The Hidden Truth Of Sammy Hagar

According to many rock stars and their songs, rock 'n' roll is supposed to be about having a good time and indulging in earthly delights, and Sammy Hagar is the best ambassador for that mission. Hagar has been shredding hard rock and metal riffs while singing hooks and earnestly felt lyrics in his distinctively raspy upper-register voice for more than 50 years. After emerging as the star singer and songwriter in the band Montrose in the 1970s, Hagar set off on a successful solo career that launched many classic rock radio standards about his favorite subjects — living fast and rocking out — such as "I Can't Drive 55" and "There's Only One Way to Rock." And then he got even more famous, singing lead for arena rock monsters Van Halen in its wildly successful keyboards-and-ballads era.

Hagar has lived a lot of life, as a musician, private citizen, and shrewd industrialist. Here's a glimpse into the unique, always rocking world of the Red Rocker, Sammy Hagar.

Sammy Hagar's solo career began abruptly and not of his own volition after he was unceremoniously fired from Montrose in 1974. He approached Ted Templeman, a producer at Warner Bros. who had recorded both of Hagar's Montrose albums, and while he declined to add him to his label's roster, he gave Hagar the seed money to record a demo. San Francisco free-form radio station KSAN played the whole five-song tape, and John Carter, an artists and repertoire rep with Capitol Records, called and offered Hagar a contract.

Hagar's first five albums sold modestly, but none generated anything close to a hit single. That prompted him to give in to the since-dismissed Carter's constant suggestion to pander to pop radio and record songs not necessarily in the hard rocker's wheelhouse. In 1979, Hagar tentatively recorded and released a cover of Otis Redding's classic "(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay." That flopped, too, and although Hagar was filling arenas, Capitol Records dropped him in 1980. He finally broke through into the commercial mainstream in 1982, when after he signed with Geffen, "I'll Fall in Love Again" hit No. 2 on the rock chart and just barely missed the pop Top 40.

Sammy Hagar can claim one of rock music's best-known and most dramatic nicknames: The Red Rocker. It doesn't have any deep-seated or profound meaning; it was born out of an observation made about an early Hagar recording, and it just stuck, probably because it's so short, catchy, and alliterative.

In 1977, Hagar released his third solo album, self-titled or untitled. The cover depicted Hagar, dressed in a red suit, getting out of a red car that was parked on a city block where all the buildings were red, and passersby were also dressed in red. The first song on that LP was, appropriately, "Red." Around the time when the record hit stores, Hagar and his band played a radio-sponsored show in Seattle. "The day after the Seattle concert, the newspaper said, 'cause I was dressed in red, it was for my red album, and the newspaper said 'Sammy Hagar, the red rocker performed,'" the singer told Audacy Music. The next day, a fan found him at his hotel and asked him to give an autograph as both "Sammy Hagar" and "The Red Rocker."

While Sammy Hagar would become the lead singer of Van Halen in 1985, he met the band's namesake guitarist, Eddie Van Halen, in 1978, when they shared the bill at Summerfest in Anaheim, California. "I thought he was just one of the nicest, sweetest, humblest rock stars on the planet," Hagar told Ultimate Classic Rock. "Shaking my hand, 'Oh, Sammy, man. I'm a big fan, you know, Montrose."

Seven years later, creative and personal tensions that were endured during the recording of Van Halen's best album signaled a breakup. After releasing and promoting "1984," David Lee Roth vacated the lead singer position, and Eddie Van Halen actively sought out a replacement. When he heard about the job opening, Hagar predicted to his wife at the time that the guitarist would extend an offer, but he didn't foresee how casually the opportunity would arise. "He was at all of our car mechanic, Claudio Zampoli's place, he saw my Ferrari that was there getting a tune-up when I was on tour. I got home from tour, and he sees my car, Claudio says, 'That's Sammy Hagar's car, you should call him,'" Hagar told "The Howard Stern Show." Zampoli gave Van Halen the number and he phoned him from the mechanic's office. Hagar agreed to attend a jam session the next day, and then he was in the band.

