![]() But 51 minutes later: “You’ve Got Mail!” That response kicks off a five–plus-year correspondence that would change my life. So, I fire off the Michael Anthony email at close to 5 o’clock on Sunday, May 31, 2015, and figure that’ll be the beginning and end of it. On a lark, I’d reached out to who Nexis told me was Gene Simmons, Eddie Vedder, Stevie Nicks, and pretty much every member of the original Guns N’ Roses. ![]() After using it to look up a couple of exes, I’d turned to rock stars. Not long ago, I discovered that an old login I had to LexisNexis - a directory lawyers and journalists use that shows, among other things, a person’s criminal record, residences, phone numbers, and, yes, email addresses - had never been deactivated. ![]() Sending emails like this has become something of a pastime, an exercise in nostalgia when the drudgery of my workday becomes too much to handle. Today, as a market researcher for a health-insurance company, I stare at data tables till my eyes water and monitor my employer’s social media mentions, featuring angry posts about how only “fraudelent fucks” and “#scumbags” would work there. But now it’s 2015, and I’m more than a decade removed from my dream job. Back then, I got to interview everyone from Ozzy Osbourne to Diddy. In a former life, I’d been a music journalist, including some time as an editor for Rolling Stone’s website. “Every band member loved tequila,” Hagar says, adding, “ Everyone on the planet loves tequila - it’s just fun.This isn’t just a fan talking. Hagar, whose Cabo Wabo tequila brand in the ’80s inspired a Van Halen song of the same name, says he quickly converted his former bandmates into “tequila guys” too. The cask-aged 100% agave tequila joins Santo’s Blanco tequila and the brand’s popular tequila-mezcal blend, the aptly-named Santo Mezquila, as part of the brand’s offerings. The longtime friends held a socially distant launch event at the upscale Lone Mountain Ranch in Montana in mid-December to unveil their new Santo Reposado. Still, the time off has given Hagar the chance to focus on some of his other projects, including Santo, the premium tequila line he co-founded with celebrity chef Guy Fieri. “I’m starting to really miss it now,” he says. The 73-year-old admits it was nice to slow down for a while, though he’s eager to return to the road when it’s safe to do so. Though the reunion tour won’t be happening, Hagar had been touring with The Circle before the coronavirus pandemic brought live shows to a halt. But yeah, that would have been wonderful.” “Every time we do a reunion, whichever one it was, it was a bitch. You know, there’s always a bitch,” Hagar jests. “You know, you go see just me, I’ll sing some of the Dave songs, but I wouldn’t ever sing enough,” he says, “and then he can’t sing my songs, so they never heard, you know, the Van Halen hits, the No. While Hagar has found success as a solo singer and with his band, The Circle, he said it was always the Van Halen catalog that fans wanted to hear. “You don’t get bigger than Van Halen, and the fans deserve to see it all, hear every song.” Let’s go give the fans the biggest band in the world, you know what I mean?” he says. “I’ve been pushing for that for 10 years,” Hager insists, adding that he was ready to “put aside. “Eddie and Al my dear friend, we were looking at doing the reunion tour with everybody, which is the way it had to be,” Hagar says, corroborating reports that the tour would have included both himself and David Lee Roth, whom Hager famously replaced in 1985. Hagar confirms a Van Halen group reunion tour had been in the works, prior to the guitarist’s illness. Van Halen passed away in October after a long battle with cancer. “I, ‘I want to be his friend, I want to bury the hatchet,’ but they never got it done.” Tell him if he ever wants to talk to me, I really, really want to talk it out, help him and see what I can do,'” Hagar says. “I was calling his brother, I was calling his manager, I was calling his friends, and I’d say, ‘Hey, tell Ed, give him my phone number. ![]() “I heard he was in bad shape and I wanted to reach out I finally said, ‘I’m just calling him.'”īut according to Hagar, trying to get ahold of his former bandmate proved to be difficult, as he no longer had Van Halen’s number. “Poor Eddie, broke my heart, but thank God we connected before ,” Hagar says. Speaking to Variety from Big Sky, Montana, where he was launching Santo Reposado, the latest expression in his Santo Tequila line, Hagar says the distance between him and Van Halen was something he regretted, and he’s glad the two of them were able to finally find some closure. Sammy Hagar says he’s grateful he had the opportunity to speak with Eddie Van Halen one last time before the guitarist passed away earlier this year.
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