Alex Van Halen Explains Why 'Brothers' Did Not Include Hagar Era

12-23-2024

Alex Van Halen appeared on the YouTube series Bringing It Back To The Beatles and shared the reason why his recently released memoir "Brothers", concluded in 1984 with the departure of David Lee Roth, and did not continue with Sammy Hagar's era with the band.

The drummer explained, "Because the original band was the band that was the driving force. That was the connection between the disparate parts of the musical world, if you will. And we were young. The first record going platinum, it's incredible. That's something you can really never expect to happen again.

Later on, it was different, that's for another book, but the excitement and the confusion and the groping in the dark, if you will, and all the mistakes that we made, and all the B.S. we had to endure, and then to recognize at the very end, maybe we had one more record in us, it was very... You can't take it back, but those are the things that are in the back of your head.

"The old expression of, if you don't go over the edge, then you can't come back. You have to go too far to come back in. Does that make sense? Unfortunately, we're human and we made some bad choices.

"The US Festival, for instance, was just a clusterf***. Nobody knew what the hell was going on. All we said was, 'You make sure you have enough power, and we'll play.' That's it."

He continued, After that, that's why the book ends in 1984, because that was true rock and roll. After that, it became much more, I don't know, I can't explain it. But it's not to say that it was not any good. We always did our best at whatever we were doing, but it wasn't the same."