Sammy Hagar on fast cars, alien life and missing Eddie Van Halen: 'It's such a shame'
The pandemic knocked Sammy Hagar out of his groove. Stifled creatively, bummed out emotionally, the Red Rocker’s normally soaring spirit couldn’t take flight.
“I wasn’t depressed so much as I was confused,” says Hagar, 75. “I didn’t have anything to write about. I’m such a positive guy, but that was such a negative time. But I didn’t want to write about negativity, so I just shut down.”
He’s revved up now. The former Van Halen frontman says he has written some of his best material in years, will reprise his all-star Acoustic-4-A-Cure benefit show on May 13 in San Francisco alongside Grateful Dead guitarist Bob Weir and chef Guy Fieri, has Sammy Hagar & The Circle concerts lined up for summer and was just named honorary ambassador for Los Cabos, Mexico, home of his iconic Cabo Wabo Cantina.
We find Hagar in a turbocharged mood, riffing on topics that include fast cars, mysterious aliens and blues legends. But mostly he’s genuinely emotional about having shared a stage with guitar legend Eddie Van Halen, who died from cancer in 2020, in what once was the biggest band in our solar system.
“The peak of my musical life was Van Halen,” says Hagar of his 1985 to 1996 run in what is now dubbed Van Hagar. “My ego wants to say I was doing great as a solo artist. Well, yeah, I was doing fine, but Van Halen was some other thing man. It was a four-headed monster, and I miss Ed dearly.”
Question: Being estranged from Ed for all those years after you were dismissed from the band must have hurt.
Answer: I cherish him more than ever. What happened with us at the end was such a shame. It’s what happens when alcohol and drugs are involved, and I'm going through a divorce. It's such a shame. If Van Halen were still together today, we'd be headlining every one of these festivals all over the world.
I miss his unique creativity. He’d play something and I’d go what, where the hell did that come from? He was so out of left field, so original, that creativity always lifted me.
Your Van Halen life ended long ago, but you never called it quits professionally. Why?
If there’s something needed and important and it means something to me, then I’m firing on all cylinders. The magic of mind, body and soul, the three-lock box theory, that’s where my energy and passion come from. You should see me when I don’t have any ideas, I’m laying around on the couch like a bum. But as soon as the light goes on, boom, I’m up.
You have The Circle concerts lined up for summer and the eighth Acoustic-4-a-Cure gig is back after a long hiatus. Who’s on tap?
Lots of folks. Chris Isaak. Nancy Wilson. Bob Weir is bringing Don Was. Knowing Bob, he’ll have 30 or 40 people there, I’ll make him close the show because once you get him on stage you can’t get him off. (laughs) Bob noodles around and jams and tries to find the feel. The Dead have that fall into it and fall out of it thing, they take a walk in the woods and maybe come out the other side.
At the other end of the musical spectrum, you’ll also have blues musician Taj Mahal. Are you playing with him?
He’s my favorite blues man left on the planet. I said Taj, you need any of us musicians, you know, to back you up? He goes, "Nah, Howlin’ Wolf once told me, 'If you show up for the gig and you’re the only one who shows up and you can’t do the gig, what were you going to do with the other fellas?" (laughs) That’s my favorite blues quote in the world. So he’ll play by himself again.
How about your own musical creativity these days?
During COVID, I couldn’t write. When things came back together I wrote “Crazy Times.” I think it’s my best writing since Montrose or Van Halen. It’s great, but it’s dark. I had to talk about the crazy times and how we came out the other side because nothing’s the same – not your job, not my job. Since I wrote that record, I’ve learned to be able to say some negative things, to say it’s OK to talk about something if you can help other people understand it.
Sounds like you feel more free to be you.
A friend said, “What are you worried about, Sam? You have nothing to prove.” And I thought, finally, someone woke me up. I’ve gotten open-minded. I can say, I want to talk about aliens. I believe in them. I don’t care if someone says “You’re crazy.” Sure, I’ve always been crazy.
In your 2011 book, “Red: My Uncensored Life in Rock,” you described being mentally probed by aliens.
Hey, listen all that stuff is coming out, we could do a whole story on this. These guys at Area 51, they said they saw the flying saucers, sat in their seats, it’s not a fairy tale now. It’s interesting. I’m all hooked up on it.
It’s not a spaceship per se, but your Ferrari LaFerrari, which you bought around 2015, is capable of crazy speeds. Car collector, that you are, is it still with you?
I’ve got everything still and more, like an idiot. But I’m thinking about selling my LaFerrari. Not because I don’t love it, but at my age, my vision, my reflexes, it’s too much car for me. If I built a new house now and could put it in my house and sit in it and watch a movie and eat popcorn in it, I’d keep it.
Sounds like you now actually prefer to drive 55. That said, you still seem like the most high-revving 75-year-old around. Not sure how you do it.
(laughs) You know if I knew where it came from, I’d find a way to put it in a bottle or a package and I’d sell it.
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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Sammy Hagar calls his Van Halen years 'the peak of my musical life'
