"He had used that guitar neck up. He did everything and anything that neck could do.” Sammy Hagar claims he made Eddie Van Halen a better musician and says the guitarist "dried up" in the 2000s

Eddie Van Halen didn’t make new music in the 2000s because he was “dried up.” So says former Van Halen singer Sammy Hagar.

Furthermore, Hagar says his vocal talents made the late virtuoso a better musician, opening the door for Ed to experiment in new styles that were beyond the abilities of Hagar's predecessor, David Lee Roth.

Hagar's revelations come from a new interview with Rolling Stone, in which the singer says he hopes to clear up misunderstandings about his creative relationship with Eddie.

The Red Rocker replaced Roth in 1985 when the flamboyant frontman sought success in his own right and went on to hire a raft of stellar guitarists for his cause. More than a singer, Roth was Eddie's co-writer.

But Hagar could write too, and sing his ass off — with greater range and accuracy than Roth. And it was those qualities, he says, that elevated Eddie’s musicianship.

“I always say that to the hardcore Eddie heads: Eddie’s musicianship blossomed when I joined the band.

"People don’t realize that Eddie expanded as a musician because he got a singer that could say, ‘I can sing that.’ And we went on a fucking musical adventure.”

For support, Hagar points to the band's increased use of keyboards from 1984 onward.

“When I joined the band, everyone said, ‘Oh man, they started playing keyboards, and Hagar wants to write all these love songs,’” he says. “I didn’t bring the music to Eddie. Eddie brought the music to me.

“He had used that guitar neck up. He did everything and anything that neck could do, and changed his amps, and got his sounds. And over the years, he kept changing his sound to try and re-inspire some new guitar things.

"That’s why he wrote ‘Can’t Stop Loving You.' It’s a classical piece of music, and so is ‘5150.’ I had to find a place to sing. But he sat down at a keyboard. It felt fresh.”

To that end, Hagar feels the band’s creative output suffered when he left the group in 1996 after 11 years. Roth briefly returned to record two songs for Best Of — Volume 1. but it was Extreme's Gary Cherone who fronted the band for 1998's Van Halen III.

Van Halen - Can't Stop Lovin' You (Official Music Video) [HD] - YouTube

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Hagar returned for a reunion in 2003, during which time he was co-credited for three new songs on the 2004 Best of Both Worlds compilation album. But he was gone by 2005. The band wouldn't write another album until 2012's A Different Kind of Truth, five years after Roth rejoined Van Halen for a third time.

Hagar believes that album took so long because he wasn't there to inspire Ed.

“So, that’s why he stopped writing, I think,” Hagar offers, “because he just ran out. Shit, how much do you need? How much can you squeeze out of the dude? He gave his blood, brother.”

Eddie Van Halen died in 2020, but left behind a vast archive of unfinished demos from which his brother Alex hopes to create new songs. The drummer released the final song the pair worked on together last year.

Meanwhile, Hagar has just released a song he wrote with Eddie Van Halen in a dream. Titled, “Encore, Thank You, Goodnight,” it features EVH-style lead guitar playing from Joe Satriani.

“This was one hundred percent a communication from the beyond,” Hagar says. “There is no question about it. I dream about Eddie all the time, quite honestly.

“He had a guitar around his neck. And we were having a love fest since we hadn’t seen each other in a long time. And he just started playing this riff, and I started singing.”