David Lee Roth has suggested that he's willing to take part in Sammy Hagar's The Best Of All Worlds arena tour next summer, to honour the music of Van Halen, and celebrate Eddie Van Halen's legacy.
Hagar announced the tour - on which he'll be joined by former Van Halen bassist Michael Anthony, guitarist Joe Satriani and drummer Jason Bonham - last week, and during an appearance on Howard Stern's show to promote the trek, he threw out an open invitation to his predecessor in the Californian hard rock legends to tag along, saying, "If Dave [Lee Roth] goes out, he can't sing my stuff. [But] we can do a few of the early Van Halen songs. I have no problem with that; I did it when I was in Van Halen. This is really a celebration of all that, and we are the only ones who can do it."
"If Alex Van Halen wants to jump up, if David Lee Roth wants to come out and join us, come on, motherfucker. You are welcome. This is about Van Halen."
That there's no love lost between Hagar and Roth is no secret, but it appears that Roth is willing to accept the invitation, for in an exclusive statement provided to the Van Halen News Desk website, he responded, "I'm ready to go. Let's do this."
On Howard Stern's show, the host asked Hagar about the breakdown in his friendship with Eddie Van Halen, telling the Red Rocker, "You would think it was a romance made in heaven."
"No it was Howard," Hagar replied, "it 100 per cent was, for nine years: the 10th year in Van Halen it just went sideways. Our manager died, another manager came in, he started poisoning Ed and Al, saying, 'Hey Sammy thinks it's his band...' Mike'll tell you, I was innocent, they just all turned on me because I didn't like this manager... I wanted a different manager and of course this guy lasted five minutes and he was gone, so I was right in the end. But being right wasn't a good thing in this case."
As Hagar tells it, problems between himself and Van Halen reached a head during the band's 2004 reunion tour, when Hagar felt that the guitarist's problems with alcohol were affecting his on-stage performances.
"It didn't bother me... until people can't do their job, then that's when I step in and say, Hey this is fucked up man, you know you played like shit and it's embarrassing to me to have to try to sing you're so out of tune... That's when we bumped heads, that's when it really got bad."
"But you know Ed was sick," Hagar adds. "I didn't realise... no-one realised how sick he really was obviously, until it was over. It's really a shame. If there's anything I regret it's ever going through any hardships with Eddie, because knowing he was sick like that I would have been so much more compassionate."
Watch Hagar, Michael Anthony, Joe Satriani and Jason Bonham play Van Halen classics Best Of Both Worlds, Right Now and Summer Nights on Howard Stern's show below:
