Sammy Hagar Interview: The Red Rocker Uncensored

By: Matt Warnock

Talking to Sammy Hagar, it’s hard to tell that the prolific guitarist, singer and songwriter has been working as a professional musician for almost 44 years, beginning his career by recording “Reach Out to Find Me” and “Read My Thoughts” in 1967. During the intervening years, Hagar has had several successful solo careers, been a member of the rock band Montrose, and spent a decade with Van Halen at the height of the band’s fame in the mid ‘80s and early ‘90s. Throughout it all has maintained an exuberance and excitement for music that is often only found in performers half his age or younger.

Hagar has plenty to be excited about these days. While leaving a band like Van Halen would have been seen as a downside to most people’s careers, Hagar took the opportunity to reignite his solo career, and then in 2008 formed the supergroup Chickenfoot. The band, which also features Chad Smith (Red Hot Chili Peppers), Michael Anthony (Van Halen) and guitar virtuoso Joe Satriani, is currently working on their sophomore album, and according to Hagar the recording sessions are way ahead of schedule, and the band’s chemistry is really gelling, giving fans something to look forward to as the album will hopefully be released later this year.

Hagar also took this year to do something he’s never done before–write a book. Red: My Uncensored Life In Rock, an autobiography co-written by Joel Selvin, recounts Hagar’s experiences as one of the world’s most famous and successful rockers, taking a look back on his life and music from the perspective of the man who lived it. The book will be out in stores this March, and as part of its launch, Hagar will embark on a book tour, including a stopover at the Canadian Music Week in Toronto where he will give a public, “tell all” interview that is sure to be one of the highlights of the event.

With all that’s going on, it’s hard to imagine Hagar slowing down anytime soon. Whereas most people in his age bracket are thinking about retirement, Hagar is writing new music, recording a new album and being as creative as ever, all with a palpable excitement that one can’t help get caught up in when they hear Sammy talk about his new endeavors.

Sammy Hagar Photo: Rob Cavuoto

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Matt Warnock: You’ve been recording the new album with Chickenfoot for about a week now. How’s it going so far?

Sammy Hagar: We started last Saturday–it’s a week today. Seven days and you ain’t gonna believe it, but we’ve got eleven songs. It isn’t like we wrote the songs previously, rehearsed them and then went in and just tried to cut ‘em. We’re writing in the studio on the spot. Joe presents us with some musical ideas, and his ideas are really together, it isn’t this vague idea. He presents you with an intro, a verse, a chorus, a bridge, a solo and an ending.

Then we jam to it. I see if it feels melodically in my repertoire of blues licks that I have in my voice. [Laughs] Then I come up with a good melody and structure, and we work on the arrangement until we all agree. Then my job is to come up with a title before we’re done rehearsing the song. Last but not least, I go out and write the lyrics. Believe it or not, I’ve already written lyrics for five of the songs on the new record. Then we get a take that sounds good and we continue the process. I can’t believe how fast things are going with this record. It’s amazing.

Matt: It sounds like you’re just flying through the recording process. Is that going to bump up the release date for the record at all, since things are moving so quickly?

Sammy Hagar: We’re flying through it, but I don’t think that’ll have any bearing on when it gets released. I don’t think we’ll release it until towards the end of the year. It’s happening fast on its own, but we had to cram Chad into this five-week period we have here to get it done. We’re way ahead of that. We expected in the five weeks to get 12 or 13 songs written and lay down the drum tracks. Then Chad could go away for the rest of the year and Joe, Michael and I could finish the record. That’s the way it was planned, but we’re way beyond that.

It’s fucking crazy, the chemistry in this band. We’re even pushing ourselves this time to do some things musically that we know we’re capable of, but that we haven’t touched on yet. I keep telling Joe, “Come up with any idea you want for me. How would you like to hear me sing? Write some music like that and I’ll stretch myself and make my voice and lyric ideas work for that music.” We’ve done this already in a short time, and it seems like with this band everything just comes easy. No matter what we bite off, it comes easy. There’s a real special chemistry that we have with this band.

Matt: Speaking of chemistry, you’re recording in this five-week window because of Chad’s schedule with the Chili Peppers. There’s been talk that you might find a sub for Chad so that Chickenfoot can go on the road this year, but where do you stand on that? Are you thinking about finding a different drummer for a tour, or waiting until Chad is free and can go out on the road with you guys together?

Sammy Hagar: It’s hard to say. Just to say that right now, I’m not ready to commit to either one of those things. If I had my way, Chad’s the drummer in this band and there is no other drummer. But, at the same time, that’s what we did for this CD. We talked eight months ago about going into the studio. We can make a record any time we want, I have my own studio, but we chose to wait for Chad. That’s a statement in itself. Promoters are trying to book us for this summer, to go to Europe and play, and do some stuff in the States, but we’ve decided to say no.