"Love Walks In" was among the first songs Van Halen recorded with one of the most successful band member replacements ever, singer Sammy Hagar. A big hit on the pop and rock charts in 1986, it was the first time Van Halen made it big with a ballad. But it's not about the overwhelming feelings triggered by a brand-new love — Hagar wrote it about the profound, life-altering experiences he claimed to have had with mind-reading extraterrestrials in his late teens and early twenties.

Around 3 a.m. one night, Hagar said he woke up in an excruciatingly bright room and to the sight of aliens experimenting on him. "They downloaded everything that was in my head. And I caught 'em doin' it!" Hagar told Guitar (via Face Off). "But this was all telepathy — there were no words being spoken." Unable to move his body, the aliens then disappeared, leaving Hagar trembling and queasy in a suddenly darkened room.

That wasn't Hagar's only unexplained encounter. "There have been three or four other contacts with the same group of people. I don't know who the f*** they are, but I've narrowed them down to a people called The Nine, who are called that because they're from the Ninth Dimension."

Van Halen had a big 1996: Sammy Hagar left the band, while former singer David Lee Roth returned to record a couple of songs for a new greatest hits album and then awkwardly participated in an appearance at the MTV Video Music Awards. That same year, in a feat of impeccable timing, the band Nerf Herder released a song called "Van Halen," which became a regional hit in California and then a nationwide alternative rock radio smash. The first two verses detail the band's undying love of 1970s and early 1980s Van Halen, praising Roth-led records like "1984" and the eponymous debut LP. At the bridge, the mood darkens when the subject moves into Van Halen's second era. "Is this what you wanted, Sammy Hagar?" singer Parry Gripp rhetorically snarls. "I'll never buy your lousy records again."

Nerf Herder sought permission to use Van Halen-related imagery in the "Van Halen" video. Hagar declined, and according to Fat Wreck Records, called the band "f*****s." More than two years later, Hagar remained upset. "What dumb-a** f***ers would come up from nowhere and make fun of one of the biggest bands in the world? And to sit there and f***in' make fun of them, or make fun of Sammy Hagar?" he ranted to San Francisco Weekly (via Van Halen News Desk). "These f***ers!"

Van Halen had many messy band breakups, but Sammy Hagar's departure in 1996 was the most complicated. While recording the 1995 album "Balance," Hagar and Eddie Van Halen disagreed on creative matters, and the tensions grew during a concert tour beset by injuries. When the tour ended, Hagar wanted a break and to spend time with his newborn baby, but Eddie and Alex Van Halen wanted to immediately record music again, either a full-length album or a handful of new tunes for a greatest hits album in the works.

What happened next depends on the storyteller. In June 1996, Eddie Van Halen asked Hagar to rewrite a lyric in one of those new songs. "And I didn't want to," Hagar told the Los Angeles Times. "But after I left he drove to David Lee Roth's house, and man, that's worse than sleeping with the enemy." With the old lead singer back in the band for a while, Hagar was fired for being intractable. "He said, 'You're a solo artist in this band, so you might as well really be a solo artist.'"

That's now how Eddie Van Halen remembered the interaction. "I said, 'Sam, if you want to make another record or do another tour, you've got to be a team player," the guitarist told Guitar World (via VH Links). ""He finally said, 'Yeah, g*****it, I'm f***in' frustrated. I want to go back to being a solo artist.'"

As suggested by the 1988 Van Halen song "Cabo Wabo" and his 1999 solo hit "Mas Tequila," Sammy Hagar is a guy who likes to party and drink a certain Mexican spirit. His genuine interest in those subjects made Hagar a very wealthy man. In 1990, Hagar opened the first Cabo Wabo Cantina in the burgeoning resort area of Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, and it developed into a major party destination called Sammy Hagar's Cabo Wabo Beach Club. By 1996, Hagar couldn't find a tequila he liked enough to stock, and so he started a distillery, sourcing the blue agave needed from a family-owned farm. Hagar allowed for distribution of Cabo Wabo Tequila to the general public in 1999, and in less than a decade it had become one of the best-selling tequilas in the United States.

