okay? And he doesn't want to be the Van Halen copy band. I don't blame him; he's doing a great job on his own stuff, and it's very cool when he jams a little bit here and there. He's Van Halen, and if he wanted to play guitar with Al and Mikey and myself, I would love to do that. That would be just one time for the big time. Not like, 'Okay, let's go out and tour the world and make records.' No, no, no, no," he added, noting an event similar to the Taylor Hawkins tribute "would be fantastic."