We’re not going to book shows until this record’s done. Let’s put this record out and see what happens. If it’s the kind of response that we got last time, we’re probably going to have to go out. If we get a substitute drummer, we’ll get the baddest motherfucker out there and go out with him, maybe, until Chad can do it again.

Chad’s the drummer in Chickenfoot. It’s not like we’d make the change and say, “Here’s the new drummer.” It’d be like, “Here’s the drummer that’s filling in for Chad until he can come back.” That’s the way it’s got to be for me. Chad is the drummer in Chickenfoot, because it’s all about the chemistry.

Sammy Hagar and Joe Satriani Photo: Rob Cavuoto

Matt: Joe is the latest in a long list of legendary guitarists that you’ve worked with over your career, including Ronnie Montrose, Neal Schon and Eddie Van Halen. Is Joe’s playing and writing style pushing your vocals in new directions with Chickenfoot?

Sammy Hagar: The thing that Joe does better than everyone else, is he plays perfectly in tune. When he bends a note, when he hits his whammy bar and sends a note into some supersonic fucking octave, it’s in key. For a singer, that’s a beautiful thing. As much as a singer gets their notes from the bass, you get your melodic things, and for me, my whacked out screams and high notes that I jump up and grab, I’m getting those from the guitar.

When I was playing with Eddie, he’s doing all of those screams and squeals, and I’m doing the same thing with my voice, but with Joe it’s so much easier because it’s perfectly on pitch all the time. His tone, as well, is a big, fat guitar tone that makes a voice feel like it tucks right into it. I don’t feel a competition. I don’t feel that it’s in the same range as my voice. Sometimes if a guy’s got a tone like Eddie’s, which is more like a voice itself, I was also trying to scream above it. When I was in Van Halen I was always trying to scream above the band, but with Joe’s tone, which is so pure, fat and full of bottom, I feel like I can sing right in the middle of it.

That makes me sing differently, more in my natural singing voice, not in my supersonic range. But we go supersonic when we need to, believe me we do. With Montrose I used to sing over the band too. I used to try and sing out over the top of that band, but I didn’t have the range back then. As crazy as it sounds, when I was 23, 24 years old with Montrose, I didn’t have the range that I do now. You can hear it in Van Halen, I stepped it way up. When I sing a Montrose song with the Wabos or something, I’m up there yawning with the vocal range. It’s almost like rapping.

Matt: A lot of singers find that though their range gets bigger with experience, their voice naturally lowers with time and they end up singing in lower keys than they used to. Are you still singing in the same keys that you were when you were back with Montrose and Van Halen?

Sammy Hagar: I’ve always tuned down a half a step, not in Montrose, but with Van Halen. I guess Eddie was used to doing that with the previous singer, they’d tune down like a step and a half sometimes. [Laughs] But, we only tune down to get that big, tuned-down sound, which now is fuckin’ nothing compared to these modern metal bands that tune way down to a C, with the strings falling off the neck. [Laughs]

To tune down a half-step I think makes the music a little heavier, and on the road will preserve the singer’s voice. Just that half step will allow me to sing an extra night a week when we’re on tour. But we’ve just gotten used to it and we just do it, which would be the only way I’d sing in lower keys.

I didn’t use to have the confidence to sing in my natural singing voice. I was always trying to go up as high as I could. To get over the band was one of the reasons. But it was also an insecurity thing, where if you made it more painful, you made it more powerful, like the old soul singers used to do. You could be singing about dog food and making it sound like you’re passionately in love by singing out of your range a little bit. It’s just been the way that most rock singers have always done it.

As I’m getting older and have more experience, I have the confidence to sing in my natural range, and I’m enjoying it more. When I go into my supersonic range, it’s because I need that effect or the song calls for it in the chorus or whatever. But, in general I prefer to sing in my natural register, which has more resonance and better tone and all that.

It gets harder to sing that way. It sounds crazy, but it’s harder to sing in a lower register because then your melody has to be dead on and you have to put your heart and soul in it to make it sound passionate, instead of just straining in the upper register which automatically makes it sound passionate.

Sammy Hagar Photo: Rob Cavuoto

Matt: Talking with you, it’s apparent that you’re really excited about Chickenfoot and what you’re doing musically right now. For other guys, who’ve had the immense success that you have, that feeling can often fade over time, but you’ve managed to keep it alive. Are you just as excited today about music as you were back when you were first starting out in your early 20s?

