“We finished my solo record. Alex heard it, and he goes, ‘Hey, why didn't we put that on a Van Halen record!’” Sammy Hagar reveals the Eddie Van Halen-produced track that could have been on a Van Halen album

Van Halen on 3/15/86 in Chicago, Il.

While Eddie Van Halen was Van Halen's linchpin and chief songwriter, the Sammy Hagar era saw the Red Rocker prove himself as a songwriter in his own right.

Coming into the band, Hagar had something of an upper hand: the Van Halen brothers were already fans of the material he had recorded with Montrose in the mid-’70s, while his solo career was already on the rise.