WHAT THEY SAID
Sammy Hagar used the 40th anniversary of Van Halen’s *5150* to publicly blast Alex Van Halen for his silence and declared he will never play with him again *. He compared their relationship to the bitter Roger Waters–David Gilmour feud in Pink Floyd *.
THE DETAILS
- Alex Van Halen excluded Hagar from his recent memoir *Brothers* and is now moving forward with a new Van Halen archival project featuring Steve Lukather — deliberately leaving out both Hagar and Michael Anthony *.
- The dispute centers on who gets to carry forward the Van Halen legacy after Eddie’s death *.
- Hagar’s comments arrived on the 40th anniversary of *5150*, the first Van Halen album he fronted and one of the band’s biggest commercial successes *.
WHO IS RIGHT
Hagar is right to call this out. Alex is erasing half the band’s history by excluding the Hagar era from the memoir and the archival project — *5150* and the records that followed sold millions and kept Van Halen alive through the ’90s.
WHAT HAPPENS NEXT
The archival project will move forward without Hagar or Anthony, cementing the split permanently *.