With the recent passing of Eddie Van Halen, Sammy Hagar regrets the bitterness with which he wrote of his split from the guitarist and Van Halen in his 2011 memoir, Red: My Uncensored Life In Rock. During an appearance on Rock This With Allison Hagendorf, the “Red Rocker” revealed, “I kind of wish I would have been a little more conservative about the Van Halen years — but I was angry when I wrote the book. They threw me out of the band, and they did it ruthlessly.”
He went on to say, “God rest Eddie's soul; I love him to death. But him and his brother are pretty tough guys to deal with, if they go against you. They really made it harder on me at a weird time in my life.”
Hagar explained why his book took on an almost brutal honesty: “I was angry when I wrote that stuff, but I didn't enhance it. Believe me, if anything, I was kind to those gentlemen at that time in our lives. And I'm so glad we came back together. But if I'd waited a little longer, I wouldn't have been so angry and there wouldn't have been so much angst in it.”