Alex Van Halen says the Sammy Hagar tour is not doing the band’s catalog justice

The legendary Van Halen co-founder and drummer Alex Van Halen is currently promoting his new book called “Brothers”, which talks about him, his late brother Eddie Van Halen and of course, their band until 1985 when David Lee Roth left the group. That’s when the book ends and he explained that he preferred to focus on that era because it really was when the magic happened. He said in recent interviews that the real magic was really between the brothers and Roth, not even mentioning Hagar’s name on the book or in the interviews.

But he was asked in an interview with Billboard about the current Sammy Hagar tour with Michael Anthony, Joe Satriani and Kenny Aronoff. Besides performing Montrose and Sammy solo songs, the setlist is quite focused on the Van Hagar era. Alex simply answer that they can do whatever they want but they are not doing the band’s justice.

Alex Van Halen says the Sammy Hagar tour is not doing the band’s catalog justice

“I’m not interested. They’re not doing the band justice. They can do what they want to do. That’s not my business.” Alex said he is not interested because Sammy publicly invited him to join them on tour since the Eddie Van Halen tribute tour was not going to happen.

But the vocalist also noted during the past year that he hasn’t talked with Alex for 20 years already and during the past years he tried to call and text the drummer but he never returned his calls. He talked about that in an interview with Ultimate Classic Rock in 2024.

“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. E-mail, text message, phone call, message on the machine, okay? No response. 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. When the tour came, the first person we called and left all of the messages, sent all of emails, it was Alex Van Halen. Mike and I said, ‘We’re wanting to do this thing.’ Alex’s famous line to me (decades ago) [was], ‘Sammy, we ain’t getting any younger.’”

He continued:

“Mike and I said, ‘Alex, we ain’t getting any younger. We’re going out and playing for the people. We’re going to go honor the Van Halen catalog. 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.”

“I was saying, ‘He’ll come to a show, he’s got to in L.A. or something. I’m sure he’ll come.’ But no, no, he sold all of his equipment. That was his statement. That was like, ‘Nah, I ain’t coming nowhere,’” Sammy Hagar said.