Sammy Hagar revealed that Eddie Van Halen suggested the former bandmates "make some noise" together when they reconnected a few months before Van Halen's death.

Speaking to Washington Post reporter Geoff Edgers in a new Instagram Live interview, Hagar said he was relieved to find Van Halen in a better headspace when he reached out to the virtuoso guitarist "four or five months" prior to his death on Oct. 6, 2020.

"We got together and we kind of made amends," Hagar said. "It wasn’t like, 'Oh, you gotta apologize for this.'"

Hagar said he initially tried to contact his former bandmate through several roundabout measures, worrying that calling him directly would stir up the bad blood between them. Thankfully, that wasn't the case.

"[Eddie] said, 'No, no, no. I love you, man.' And I realized at that point that he had elevated his whole thing," Hagar said. "He had come to peace with everything. He knew he was sick, and it was so great to contact the guy when he was in that state of mind. If I’d have gotten him six months earlier or a year, it probably would have been, 'Oh yeah, well, you said this, you said that.' [But] he was totally above it all."

You can watch the interview below.

Watch Sammy Hagar's 'Washington Post' Interview on Instagram Live

Hagar said Van Halen, a lifelong workaholic, quickly tried to get some jam sessions on the books, despite battling throat cancer at the time. "He said, 'Hey, let's make some noise.' He goes, 'I got a lot of work to do on myself this year. You ain't gonna believe it, I've been fighting this stuff for 15 years, and now I got this big thing on my neck and my throat right now, and I gotta get it all straightened out. And next year, you and I gotta make some noise. We made some great music together, and I want to do it again.' I was just like, 'Yes.' I said, 'Eddie, that ain't what I'm calling you about. I'm calling to see if you're okay.'"

Hagar admitted Van Halen's death is still "tough as hell" for him, but he's able to marvel at the music they made together between 1985 and 1996, when he fronted Van Halen.

"We wrote all those songs together. It ain't like, 'Oh, we wrote a couple songs together.' We wrote every Van Halen song from my era, from '85 to '95, and then three more on the [2003-05] reunion thing. We wrote all them songs together. You don't write songs like that — with a real musician and real musicians getting together — you don't phone that in. You don't do it by email. No, we sat in rooms together, him and I, and wrote those songs and went and sang them, and he coached me through things he might hear. ... I miss that. There's nobody like that."

Eddie Van Halen Year by Year: 1977-2017 Photos

It's been more than 40 years since he revolutionized the way rock guitar is played with the release of his band's self-titled debut album.

More From 92.9 WBUF