Sammy Hagar says he’s grateful he had the opportunity to speak with Eddie Van Halen one last time before the guitarist passed away earlier this year. Hagar says the distance between him and Van Halen was something he regretted, and he’s glad the two of them were able to finally find some closure. “Poor Eddie, broke my heart, but thank God we connected before he died,” Hagar says. “I heard he was in bad shape and I wanted to reach out; I finally said, ‘I’m just calling him.'”

When Hagar finally reached Van Halen, the singer says there was nothing but love between the longtime musical partners. “I said, ‘Why don’t you respond? I’ve been reaching out,'” Hagar recalls, and I said, ‘I love you man,’ and it was like, boom, we were good. It was,” Hagar says, “a beautiful thing.”

Van Halen passed away in October after a long battle with cancer. Hagar confirms a Van Halen group reunion tour had been in the works, prior to the guitarist’s illness. “Eddie and Al [Alex Van Halen} and Irving Azoff, their manager and my dear friend, we were looking at doing the reunion tour with everybody, which is the way it had to be,” Hagar says, corroborating reports that the tour would have included both himself and David Lee Roth, whom Hager famously replaced in 1985. “I’ve been pushing for that for 10 years,” Hager insists, "Let’s go give the fans the biggest band in the world, you know what I mean?” he says. “You don’t get bigger than Van Halen, and the fans deserve to see it all, hear every song, that would have been wonderful.”

Though the reunion tour won’t be happening, Hagar had been touring with The Circle before the coronavirus pandemic brought live shows to a halt. The 73-year-old admits it was nice to slow down for a while, though he’s eager to return to the road when it’s safe to do so. “I’m starting to really miss it now,” he says.