Sammy Hagar and Eddie Van Halen were back on good terms.

On Wednesday’s “Howard Stern Show”, the host read a letter from Hagar about his former Van Halen bandmate, who died earlier this week from cancer at 65.

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“I would love you to share that Eddie and I had been texting, and it’s been a love fest since we started communicating earlier this year,” Hagar wrote in the letter. “We both agreed not to tell anyone because of all the rumours it would stir up about a reunion, et cetera, and we both knew that wasn’t going to happen. But he also didn’t want anyone to know about his health.”

He continued, “He stopped responding to me a month ago, and I figured it wasn’t good. I reached out one more time last week and when he didn’t respond, I figured it was a matter of time, but it came way too soon.”

Hagar left Van Halen in 1996, just 11 years after joining the band to fill David Lee Roth’s shoes as lead singer.

Though Hagar reunited with the band in 2004 for their “The Best of Both Worlds” tour, he and Van Halen kept only sporadic contact until earlier this year.

In 2016, Hagar sent Eddie Van Halen a birthday message on Twitter.

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After news broke that Van Halen had passed away, Hagar tweeted:

Hagar subsequently shared a video message featuring him and former Van Halen bass player Michael Anthony, with the video recorded on Wednesday after the two had rehearsed for his Sammy’s Birthday Bash virtual concert.

“After the unfortunate thing that happened with Eddie Van Halen yesterday, which was, for Mike and I, just was like getting hit by a freaking Mack Truck, kinda took the wind out of the sails,” Hager says in the clip. “I’m kind of devastated…A Van Halen song never felt so hard to play and sing in my life.”