“We made every offer”: Sammy Hagar on trying to get Alex Van Halen to join Best Of All Worlds tribute tour
Sammy Hagar has reassured that he tried his best to get Alex Van Halen on board for the upcoming Best Of All Worlds tour.
Hagar joins Joe Satriani, Michael Anthony and Jason Bonham for the tour, which begins on 13 July. The outfit will be performing Van Halen classics, plus some material from supergroups Chickenfoot and The Circle.
READ MORE: “I hope Wolfgang goes through some of the tapes – there’s a lot of stuff Eddie did on his own”: Michael Anthony on the unreleased Van Halen material we’ll “probably never see”
Though Hagar thinks Bonham is the ideal fit, given Alex “idolised” his father, Led Zeppelin’s John Bonham, he says they reached out to Alex a “dozen times” in the hopes he would join them on the road.
Speaking to Ultimate Classic Rock, Hagar says, “Mike and I reached out to Alex before we did this. We reached out to him a dozen times before this tour, in every way. Email, text message, phone call, message on the machine, OK? No response.
“I mean, we made every offer to get together or to just talk or to have breakfast, lunch or dinner. Go to the studio and play. Come to my house or I’ll come to your house. Go ride horses, go sit on the beach. What do you want to do? Let’s just do something. Let’s get together. And nothing.”
Hagar says that Alex was the first person they called when the tour was put together, “Mike and I said, ‘We’re wanting to do this thing.’ Alex’s famous line to me [was], ‘Sammy, we ain’t getting any younger.’
“Mike and I said, ‘Alex, we ain’t getting any younger. We’re going out and playing for the people. We’re going to honour the Van Halen catalogue. Let’s just get together and let’s talk about it. Mike and I, we’re going out, we’re going to do this, Alex. Please join us. Let’s be friends, let’s bury the hatchet, whatever.’ There was no response.”
Hagar adds, “I was saying, ‘He’ll come to a show, he’s got to in LA or something. I’m sure he’ll come.’ But no, no, he sold all of his equipment,” he says, referring to his recent auction, “that was his statement. That was like, ‘Nah, I ain’t coming nowhere.’”
Although seemingly frustrated, Hagar has previously noted he feels Alex “just doesn’t like playing without his brother” and that he doesn’t blame him for feeling that way.
To find out where The Best Of All Worlds crew will be playing live over the coming months, you can head to Red Rocker.
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