Sammy Hagar Opens Up About The Death Of Eddie Van Halen

Sammy Hagar continues to express the complex emotions surrounding his time in Van Halen and the loss of guitar legend Eddie Van Halen, recently sharing intimate details of their final reconciliation and expressing the creative impact Eddie had on him. Coinciding with these reflections, Hagar releases a brand-new single today, April 25th, 2025, titled “Encore, Thank You, Goodnight,” which he attributes to a collaboration initiated by Eddie in his dream.

In a new interview with the Los Angeles Times, Hagar opened up about the depth of his grief over Eddie, who passed away in October 2020 after battling cancer. He credited comedian George Lopez for helping facilitate a crucial reconnection between the two former bandmates before Eddie‘s death. “I miss the guy so much,” Hagar shared. “Thank God we connected towards the end, otherwise I’d be heartbroken. I am anyway. But it was so important to me that we did connect in that last year.”

Hagar shed light on the nature of their final conversations, revealing Eddie‘s request for secrecy to avoid fueling reunion speculation, even asking him not to tell Eddie‘s brother, drummer Alex Van Halen. “Eddie said to me, ‘Don’t tell anyone about us talking because I don’t want to be answering questions about rumors of a reunion.’ But he said, ‘Next year, we’re gonna get together — we’re gonna make some noise. Let me beat this sh*t, and let’s do it.’ He goes, ‘Please don’t talk to anyone — not even Al.’… Eddie said, ‘Don’t even talk to Al about this.’ I said, ‘Ed, I don’t talk to Al.'”

The loss of Eddie, and the hope for future collaboration, still weighs heavily on Hagar. “Things aren’t the same without that hope,” he told the LA Times, reflecting on the creative peak he experienced during his tenure with Van Halen, which produced four consecutive No. 1 albums. “He brought something out of me that just ain’t the same without him. At my age, you sit there and wonder: If Eddie was alive, could I reach that again? Now that dream is gone.”

However, that connection seems to have manifested posthumously, according to Hagar. He revealed the extraordinary origin of his new single, “Encore, Thank You, Goodnight,” which will be released today via Big Machine Rock. “I had a dream and Eddie came to the dream and showed me a song,” Hagar explained. Expanding on the dream encounter to Ultimate Classic Rock, he said, “About two months ago, I had this dream and Eddie came. He’s going, ‘Man, let’s write some music!’ I said, ‘Yeah, f**k it, man. Here, let’s go!’ … [Eddie] did this harmonic thing and he slid it up to a chord, like a slide guitar. We wrote a song with that lick. I remembered it. I got up in the morning and I wrote the song. I used the lick that he showed me in the song.”

Hagar views the track, co-written with guitar virtuoso Joe Satriani, as a tribute. “This song is my final bow to that part of my life,” he stated. “It’s not meant to be anything more than a ‘thank you’ — with love, with respect, and with one hell of a guitar solo.” He praised his collaborators, including bassist Michael Anthony and drummer Kenny Aronoff, adding that Satriani “brought in that big, emotional, guitar-driven energy that feels like Eddie‘s spirit but is entirely of Joe‘s creation.”

“Encore, Thank You, Goodnight” will be available on streaming platforms today, accompanied by a lyric video. An official music video directed by ZZ Satriani will premiere during Hagar‘s Stagecoach festival performance on April 27th, with the song’s live debut scheduled for the opening night of his Las Vegas residency on April 30th.