Iconic ’80s Rocker Reveals Ghost of Eddie Van Halen Visited Him in His Hotel Room originally appeared on Parade.
It’s not every day a rock legend says he shared a cigarette with the ghost of Eddie Van Halen.
During David Lee Roth’s Wednesday, August 13, show in Hampton Beach, NH, the legendary Van Halen frontman claimed he was recently visited by the ghost of Van Halen himself — though not in quite the same way his former bandmate, Sammy Hagar, once described.
Back in 2022, Hagar shared with UCR that Van Halen had appeared to him in a dream, even gifting him a guitar riff. “I remembered it. I got up in the morning and I wrote the song. I used the f**kin’ lick that he showed me in the song,” Hagar said at the time. That riff eventually became part of the track “Encore, Thank You, Goodnight,” released nearly three years later.
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Roth, meanwhile, couldn’t resist putting his own spin on the story. “One of my esteemed colleagues, he’s a contemporary, he’s got a great voice, he’s got a great catalog. You all know Sammy Hagar, right? He’s got a great voice,” Roth, 70, told the crowd before recalling Hagar’s ghostly tale. Then came his punchline: “I don’t know what the odds are, but last night the ghost of Eddie Van Halen visited me at the f**king hotel room. I was watching the weather report and he came in and he was laughing. His f**king ghost was laughing.”
According to Roth, Van Halen told him the riff Hagar believed was a divine gift was actually just Iron Butterfly’s “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” played backward. The bit drew laughter from the audience as Roth delivered it in the middle of performing “Dance the Night Away.”
But the moment ended on a more heartfelt note. Roth said he and Van Halen’s ghost shared a cigarette, and he confessed, “Man, do I f**king miss you.” Van Halen, he claimed, replied, “I miss you too, Dave. But you know what? You should still go to hell.” Roth quipped back: “Save me a seat.”
Iconic ’80s Rocker Reveals Ghost of Eddie Van Halen Visited Him in His Hotel Room first appeared on Parade on Aug 18, 2025
This story was originally reported by Parade on Aug 18, 2025, where it first appeared.
