“I got up in the morning and I wrote the song!”: Sammy Hagar says Eddie Van Halen co-wrote his new song in a dream
Apparently, not even the afterlife can keep Eddie Van Halen from shredding – or songwriting.
Sammy Hagar has revealed that his upcoming single, Encore, Thank You, Goodnight, includes a guitar lick that came to him in a dream, courtesy of his late Van Halen bandmate. Yes, we’re serious.
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“About two months ago, I had this dream and Eddie came,” Hagar told Ultimate Classic Rock in an interview back in 2022. “He’s going, ‘Man, let’s write some music!’ I said, ‘Yeah, fuck it, man. Here, let’s go!’”
“[Eddie] did this harmonic thing and he slid it up to a chord, like a slide guitar. We wrote a song with that lick,” Hagar explained. “I remembered it. I got up in the morning and I wrote the song. I used the fuckin’ lick that he showed me in the song.”
Dream collaborations aside, Hagar and the late Van Halen had a famously on-and-off working relationship. Hagar fronted Van Halen during two separate stints, from 1985 to 1996 and again from 2003 to 2005. After the band’s 2004 reunion tour ended in tension, the two eventually mended fences before Eddie passed away in 2020 following a battle with cancer.
Featuring Joe Satriani, ex-Van Halen bassist Michael Anthony and drummer Kenny Aronoff, Encore, Thank You, Goodnight was previously described by Hagar as a “final bow to that part of my life”.
“It’s not meant to be anything more than a thank-you – with love, with respect, and with one hell of a guitar solo,” he said.
Earlier this year, the Red Rocker slammed former bandmate Alex Van Halen for skipping the “Van Hagar” era of Van Halen in his much publicised memoir, Brothers.
“Alex is not doing his brother’s musical legacy justice by not acknowledging all the No. 1 albums and some great music Eddie and I wrote together – not Alex – but Eddie and I wrote together,” Hagar said. “To not acknowledge 10 years of music is blasphemy to his brother’s musicianship, songwriting and legacy.”
Encore, Thank You, Goodnight will be released on Friday, 25 April.
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Source: www.guitar-bass.net
