David Lee Roth and Sammy Hagar weren't always enemies. Sure, Hagar took over vocals from Roth after the latter was kicked out of Van Halen. But that wasn't Hagar's doing. Eddie and Alex Van Halen made that decision.
Roth and Hagar even toured together in 2002. Maybe it was a bit of a novelty act. A "come out and see the former VH singers" kind of thing. Each has a rather different fanbase, but there was a lot of crossover, too.
But Hagar cannot like Roth's latest comments. They stem from Sammy Hagar making a claim that he had a dream, and in said dream, Eddie Van Halen appeared to him and showed the singer a new song. Hagar then took his timing, turning the tune into a release, but that happened this year.
One former Van Halen frontman has a snide remark about a different former Van Halen frontman
The track is called "Encore, Thank You, Goodnight," and it is, as most Hagar solo material is, just meh. But David Lee Roth thinks there is more to the tune than the ghost of Eddie showing up and giving Hagar a song. Instead, Roth believes Hagar ripped off Iron Butterfly's "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida."
Roth made his proclamation during a recent concert in Hampton Beach, New Hampshire.
"(Hagar) described to the media about six weeks ago that the ghost of Eddie Van Halen visited him and graced him with a song that he memorized and then went home and recorded...I don't know what the odds are, but last night the ghost of Eddie Van Halen visited me at the (expletive) hotel room...I said, 'What did you do now?' He said, 'Dave, you know that song I gave Hagar?' I said, 'What now?' He said, 'It's actually 'In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida' backwards. Don't (expletive) tell him!"David Lee Roth
Roth wasn't done with a bit of smack talk directed at Hagar. He added, "One of my esteemed colleagues, he's a contemporary, he's got a great voice, he's got a great catalog. You all know Sammy Hagar, right? He's got a great voice."
The "great" part is important. Van Halen replaced David Lee Roth because the band wanted a signer who could do ballads better than Roth could. The issue was that, in many fans' view, the band was much more interesting with the charismatic Roth as the frontman instead of the relatively boring Hagar.
Of course, Roth was also probably being sarcastic about Hagar's stealing Iron Butterfly's idea. Plus, if Iron Butterfly had done the ridiculously titled "Encore, Thank You, Goodnight," they would have likely made the track better.