Sammy Hagar attacks Alex Van Halen: 'What is your problem?'

The long simmering feud between Sammy Hagar and Alex Van Halen has flared up again. It started when Alex Van Halen gave an interview to the Brazilian trade publication Roadie Crew, where he was asked about Hagar's 2011 memoir Red: My Uncensored Life in Rock. The drummer's response was short and sharp: "I don't know what he wrote, and I don't want to know. In my opinion, Sammy Hagar is a complete idiot." This is notable because in his own 240 page memoir Brothers: An Intimate Account of Brotherhood and Rock Music, Alex Van Halen had not mentioned Hagar's name even once.

Hagar wasn't about to let that slide, and showed up on Eddie Trunk's SiriusXM show Trunk Nation. He opened with a bit of self deprecating humor: "Guilty as charged, first of all. I'm probably the most successful idiot on the planet." But the tone quickly turned more serious. Hagar took issue with the fact that Alex Van Halen seems to want to erase the years when he was the band's singer, even though during that period the band sold forty million records and put four albums at number one on the charts. "You act like there was never a Sammy Hagar. You act like there was never a Van Hagar. That's deep. That's weird. That's not right, for Eddie, for me, for Mikey, for anybody," Hagar said, referring to bassist Michael Anthony.

Hagar publicly called on Alex Van Halen to come forward and be straight about things. "Come clean, what's your problem? Just come out and say it. Is it the book? Say it. Cabo Wabo? Say it. Maybe if I knew what your problem was, I could fix it." He was referring to his tequila brand Cabo Wabo, which he originally founded together with the other Van Halen members but ended up running on his own after the rest of them lost interest. He later sold the brand for hundreds of millions of dollars. Earlier this year Hagar told Rolling Stone that multiple people, including former Van Halen manager Irving Azoff, had told him that this financial success was a thorn in Alex's side.

According to Hagar, there is also another source of tension. He and Michael Anthony have been touring together for years as the Best of All Worlds band, drawing heavily from the Van Halen catalogue of the Hagar era, alongside classics like Ain't Talkin' 'bout Love and Panama from the David Lee Roth years, plus songs like Bad Motor Scooter from Montrose and I Can't Drive 55. Alex Van Halen no longer performs live. Hagar said he understood where the drummer is coming from: "I would feel bad. If I put myself in his shoes, I would feel terrible if I couldn't do it anymore." But he also felt that this is no reason to deny their shared history. As an example, he brought up another incident: when Wolfgang Van Halen, Eddie's son, joined the band, apparently all the old photos and records on the band's website were edited to put Wolfgang in and cut Michael Anthony out. After a public backlash, this was reversed.

Eddie Trunk offered to mediate between the two former bandmates if at all possible. Hagar said he was open to that, but stressed that the first move is Alex's to make, specifically a public statement about what exactly is bothering him. All of this is playing out right before Hagar's Best of All Worlds residency resumes at the Park MGM in Las Vegas, where he will be joined by Michael Anthony, guitarist Joe Satriani and drummer Kenny Aronoff.