Sammy Hagar Shares The Backstory Of Van Halen’s Unreleased Song ‘I Want Some Action’

Former Van Halen frontman Sammy Hagar and bassist Michael Anthony recently shared another post on their brand new Instagram account, ‘Van Hagar / Other Half,’ and the duo revealed the story of how they came up with tracks while jamming with late guitarist Eddie Van Halen such as the unreleased song of Van Halen, ‘I Want Some Action’ from the album, ‘5051.’

There’s no doubt that every record of Van Halen is exceptionally legendary and each holds a special place in the band’s fans’ hearts just like the seventh studio album ‘5051‘ which was released on March 24, 1986. The album was so monumental that it hit number 1 on the Billboard 200.

The album consists of nine tracks total including iconic songs such as ‘Why Can’t This Be Love,’ ‘Best of Both Worlds,’ and ‘Love Walks In.’ Three decades after releasing the ‘5051,’ an unreleased and unfinished song from the album named ‘I Want Some Action’ was released on May 24, 2016, and instantly became a fan’s favorite and despite being a rough demo, many fans commented saying that it’s a killer song that should’ve made it to the album.

As you might recall, Sammy Hagar recently announced that he and Michael Anthony decided to have a brand new Instagram page together in which they’ll be sharing exclusive pictures and videos they find from their archives that belong to the time when they both were a member of Van Halen. Recently, the duo shared another post on that Instagram page and revealed how they created tracks with Eddie Van Halen.

According to Michael Anthony, it was guitarist Eddie Van Halen who came up with song ideas mostly coming from guitar riffs, and then they all would start jamming on the raw material which eventually turns into a song. That’s how ‘I Want Some Action’ was made, however, never made it to an album despite having an incredible guitar riff.

Sammy Hagar also revealed his side of the story and stated that all three of them had their parts in the creation process and he came up with melody and lyrics most of the time. In addition to this, Hagar stated that he wants to finish his part on the ‘I Want Some Action’ and perform it during live shows and asked his fans if he should complete the track.

In the recent IG post, Sammy Hagar and Michael Anthony said:

“Mike: Ed was always coming up with song ideas, whether it was just a guitar riff or a whole piece of music. The three of us would jam on every idea, whether it turned into a song or turned out to be nothing more than just jamming together. If Sammy wasn’t in town, Ed would always send him a copy of what was being played to check out, or if he was at his place in Malibu he would join in and the four of us would just play and see what would happen.

Sometimes one idea would Jam into a completely different idea, with Sam scatting vocals on top. We have loads of tape with ideas like this sitting in boxes at 5150 studios!! ‘I Want Some Action’ is one of those jams that never made it to an album but has a very cool guitar riff and listening to it now we should’ve taken this one all the way!!!

Sammy: This is the way we wrote everything – basically a jam with me scatting lyrics made up on the fly. Then I would hone down a melody and write real lyrics to it. ‘Summer Nights,’ ‘Best of Both Worlds,’ ‘Top of the World,’ ‘Good Enough’ that’s how all of those songs were written. This one has a badass guitar riff for sure! Hearing this makes me want to finish my part on this song (melody and lyrics) and put it into the live show – what do you think?”

You can listen to ‘I Want Some Action’ below.