In a recent chat with Bringing It Back To The Beatles, Alex Van Halen teased a new book about the Sammy Hagar era of Van Halen.
“Because the original band was the band that was the driving force,” the drummer replied when asked why he chose to end his book, ‘Brothers,’ in 1984 and not include the band’s later years. “That was the connection between the disparate parts of the musical world, if you will. And we were young.”
He went on to say, “The first record going platinum — it’s incredible. That’s something you can really never expect to happen again. Later on, it was different — that’s for another book — but the excitement and the confusion and the groping in the dark, if you will, and all the mistakes that we made, and all the B.S. we had to endure, and then to recognize at the very end, maybe we had one more record in us, it was very…”
“You can’t take it back, but those are the things that are in the back of your head. The old expression of, if you don’t go over the edge, then you can’t come back. You have to go too far to come back in. Does that make sense?” the musician then shared.
Alex added, “Unfortunately, we’re human and we made some bad choices. The US Festival, for instance, was just a clusterf*ck. Nobody knew what the hell was going on. All we said was, ‘You make sure you have enough power, and we’ll play.’ That’s it.”
Hagar talked about why his name wasn’t mentioned in ‘Brothers’ during a Q&A with Rolling Stone last month. “It’s sad. I haven’t read the whole book, but I’ve seen all the excerpts, and I hear some of the interviews,” the Red Rocker said.
He continued, “It breaks my heart because if I think what Alex is going through, losing his brother, never played with anybody else in his life, and then his health… When I saw how rickety he is, I realized, ‘No wonder he’s not answering my call when I say, ‘Do you want to go out and play with us?’ He can’t.”
Hagar toured earlier this year with former Van Halen bassist Michael Anthony, Joe Satriani, and Jason Bonham to celebrate his time with the band. After Bonham left due to a family issue, Kenny Aronoff replaced him.
