In one of the wildest claims of 2025 so far, Sammy Hagar says his new single was co-written with Eddie Van Halen over a year after he died, saying the guitarist had contacted him “from beyond,” while also revealing secret talks held before his death.
Speaking to Rolling Stone about the dream that inspired his new song, “Encore, Thank You, Goodnight”—which features some tastefully EVH-channeling lead playing from Joe Satriani—Hagar says Eddie had come to help him write it in a dream.
“This was one hundred percent a communication from the beyond,” he ascertains. “There is no question about it. I dream about Eddie all the time, quite honestly.
“He had a guitar around his neck,” Hagar says. “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”—before realizing the man he was jamming with was dead. Then he woke up.
“I grabbed a pad and a pencil,” he continues. “I got my iPhone. My wife’s screaming, ‘What are you doing?’ I said, ‘Writing a song!’ It just kept coming and coming. When I got up the next day, I grabbed my guitar and started to figure out the chords.”
The song sat unfinished on his phone for two years, but the formation of his Best of All Worlds band—Joe Satriani, Michael Anthony, and Jason Bonham (later replaced by Kenny Aronoff)—helped bring one final tribute to his former bandmate to life. Satriani, who had previously said he purposefully never tried to play like Eddie, encouraged the singer to finish it.
“When I told Joe about the dream and played him the thing, he went, ‘Oh man. Hell yeah. Let’s finish that. That’s a cool song,’” Hagar recalls.
It starts with Satriani delivering a slew of deft two-handed tapping licks and rarely lets up. He does a heartfelt and dazzling Eddie impression throughout, weaving between seismic power chords with dive bombs and flashy licks.
Hagar, meanwhile, sings of his gratitude for having known Eddie: “Thank you for the music, thank you for the songs, thank you for the good times,” he bellows in the chorus.
“This song is my final bow to that part of my life,” Hagar said ahead of the song’s release. “It’s not meant to be anything more than a thank-you—with love, with respect, and with one hell of a guitar solo.”
Hagar’s last involvement with Van Halen—something he calls “the pinnacle of my career”—was in 2004. He and longtime bass player Michael Anthony watched from the sidelines as the Van Halen brothers linked up with David Lee Roth for the final iteration of the band.
But the vocalist says he reconnected with Eddie Van Halen as the guitarist battled the cancer that would ultimately take his life in 2020. Plans for another Hagar-fronted tour with Van Halen, he says, were discussed.
“I miss the guy so much,” he tells the Los Angeles Times. “Thank God we connected towards the end; otherwise, I’d be heartbroken. It was so important to me that we did connect in that last year.”
“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. Next year, we’re gonna get together—we’re gonna make some noise. Let me beat this shit, and let’s do it.’”
Hagar kept this conversation—likely from 2019 or 2020—quiet until now to honor the guitarist’s wishes.
“He goes, ‘Please don’t talk to anyone—not even Al (Van Halen),’” Hagar now relays. “I’ve never said that to anyone, and I bet you Al is gonna have a fucking fit. But Eddie said, ‘Don’t even talk to Al about this.’”
Reflecting on the tour that never was and life after Eddie’s passing, Hagar’s conversation with the Los Angeles Times takes a somber turn.
“Things aren’t the same without that hope,” he mourns. “I was hoping that would happen, that we’d get together and play someday. And not only for the fame and fortune—which of course I’ve never gotten back to that level since. That was the pinnacle of my career.
“But more than that was the creativity and the energy we had together, writing songs like ‘Right Now’ and ‘Love Walks In’. 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.”
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