Sammy Hagar is disappointed for not being invited for Van Halen’s final album

Alex Van Halen recently revealed that he is working with Toto’s Steve Lukather, one of Eddie’s closest friends, on a final Van Halen album, and that they are currently looking for a singer. The guitar, drums, and bass parts were recorded during the band’s final reunion and those tracks would be used as part of the follow-up to A Different Kind of Truth. In an interview with Rock of Nations, Sammy Hagar said he is disappointed that he and Michael Anthony were not invited to take part in the project.

Sammy Hagar is disappointed for not being invited for Van Halen’s final album

“No. We haven’t been asked, number one. I can tell you, Mike and I, the day I walked in the studio, in 5150, to basically if you wanna call it an audition, but to meet the guys and to play music, we played for about eight hours at least. And we recorded everything. Everything that I ever did, and every time we made a record, we recorded hundreds of hours of jam and music, and then we’d cut ’em up, made songs,” he continued. “That’s the way we did it, right? So there’s so much stuff from Mike and I and Ed and Al in the studio.”

“Like I said, just the initial day that I went in there, we got ‘Summer Nights’, we got ‘Good Enough’ and the beginnings of ‘Get Up’ from [the 1986 album) 5150 — three songs that came from that eight-hour jam. And I remember there was a blues thing we did, and I was making up lyrics.”

He continued:

“There’s so much stuff that Al could really choose from, if he wanted to include Mike and I. But, obviously, Al’s got a reason, and he’s Alex Van Halen, he can do whatever he wants. To me, it’s an Alex Van Halen project, and it’s not necessarily a Van Halen project, but I guess we’ll see if it ever sees the light of day. But I’m disappointed that Mike and I wouldn’t be invited. It’s, like, what? Are you kidding me? We’re still alive. We’re out here doing it. We’re playing those songs. We can still do it, you know?” Sammy Hagar said.

The former Van Halen bassist Michael Anthony also said he would have collaborated on the project if he had been asked. “If this is material that we jammed on or whatever, I’d have no problem coming in and singing or [playing bass] or whatever. It’s all good there,” he said (Transcribed by Ultimate Classic Rock).