David Lee Roth couldn’t resist having a little fun at the expense of Sammy Hagar’s recent ghost story. During a recent show at the Hampton Casino in New Hampshire, Roth shared his own humorous take on Hagar’s claim that Eddie Van Halen’s ghost visited him in a dream and inspired a new song.
Addressing the audience, Roth said, “One of my esteemed colleagues, he’s a contemporary, he’s got a great voice, he’s got a great catalogue… And Sammy, aloud, he described to the media about six weeks ago that the ghost of Eddie Van Halen visited him and graced him with a song that he memorized and then went home and recorded. It’s on the Internet.”
Roth then added with a grin, “I don’t know what the odds are, but last night the ghost of Eddie Van Halen visited me at the hotel room. I was watching the weather report and he came in and he was laughing. His ghost was laughing.”
He continued the playful story, claiming that Eddie’s ghost had a mischievous message for him: “‘Dave, Dave… Dave, you know that song I gave Hagar?’ I said, ‘What now?’ He said, ‘It’s actually ‘In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida’ backwards. Don’t tell him.’”
Roth’s lighthearted story is another chapter in the ongoing playful rivalry between the two former Van Halen frontmen, showing that even years later, the legends of the band continue to spark jokes, laughs, and a bit of mischief.
