LOS ANGELES (Reuter) - The impossible has happened. Van Halen is working with original vocalist David Lee Roth after parting ways with Sammy Hagar, the veteran hard rock band's management said Wednesday.

Roth had split from the Los Angeles-based quartet just over 10 years ago in one of the most bitter incidents in rock'n'roll since the Beatles broke up in 1970. While the Los Angeles-based quartet continued to sell million of records, fans said the band was never the same without the extroverted Roth.

``Sammy Hagar is not in the band anymore, and the band is looking for a new singer,'' a spokeswoman at SRO Management told Reuters.

She said Roth was working with the band on a track that would be included in a greatest hits package scheduled for release in October, but it was not clear at his stage whether this was a prelude to his re-joining the band in a full-time capacity. ``It's a state of confusion here,'' she said, adding that the changes had happened very recently.

Van Halen consists of the Dutch-born Van Halen brothers Eddie on guitar and Alex on drums, and bass player Michael Anthony. With songs like ``Jump'', ``Hot For Teacher'' and ''Right Now'', the band has reigned supreme in the hard rock world since releasing its multi-platinum self-titled debut in 1978.

Roth, the band's best known member, left the band in 1985 after the success of a solo record. His departure came after the album ``1984'' had taken them into the pop mainstream and the band was expected to wither away without him.

Instead it reached greater heights with former Montrose vocalist Hagar and hit albums like ``5150'', ``OU812'' and ``For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge''.

Their most recent album ``Balance'' debuted at the top of the U.S. album charts at the beginning of last year and was supported by a word tour. The band's latest single ``Humans Being'', taken from the ``Twister'' soundtrack, spent several weeks at the top of Billboard's mainstream rock tracks chart.

While critics believed Hagar was probably the better singer, he seemed to lack Roth's wit and charisma. Ironically, Roth's solo career took a downward spiral and he was reduced to recycling his old band's hits in small clubs. A small-time marijuana bust a few years ago heighened the perception that his time in the limelight was over.

But a reunion with Roth seemed about as likely as a reunion of the four Beatles. ``Anyone who thinks he's ever going to come back is ridiculous,'' Eddie Van Halen told Rolling Stone in 1995.

In an interview with Reuters the year before, Eddie Van Halen said Hagar ``definitely added a whole new musician to the band. We're more of a unit. We have the same tastes and things.''

Officials at the band's Warner Bros. Records were taken aback by the announcement and were planning to meet with the band's management later in the day. An official statement was due Thursday.

A reunion with Roth is not the only previously unimaginable event to occur in the rock world in recent years. The Eagles and the Sex Pistols overcame deep animosity to get back together again, and the original members of Kiss are hitting the road again as well. The three surviving Beatles have also recorded several tracks together.