Former Van Halen frontman, Sammy Hagar was the recent interview guest of Clay Marshall of OC Weekly and revealed his real thoughts on people who claim that Van Halen is a better band without him, while David Lee Roth is fronting it.
Here is what Sammy stated about that:
“I have no problem with people saying that early Van Halen stuff was more rock. It was raw rock. They were young kids, for god’s sake. First band, first albums. I compare Montrose to that. They were like Montrose. When I joined, I was 45 years old. I’m a grown man. I’ve got kids. I’ve got a wife. I’m wealthy already — I’ve had success.
We’re not going to be that first album again. But that early Van Halen stuff was fuckin’ killer. It’s just that when I joined the band, Eddie was kind of done writing that way. He had run out of his licks, and I’m not putting him down in any way. He’s still a genius, but you only have so many songs in you. Look at The Beatles; look at The Rolling Stones. You’ve got to repeat yourself if you stay together and keep going, and Eddie was about to repeat himself.”
Sammy continued:
“When I came in there, he was pulling out stuff saying, ‘Well, what do you think about this?’ He was trying to write new music, and most of the time, he was sitting down at the piano. I’m going, ‘Fuck, I didn’t know you could play piano like that.’ I immediately start singing, and he’s going, ‘Wow.’ It allowed him as a musician to grow. Just playing guitar in the early stuff and those real simple things in Dave’s range of singing, you run out. “
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