I met Aaron Hagar a few years back with my podcast, Skidmarks Show. My cohost Jeff Allen had Aaron come hang out with us at the world’s biggest car show in Las Vegas, SEMA, which is part of the reason why this interview starts with us talking about cars and racing. Aaron was just getting ready to take a car to SoCal for some seat time with friends.

Aaron and I became pretty good friends over the years. So when we all got the bad news about Eddie passing, I figured I give him a shout to see how the Hagar’s are holding up. What I thought might be a 15 minute chat turned into an almost hour long catch up between friends, and a whole lot of behind the scenes from the Hagar era Van Halen days.

There’s a whole lot if stuff you’ve never heard before in this interview. It was stuff I’ve never heard before either. But it was all eye witness, because Aaron was there.

I turned the audio into a video so its more fun to watch. Some of the photos you’ll see are Aaron and I, some are from Aaron’s Facebook, and some are from those years when Van Halen was on top of the world.

(We get into talking about Sammy, Van Halen, and Eddie around 13 minutes in, if you want to skip past the car talk.)

Aaron is also an amazing artist in his own right and you should check out some of his stuff on his Facebook page. Plus he does custom special order work too, including turning your photos into a painting. And his photo realism is awesome.

Photo Credits from the video belong to Ethan Dometrius, Aaron Hagar, and Getty Image credits belong to Ron Pownall, Time and Life Pictures, Jim Steinfeldt, Ebet Roberts, Icon and Image, Paul Natkin.

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