Everybody loved Van Halen. The same can't be said for "Van Hagar." The band still bore the name of its superstar guitarist, but the moniker was invented by fans who felt betrayed by the direction Eddie Van Halen and company went in when Sammy Hagar became their lead singer.
Hagar was an established solo star, and David Lee Roth, the band's former frontman, left at the height of their popularity. It was a tricky transition, and one guaranteed to rub some fans the wrong way. The thing is, Van Halen with Sammy Hagar was a success. The band continued to dominate the radio and the charts between 1985 and 1996. Then, Hagar quit. Why?
Sammy Hagar left Van Halen in 1996
Hagar and Eddie Van Halen actually started out as friends. The two men clicked on a level much deeper than David Lee Roth and the guitarist ever did, and they even wrote songs together. As the new millennium approached, though, Hagar and Eddie Van Halen grew apart.
Hagar left the band on his own volition, but his treatment at the hand of the other band members made him feel like he was "fired." There were several reasons the singer gave for leaving. He claimed Eddie Van Halen's substance abuse made him difficult to work with, and the guitarist's tendency to control the band's musical direction gave him little room to experiment.
Another reason was management. Sammy Hagar went on Howard Stern in 2023 and revealed that a change in manager ramped up the tension between him and the Van Halen brothers. "Our manager died. Another manager came in," he recalled. "He started poisoning Ed now, saying, 'Sammy thinks it's his band.’ Mike will tell you. I was innocent. They all turned on me because I didn’t like this manager."
Hagar and Eddie Van Halen eventually reconciled
Hagar briefly reunited with Van Halen for the Best of Both Worlds in 2004, but the tour did little to squash the issues between him and his former friend. It wasn't until Eddie Van Halen was diagnosed with cancer that the two men buried the hatchet.
Hagar called Eddie Van Halen at the urging of, all people, comedian George Lopez. He's glad he did. “I knew he was always battling with this tongue cancer and all that stuff, but I thought it was cool, and that’s why I called him," he told Stern. "That’s when we made friends again — it was beautiful."
Eddie Van Halen died in 2020. The band died with him. Van Hagar fans can rest assured, however, that the singer and guitarist ultimately ended on good terms.