Sammy Hagar says Eddie Van Halen's health was only thing preventing reunion

Sammy Hagar was aware of Wolfgang and Eddie Van Halen's 'Kitchen Sink' tour idea long before the younger Van Halen revealed the plan last week.

Wolfie explained last week to Howard Stern that after Van Halen's last tour in 2015, he began trying to convince his father to put together a tour to celebrate every era of Van Halen.

The 'Kitchen Sink' tour, as they affectionately called it, would feature longtime bassist Michael Anthony back in the band and a collective of frontmen including Hagar, David Lee Roth and possibly even Van Halen III singer Gary Cherone. Wolfie suggested that his solo band Mammoth WVH would serve as opening act, and perhaps he would even join the headliner for a few songs from 2012's A Different Kind of Truth.

"It was totally on my radar," Hagar told Eddie Trunk. "No one had confirmed any of it, but it was obviously what was going to happen."

Only the reunion with Anthony had been advanced beyond Van Halen's camp before Eddie's health took a downturn in early-2019. After the 2019 touring plans were nixed, Anthony admitted that he had been in touch with Van Halen's management about a reunion. He and Hagar carefully scheduled their '19 summer tour with The Circle to accommodate the reunion.

Hagar had publicly lobbied for a Van Halen reunion featuring both himself and Roth for years. He says his 2002 tour with Roth — though clouded with backstage politics — proved that it could be done.

"...[T]hat was the idea of [that tour], to try to get the [Van Halen] brothers' attention to do the reunion way back then," Hagar continued, adding that he was keen on doing it to "give the fans what they want," regardless of his icy relationship with Roth.

Wolfgang didn't get into specifics about how the two or three-frontmen tour would work, except to say that his late-father had been excited about it before it fell through. Hagar says he imagined trading the mic back and forth with Roth every two songs or so. He was optimistic that the rivalry between the two golden-era VH singers would have brought the best out of them onstage.

This article was first published on iheart.com and is republished here with permission