Sammy Hagar embarked on a "Best Of All Worlds" tour over the summer where he honored his time with Van Halen, but in a new interview Alex Van Halen slammed his former bandmate for "not doing the band justice."
When asked by Billboard why he didn't join Hagar and Van Halen bassist Michael Anthony on Billboard, the band's former drummer didn't mince words. "I'm not interested," Alex said bluntly. "They're not doing the band justice. They can do what they want to do. That's not my business."
Alex was speaking to Billboard ahead of his upcoming memoir Brothers, which largely focuses on David Lee Roth's first stint with the band. "What happened after Dave left is not the same band," he explained. "I'm not saying it was better or worse of any of that. ...But the magic was in the first years, when we didn't know what we were doing, when we were willing to try anything."
The book is also about Alex's relationship with his late brother Eddie Van Halen. In a recent interview, he divulged that Van Halen was "getting ready to make another record" after playing their final show in 2015, and that his brother kept fighting until his death in October 2020. "I really wanted to emphasize the fact that Ed was brave up until the last minute," he explained about the book. "At the end of the day, he's got nothing to be ashamed of. And I wish that he was here and that I could say, 'Ed, let's try it one more time.' Because I know he had it in him."
Although the album didn't get made, Alex and Eddie were able to record a final song together, titled "Unfinished." The instrumental track soundtracks the audibook version of Brothers. The memoir is slated to hit shelves on October 22.