Van Halen drummer Alex Van Halen has a new book, “Brothers,” coming out on Tuesday that covers the band’s inception through their initial split with frontman David Lee Roth in 1984. To say that Alex seems a little contentious about the Sammy Hagar-fronted era of the band is an accurate assessment with the only mention of the highly successful run in his book reading: “We had a lot of other singers over the years.”
In a new interview with Billboard, Alex was asked what he thought of Hagar’s “Best Of All Worlds Tour” which was billed earlier this year as a celebration of all things Van Halen. Hagar even performed hits from the DLR era in the show. Prior to the run, Hagar said he had asked Alex numerous times to take part in the tour in some fashion, but he got no response.
Alex told Billboard: “I’m not interested. They’re not doing the band justice. They can do what they want to do. That’s not my business.”
He further elaborated: “What happened after Dave left is not the same band. I’m not saying it was better or worse or any of that. The fact is Ed and I did our best work whenever we played. We always gave it our best shot. But the magic was in the first years, when we didn’t know what we were doing, when we were willing to try anything.”
In an earlier interview with Rolling Stone, Alex said: “The heart and the soul and the creativity and the magic was Dave, Ed, Mike and me.”
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