Exclusive: Sammy Hagar Recalls 20 Years of Madness With Van Halen

Eddie Van Halen and Alex Van Halen on the tour bus in May of 1979.

I walked into their place in Studio City. Alex Van Halen took one look at my short hair and started laughing. "You look like somebody put a doughnut on your head and cut it off," he said. Alex was drunk on his ass. He was drinking a case of tall malt-liquor cans a day. He pounded them too. He would pass out a couple of times a day, wake up and shotgun two or three beers, crack one more, and walk out of the room. Eddie drank all day too. They both woke up, grabbed a beer, lit a cigarette, and that was the way they started their day.

From the forthcoming book RED: My Uncensored Life in Rock by Sammy Hagar. Copyright © 2011 by Sammy Hagar. To be published on March 15, 2011 by IT Books, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.

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