“He wanted to crucify me.” Sammy Hagar says Eddie Van Halen “micromanaged everything” on ‘Balance’

Sammy Hagar says Eddie Van Halen exerted an exacting level of control over both his vocals and Michael Anthony’s bass parts during the recording of Balance (1995), creating an atmosphere so fraught that Hagar and producer Bruce Fairbairn decamped to Bryan Adams’ studio to complete key sessions.

The album would mark Hagar’s final full-length with the band, as tensions between the singer and both Eddie and Alex Van Halen escalated. For Anthony — who had appeared on every Van Halen release to that point — it was also the last record to feature his playing throughout; his role would be significantly reduced on 1998’s Van Halen III, and he was ultimately replaced by Eddie’s son, Wolfgang Van Halen, for A Different Kind of Truth, released in 2012.

In the years since, Hagar and Anthony have remained aligned, forming the Best of All Worlds band with Joe Satriani to celebrate Eddie’s legacy — even as the making of Balance stands as one of the most strained chapters in the band’s history.

Sammy Hagar and Michael Anthony talk about Van Halen's "Balance" - YouTube

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“To go into the studio and not want to be there was tough,” Hagar said in a video posted to his YouTube channel to mark the album’s 30th anniversary. “Bruce Fairbairn felt the tension between Ed and me, and Mike and Ed.”

According to Hagar, the band’s painstaking schedule — reportedly eight-hour days over three months — only deepened the fractures, with Eddie scrutinizing performances to an extreme degree.

“Mike would put a bass part down, and Ed would go in there and listen to it, kind of under a microscope,” he said. “[It was] ‘Wait, go back, let me hear that again,’ and Bruce would go, ‘There’s nothing wrong with that.’ He wanted to crucify me.”

Hagar adds that his own vocals were subject to similar oversight.

“Ed was disruptive when I was trying to do the vocals,” he continued. “He’d come in before I was done and start making comments. I’d be waiting to sing, and he’d be talking to Bruce, telling him, ‘I want Sam to do this. I want Sam to do that,’ and Bruce would be arguing with him, like, ‘Ed, get out of here.’

“It really pissed me off—I’m sitting in there waiting for Ed to stop complaining about something I hadn’t even heard yet.”

Compounding matters, the band had pivoted away from its trademark live immediacy toward a more controlled, precision-driven production — an approach Hagar concedes “didn’t have the Van Halen sound like the early stuff.” The demand for tighter, more exact takes only intensified the pressure, and even Fairbairn’s patience began to wear thin.

“Bruce said, ‘Fuck this. We’re going to Canada,’” Hagar recalled. “We went up to Bryan Adams’ house, where he had a vocal booth and a bunch of great microphones. It was fucking badass.”

Van Halen - Don’t Tell Me (What Love Can Do) (Official Video) [HD] - YouTube

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Working beyond Eddie’s immediate oversight, Hagar completed vocals for “Can’t Stop Lovin’ You,” “Don’t Tell Me (What Love Can Do),” and “Take Me Back (Deja Vu)” with greater freedom. The results, he suggests, ultimately spoke for themselves.

“I remember Ed hearing ‘Don’t Tell Me (What Love Can Do),’” Hagar said. “He hadn’t heard me when I was going to sing that song yet. He and Al had come up to the studio. I’m sitting there with Bruce, and we played the track.

“I was fucking pouring my heart. I remember Ed looking at Al, thinking, ‘Yeah, this is pretty good—we can’t poke holes in this.’”

Years later, Hagar’s strained relationship with Alex Van Halen shows little sign of easing. The singer has likened the drummer to Roger Waters in a recent broadside, while Anthony has floated the idea of an instrumental final Van Halen release.

In related news, Van Halen’s former wife Valerie Bertinelli has opened up about her marriage to Eddie, saying, “I don’t remember too much between the drugs and the alcohol.”