Sammy Hagar is speaking his mind about former Van Halen frontman David Lee Roth.
On a recent episode of “Steve-O’s Wild Ride Podcast,” Hagar, the band’s vocalist who replaced David Lee Roth, claimed Roth “ain’t like his persona.”
“He’s not a fun guy. He doesn’t play well with others. I’m not sure what his problem is,” Hagar said.
“He just always is about, ‘How can I make this guy look bad?’ And not just me. … He’s a chest-beating motherf—–. And God Bless him, ’cause the early stuff is frickin’ great.”
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Hagar continued to slam the original Van Halen lead vocalist and addressed the current state of his vocals.
“[He] doesn’t care about singing. If he did, he’d take care of his voice, or he’d take voice lessons and get warmed up and do something. The guy sang so bad last time he was doing shows, it was embarrassing,” Hagar said.
The musician continued to claim Roth’s solo career was not as lucrative as Hagar’s.
“I was selling out arenas. I was selling out amphitheaters,” Hagar said. “Dave, he had that sort of a big album, one kind of a big album, but he didn’t have a solo career. He was playing small places.
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“So, when he came in with me, he was making, like, $25,000 a night, I was making $150,000 a night, and they said, ‘Oh you guys are gonna make the same money. Dave gets to make 150.'”
Hagar recounted his initial reaction to Steve-O and said, “‘He ain’t f—ing made 150 in his life except in Van Halen!’ But I said, ‘I’ve gotta do this.’ So I bent over backwards. And he still always tried to f— with the rules.”
Hagar and Roth have not seen eye to eye for decades. In 2021, Hagar said in an interview that he has “no problem with Dave,” according to Loudwire. Their initial feud began in 1984 when Roth left the band and Hagar took his spot.
In 1985, Eddie Van Halen told Rolling Stone, “The band as you know it is over. Dave left to be a movie star. He even had the balls to ask if I’d write the score for him.”
In 1995, the Los Angeles Times reported that Eddie Van Halen drove to Roth’s house in an attempt to get him to rejoin the band. According to the outlet, Hagar took this as “worse than sleeping with the enemy.” Hagar quit the band that same year.
The band’s co-founder, Eddie Van Halen, died in October 2020 after a long battle with cancer. He was 65.
He was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2007.
