Van Halen former lead singer, Sammy Hagar recalled the last words he heard from the co-founder, late guitarist of the band, Eddie Van Halen before his death in an interview with New & Approved on 95.5 Kloss Youtube channel.
As you remember, Van Halen’s last tour was The Van Halen 2015 Tour to promote the band’s live album, ‘Tokyo Dome Live in Concert’ which was released in 2015. During the tour, Eddie Van Halen talked to Rolling Stone and said that they wanted to record another live album of this tour, but unfortunately, they couldn’t record it.
Later, during an interview, David Lee Roth stated ‘I think Van Halen is finished.’ However, Sammy Hagar answered Roth’s claim by saying that Van Halen couldn’t end until Alex or Eddie Van Halen’s death and was very hopeful about the reunion. In the meantime, Eddie Van Halen had been suffering from cancer which started in his tongue.
After recovering from tongue cancer, he was diagnosed with throat cancer in 2014. Later, on October 6, 2020, he died of a stroke at a health center in California. His son announced his father’s death from his social media account and some weeks later, he announced that Van Halen had disbanded.
During his recent interview, Hagar said that he was very happy about getting the chance to talk to Eddie one last time and recalled the time when he called him. He wasn’t sure about it at first because he thought that Eddie could be angry with him and say ‘F*ck you.’ But, after he was told that Eddie Van Halen still loved him and he decided to call him.
Eddie asked him where he had been for so long and why he didn’t call him. They laughed and talked a lot, and their close friendship lasted for almost five months. Later when Eddie stopped responding to him, Sammy texted him to complain about not getting any love from him. That’s when Eddie told him he was in the hospital and that was the last call between the two before Eddie’s death.
Here’s what he said:
“I didn’t wanna bug Eddie and have him tell me, ‘f’ck you, you asshole.’ So I wanted to talk to someone else first to see how he was doing and if it would be cool for him to call me. That’s what I was fishing around.
Nobody is calling me back, nobody responded to my emails, nobody responded to my texts… George Lopez calls me, he is a dear friend too, and he goes, Sammy, you gotta call Eddie. I just talked to him, he loves you, man. And I said, wow, ok.
I called him, and Eddie goes, What took you so long? I said I called Al -Alex Van Halen, drums-, I called, blah-blah-blah… And he goes, well, you didn’t call me. And I said, well, I’m calling you now.”
He continued:
“We just burst down laughing and talking. We just had a really nice relationship for four, five months, and all of a sudden he wasn’t returning texts and calls.
I didn’t get any response for a month. And it was heartbreaking because I knew that Eddie had cancer. And one time I said, hey, what the fuck? You ain’t giving me any love.
And he goes, man, I’ve been in a hospital… and that was the last I heard of him…”
You can watch the episode below.
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