Singer and guitarist talk about “demons” that derailed Van Halen’s reunion tour

Sammy Hagar is not afraid to reveal everything.

The singer and guitarist didn’t hold back when he spoke about his problems with Eddie Van Halen during Van Halen’s lucrative 2004 reunion tour.

In a 2016 interview posted on YouTube by AXS TV, Hagar called the 80-show tour “the worst experience of my life.”

The tour, which lasted from June 11 to November 19, 2004, received some not so great reviews from fans. Hagar later admitted that he tried to quit in the middle of the tour because he felt so ashamed of Van Halen’s struggle with addiction.

“Eddie was completely out of his mind from alcohol and drugs,” Hagar recalled in the interview. “And the poor guy, I mean, he was really in a bad state, I thought he was going to die.”

There were even nights when Van Halen played so badly that Hagar couldn’t tell what song the guitarist was playing. And Hagar admitted that she wanted to quit after 40 shows.

“I said, I can’t do this anymore,” he recalled. “First of all, the guy is going to die.”

“It was horrible. He did horrible things to people. He treated people so badly. He was a complete lunatic. I’ve never met anyone like that in my life… trying to smash the windows of a G5 plane with a wine bottle at 4,000 feet… it’s not even our plane, it’s a rental plane!”

According to Hagar, he only stayed because he was told that, due to the contract he had signed, if he left the tour, he would have to compensate the other band members for all the lost earnings they would incur if the tour was canceled.

In the end, the relationship between Van Halen and Hagar hung by a thread. But the two managed to mend it before the guitarist’s death in 2020.

“But Eddie is a nice person,” Hagar continued during the interview. “He’s talented and a nice, wonderful guy. He’s got some demons, you know… he’s not the only person I know who has that, but when I saw those demons take over him, it was pathetic.”