Sammy Hagar: You better believe it. It’s the only reason that I keep going. If I wasn’t excited about this project I wouldn’t be doing it. I’d be sitting on a beach in Cabo. [Laughs] I’ve got a lot of choices in my life. I’m a pretty lucky cat. I only do things that I’m passionate about, that’s all I can do. I would never do anything for any other reason, other than to help out somebody else.

I like helping people, and I’ve made a big commitment in the last four or five years to do a lot of charitable work, and so I love doing that. I have a passion for that. If someone offered me a couple million dollars to club baby seals over the head I’m not going to do it. [Laughs] I’d rather do something for free that I love.

I think one thing that can help people that are losing their passion, is that you’ve got to make changes when it’s called for. You can’t keep trying to beat the same dog to death. In my career, I went from a solo artist to Montrose. I wasn’t making it, but I was a solo artist in a band that was my band. I was writing all the songs and calling all the shots, then I went into a band, it was a band, band. I co-write the songs, I’m not calling all the shots. The band decides things, not me.

Then I left Montrose and had a 10 year run as a solo artist. Writing all the songs, calling all the shots, telling people what to do, doing things the way I wanted to do it. Then I got tired of it and I joined Van Halen for 10 years, and I grew with those guys. Whenever I’m in a band I grow. I learned a lot from Eddie, Alex and Mike and from being in a band. Then I moved on, or in my case I usually got thrown out. [Laughs] So I went, “Well, I’m a solo artist again.”

Then I had a 10, 12 year run with the Wabos. Things started to feel stale, I still love the band and still have that band, but I got horny so I wanted to put together a new band. I asked myself, “Who are my favorite players.” The first guys in my mind were Mike, Chad and Joe, cut and fucking dry. These are the guys I wanted to play with. When Joe accepted it was the biggest freakazoid. Chad, Mike and I have been jamming for years, and when we decided to do this I said, “I’m calling Joe, he’s my fucking favorite.”

Matt: Let’s talk about your new autobiography a bit. Had you been working on this over the years, keeping notes or a journal, or did you just sit down and decide to write the book all at once?

Sammy Hagar: I just said I was going to write it this year. I’ve never kept a journal, but whenever something happens that makes me go “Oh my god, can you believe that?” I used to comment to my friends and family, “That’s going in the book.” [Laughs] I never wrote anything down, but I have a great memory. I’ve got a 10,000 bottle wine cellar, I’ve been collecting wine since 1972, and I know where everything is. People will ask to see the log of what I’ve got. I don’t have a log, if they ask for a particular bottle from 1945, I just grab it. I know right where it is.

I have a good memory, and it really helped. I don’t remember dates very well though, so writing with Joel Selvin helped get everything into chronological order. I would’ve probably joined Montrose after Van Halen if I had written it myself. [Laughs] I would’ve confused the fans, but Joel had it so together that it’s all chronologically correct.

If I couldn’t remember a date, he’d ask me what I was listening to at the time. I’m a music guy, have been all my life, so I’d tell him that “Satisfaction” was the big radio hit at the time and he’d say, “That was August 5, 1964” or whatever. Him being a musicologist, and me linking everything I’ve done to either a car I’ve owned or the music I was listening to, came together nicely and helped connect events to dates in the book. Joel really helped.

Sammy Hagar Photo: Rob Cavuoto

Matt: You’re going to be doing a live interview to help launch the book at the Canadian Music Week. Did you time the launch of the book so you could release it at this event, or was that just a coincidence?

Sammy Hagar: That was a coincidence. When the book was finished back in September, Harper Collins started to look at release dates. They started to talk with my publicists to find a two-week window in my schedule to do the book tour, which I’ve never done before and am probably going to hate the fact that I made this commitment. About half way through I’ll be going, “What did I do?” [Laughs] Getting up early in the morning and all that stuff.

Once the tour was being put together, the whole thing started in Toronto with the CMW and with Randy Bachman being there at the same time. Randy’s an old, dear friend of mine. BTO, but it was only Randy at the time, opened for the Van Halen 5150 tour, all 130 some shows, and I became good friends with Randy over the years. He’s going to be playing up there during the CMW, and maybe I shouldn’t be letting this out of the bag, I don’t know, but he got a hold of me and asked if I’d jam with them.

I said absolutely, so they learned one of my songs and I learned one of theirs–it’s going to be a lot of fun. Toronto is quickly becoming my favorite part of the book tour. I get to do a few other things, like there’s going to be a Cabo Wabo cocktail party. I mean how much work is that? [Laughs]

Matt: The CMW is billing your appearance as a “tell all” interview. What was your approach to writing the book as far as talking about your life, but also those around you who shared in your experiences? Are there people from your past that might be a little nervous as the book is getting ready to come out?

