In a recent interview, Sammy Hagar spoke again about the months leading up to Eddie Van Halen , when he reconnected with the guitarist and rekindled their friendship.
Hagar said that, at the time, Van Halen seemed "at peace" with his condition due to cancer, and that he often spoke very highly of his son Wolfgang Van Halen , called Mammoth WVH .
“It was strange because he was in a very comfortable place. He was sick and he had already overcome it. He wasn’t talking about ‘Let’s go out and party’ or saying things like ‘Hey, you idiot, you said that about me.’ He was calm. He was beyond that. And I felt that,” Hagar said.
“We would text each other at least once a week and he would always talk a lot about Wolfie , saying, ‘Just wait until you hear [Wolfgang’s solo album].’ He would send me some things and I would think, ‘Wow. The son of a bitch knows how to play,’” she says.
Sammy Hagar also mentioned Wolfgang Van Halen's self-titled debut album, MAMMOTH WVH , which was released in June. “The fact that he plays all the instruments and makes it sound like a band… When Paul McCartney plays all the instruments on a solo record, he sounds like Paul, but this guy sounds like a band. I mean, look where he grew up. He hung out with us in the studio, toured with us. He was always around,” he commented.
In July, Hagar apologized for the things he said about Eddie Van Halen in his 2011 autobiography, Red , where he negatively detailed the musician's behavior due to his alcohol addiction. “He was the sweetest guy in the world when I met him,” he commented. “I thought, ‘How can this guy play so well and be so humble?’ I remember thinking, ‘It’s impossible. He must have a fire inside him that he’s not showing.’ And when that fire flared up, it was one of the great ones – it was a volcano.”
READ ALSO: Mark Tremonti of Alter Bridge praises Wolfgang Van Halen and his first solo album.
