Sammy Hagar says recording a greatest hits album was bad enough, but when he learned his Van Halen bandmates were secretly recording with former frontman David Lee Roth he bolted. The lead singer has been holed up at his Hawaii home, grappling with the "devastating, backstabbing, I-don't-get-it, real big disappointment" of the band's reunion with Roth.

On the beach, Hagar, 48, has been reviewing his mental tapes of the last year, piecing together conversations and confrontations that might have signaled the growing tension. He traces the band's troubles back about a year to a dispute with manager Ray Danniels, who is Alex Van Halen's brother-in-law.

"He took over the band, and the first thing he tried to pull in here was a greatest hits record, and what he jokingly talked about (as) the Sam and Dave Tour," Hagar said in a telephone interview late Friday.

Hagar wasn't laughing. He harbored no personal dislike for Roth, but had been listening to his bandmates speak ill of Roth for 11 years. And he was dead-set against a best-of record.

"A band has a greatest hits album when they have nowhere else to go," he said. "Can you name one band in their heyday that's done a greatest hits record?" Danniels "stuffed it down everyone's throat" that Van Halen needed to do a greatest hits album, Hagar said. "Van Halen, the four of us are not clever businessmen. We are not contrived, manipulating businessmen, we are musicians and artists," he said. "I think our vulnerability was taken advantage of. .... I think this band was great and I think we've been screwed with and screwed over, and'm really sorry that the other guys kind of went along with it."

Early this year, Hagar said, he was conned into writing a song for a greatest hits album when the band wrote music for the film "Twister." After penning two songs, Hagar was told the filmmakers only wanted one.

"It was really just (the band) trying to squeeze another song out of me. And I don't go for that (expletive). Bad blood started then," he said. Then came a squabble over a lyric in a song Hagar was reluctantly writing for the greatest hits project.

Hagar recalled this exchange with Eddie Van Halen in mid-June [regarding the lyrics for "Humans Being"]:

Edward Van Halen: Why wouldn't you change (that) one line?
Sammy Hagar: Well, why would I change that one line? I think it's a great line. It's like, do you know what this song's about, Eddie?
EVH: Well, you never do anything I told you, and you never do anything I asked you.
SH: Wait a minute, you never asked me to do anything!

"All of a sudden it's like, 'blah blah blah blah blah,' and, 'Uh, well, we've been working with Roth,"' Hagar recalled. "I split as soon as I heard that," Hagar said. "It's like when your friend stabs you in the back, or your family." "I've been in this band for 11 years, and I know that David Lee Roth was the enemy," he said. "The three of the guys in the band hated him more than anyone on the planet. They wouldn't even talk to the guy. If anyone brought up the name, they would freak out."

Representatives for the remaining members of Van Halen and for Roth said they would not comment on Hagar's charges.

Hagar said two "really, really known bands, not some new guys on the block" have asked him to collaborate with them. Both, he said, would represent a lateral move. He is more inclined to play with some friends and explore where he wants to take his music now. "There's so many options, but I don't know which one I want to do yet," he said. "I think as soon as things blow over I'm going to go back down to Cabo (San Lucas, Mexico), and invite all my musician friends, and I'm just going to jam for about a month."


© 1996, Associated Press.