Sammy Hagar: Well, the book is certainly about me and about my experiences, and my experiences involve other musicians and other people. There was certainly some uncomfortable moments talking about the downside of Van Halen, because the reunion tour, as much as some of the Canadian shows were great, and I’m not copping out here, our Toronto shows were some of the best shows we did on the tour, some of the other shows were disasters. I’m not going to hide that or say that everything was great.

A lot of fans and guitar players out there knew that Eddie wasn’t up to par most of the time on that tour and was completely trashed at certain times. I told it like it was. We were one of the best bands in the world in our day, and I felt that sometimes it just wasn’t up to par. I want to make my statement clear, even though I was a professional, up there singing my heart out and giving it all I got, there were sometimes when I felt like giving up and just walking off the stage.

I don’t mind saying stuff like that. I’m not doggin’ anybody. There’s shit all over YouTube from that tour that people can go see, what key that song was in and stuff. I don’t like doggin’ people, so I just told stories about things that happened. I tried not to put my opinion or my two cents into those stories. I never said, “Here’s what I think” or “Here’s what that guy did.” I didn’t do any of that. I told the story like it was.

Most of the other stuff that bothers me is the sex, drugs and rock n roll stuff that I did myself, that I feel guilty talking about. I have kids. I have a 14 year old daughter and a 9 year old daughter. Their friends are going to read this and go, “Wow, your dad…,” well I wasn’t their dad back then. I told it man. I told about those orgies, and getting high and shit. I’m no angel. Thank god I didn’t fall totally into the drug trap, or the sex trap.

I got caught in it a few times, but I never went so far that it took me down. In some ways, it’s a real success story once you get all through that. Some people will just read the dirt and go, “Man, I thought Sammy was married and didn’t do all that.” My ex-wife already wants to kill me, and she might kill me because I told it in this book. [Laughs]

Other people can write biographies about you and say all sorts of shit, but when you write an autobiography, you gotta tell it and get it all out. Otherwise, I’ll be writing another one in 10 years going, “Forget that other one, this is the real truth here.” I don’t want to do that. This is the real one here. It’s the real story up til now. I guess it depends on how long I live if I end up writing another one.

Matt: As you were going over these past experiences, did you find it cathartic to relive these memories when you were writing the book?

Sammy Hagar: It was fantastic. Joel Selvin, once again, is the hero of the book. When I was rambling on about some lightweight story in Montrose, he’d allow me to finish the story, and then he’d ask “How were you doing personally at that time? How was your family? How was your mother?” Boy, I get goose bumps just talking about it right now. That guy would take me into the deep, dark depths of my life back then, almost like hypnosis. It’s not a shallow book because of Joel, and my good memory. He got it immediately.

There were many times when he’d say, “Oh, I got your number.” He knew just what to say to make me go to that other place and sink right in. We have a great relationship and it’s a great book. Everyone who’s read it, friends and family, which is cheating a bit because they’re friends and family, they were all riveted. Chad Smith just told me last night, “I finished the fucking thing in one day and night, I couldn’t put it down.”

Matt: Looking back on that time in your life now, do you think that if you hadn’t lived the sex, drugs and rock n roll lifestyle that you wouldn’t have had the same career path as you did? Did living that lifestyle contribute to your music, or do you think you could have achieved the same amount of success if you went home at 5 o’clock, drank tea and never partied?

Sammy Hagar: I don’t ever believe that drugs, alcohol, any of things that people abuse socially or otherwise, those things were never responsible for Jimi Hendrix being great. They were responsible for killing Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, that’s the way I look at drugs. I have a hard time, even though I dabbled and I drink, saying that those things have done anything good.

The only thing, say in a social situation, having a few drinks, taking a toke or doing a bump or whatever, that these things might do is get you off of your hook a little bit. A lot of people have a hard time expressing themselves. They can’t go talk to that chick unless they get a little fucked up or whatever. Whether or not that got you where you are, I don’t think so. I think you’re going to have experiences that either stick with you or they don’t, whether you’re sober or high.

Look at Joe Satriani: he’ll have a couple glasses of wine at dinner, but that’s it, totally straight. Chad Smith, the greatest drummer that I’ve ever played with, fuckin’ guy’s totally been on the wagon for over a year. That guy went through his craziness, but he’s not great because of that. He’s great because he’s great. Jimi Hendrix, I don’t think drugs made him great, they killed him.

I think, what makes people great is that they sit at home as kids and they dream of something. Then when they get their guitar, drums or bass or whatever, they practice their fucking asses off and they get really good. Then they go out and they make it, then they fuck up. That’s kind of how the system works. It’s not really a great system. [Laughing]