Sammy Hagar claims he’s been ‘blocked’ from Van Halen reunion: “Alex has got a stick up his ass about something with me still”

Former Van Halen frontman Sammy Hagar has opened up about the powers that be standing in the way of a Van Halen reunion.

• READ MORE: Wolfgang Van Halen suggests that Van Halen members are too “dysfunctional” to organise a tribute

Asked about the status of the rumoured Eddie Van Halen tribute concert on a recent appearance on SiriusXM’s Trunk Nation, Hagar said (via Blabbermouth): “As far as I know, [there has been] nothing.”

“I got the call from the management… [who] said, ‘Hey, you wanna do, you and Mike [former VH bassist Michael Anthony] and Al with a superstar guitar player?’ I said, ‘I’ll do anything with Al and Mike and play music with people, but it’s not gonna be Van Halen.’ There is no Van Halen; I don’t care what anyone says.”

“Wolfie is Van Halen, okay? And he doesn’t wanna be the Van Halen copy band,” Hagar continued. “I don’t blame him; he’s doing a great job on his own stuff, and it’s very cool when he jams a little bit here and there. He’s Van Halen, and if he wanted to play guitar with Al and Mikey and myself, I would love to do that.”

Despite his willingness, the musician was quick to note that even if the reunion did materialise, it would only be a one-off event: “To play with Al and Mike and a great guitar player for some event — almost like the event that Dave Grohl put on for Taylor [Hawkins], something like that would be fantastic. But other than that, no,” he said.

Interviewer Eddie Trunk then brought up Wolfgang Van Halen’s recent comments, mentioning how recently it’s David Lee Roth who’s been making things difficult, to which Hagar replied, “It ain’t just one guy. Alex Van Halen and I don’t talk. I reached out to Alex. I’m gonna tell you right now — I reached out to Alex again recently.”

“I reached out to Al, and he wouldn’t return my call or my email. And so I said, ‘You know what? Fuck it.’ It’s not on the top of my list, my agenda. I think Eddie deserves, definitely, a tribute… And the whole world would show up and the whole world would do it.”

Hagar also admits that he doesn’t get why fans “put it on Roth”, saying “I don’t talk to Dave. And if he did it, he’d wanna do it without me. I’m sure that’s part of the dysfunction that Wolfie’s talking about.”

“I’ll make a statement that I don’t know is true or not, but what do you wanna bet that he goes, ‘I will only do it if Hagar’s not there.’ And if that were the case, that’s typical Roth, and that’s part of the dysfunction. It’s not like he controls it; it’s just [that] he doesn’t play well with others.”

“And like I said, if Alex came to me and wanted to do it, I’m in. Absolutely — let’s go [and] do it somehow. But Alex has got a stick up his ass about something with me still, and he’s gonna take it to his grave, I guess. [I made peace with Eddie before he died but] I don’t think I made peace with Al. And I don’t think I’m going to unless he reaches back out to me. I’ve done it about five times now.”