In 2007, Hagar sold 80% of his stake in Cabo Wabo Tequila to global alcohol distributor Gruppo Campari for $80 million. He stayed on with the company as a consultant, and in 2010 sold the company his remaining 20% for another $11 million. That left him free to develop other booze brands, including Sammy's Beach Bar Rum and Santo Spirits.

Everyone hates touring with Aerosmith, and by 2009, that group included the band's founding guitarist, Joe Perry. The band was falling apart by that point: Tour dates were canceled after singer Steven Tyler broke a shoulder in a stage fall, and then he publicly announced that he planned to focus on his solo work instead of the band. The miffed Perry announced on X, formerly known as Twitter (via Billboard), that Aerosmith was "positively looking for a new singer to work with."

One candidate who Perry pursued was Sammy Hagar, who'd famously already entered Van Halen to fill the void left by departing vocalist David Lee Roth. "Joe Perry tried to get me to join that band, and the management asked me to go to South America and try it out," Hagar told Ultimate Classic Rock. He seriously considered the offer on the table, but ultimately declined. "I think if I would have done both those things, I would have been the guy that replaced the guy. You know, always the guy replacing the guy, and that's a strange legacy for a guy like me."

Even though Sammy Hagar is a successful solo performer and former lead singer of Van Halen, what he apparently really likes to do is form new hard rock bands with other established rock stars. In 1983, he put together HSAS, with each initial of the name referring to a member of the supergroup that released just one album: guitarist Neil Schon of Journey, Foghat bassist Kenny Aaronson, and Santana drummer Michael Shrieve. After his Van Halen exit in 1997, Hagar put together a solo backing band that included his old drummer David Lauser, Busboys guitarist Vic Johnson, and Tommy Tutone bassist Mona Gnader. Known variously as the Waboritas and the Wabos, that supergroup begat another in the 2000s, Los Tres Gusanos, with Hagar, Lauser, and Van Halen's Michael Anthony.

Around that time, Hagar also fronted Planet Us, playing with Schon, Anthony, solo guitar wiz Joe Satriani, and drummer Deen Castronovo of Bad English. When that project ran its course, Hagar, Anthony, and Satriani joined Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith for Chickenfoot. Active since the 2010s, Hagar's newest supergroup is called Sammy Hagar and the Circle, and it once more put him in a band with Johnson and Anthony alongside veteran hard rock drummer Jason Bonham.

Sammy Hagar sang on the first two albums recorded by Ronnie Montrose's '70s band Montrose. The breakout single from the group's self-titled debut and the one that propelled them onto the Billboard album chart was "Bad Motor Scooter," which was the result of Hagar's first-ever songwriting attempt. "I had no experience whatsoever. I just wrote the first four songs in my life," Hagar told Rolling Stone. He played "Bad Motor Scooter" and some others for Montrose, who then invited him to front his band. "I went from zero to a hundred."

In the early 1980s, Hagar had a hard time scoring hit singles, at least under his own name. In 1980, his self-written "I've Done Everything for You" bombed in the U.S. and in the U.K., but a year later, teen idol Rick Springfield covered it and took it to No. 8 on the pop chart, landing Hagar some substantial royalty checks. "Heavy Metal," from the soundtrack to the 1981 adult animated movie of the same name, is among Hagar's most-played songs ever. After a record company executive told Hagar and his new writing partner, Survivor guitarist Jim Peterik, that there was a movie in the works called "Heavy Metal," Hagar directed his charge to write that song, on spec and without a guarantee that it would make it into the movie. 

While far from the realm of actors who had Top 10 pop hits, rock star Sammy Hagar has done a little moonlighting on television over the years, albeit very little. In 1998, Hagar landed his first of three roles in narrative projects when he was well into his career. He turned in a cameo as a bartender on an episode of the CBS crime-drama "Nash Bridges," set in his home state of California. Twelve years later, Hagar returned to the small screen in animated form for "IAMAPOD," an installment of the Adult Swim series "Aqua Teen Hunger Force." An evil alien plant eats and clones Chickenfoot bassist Michael Anthony, to the chagrin of the band's singer, Hagar.

In 2014, Hagar voiced himself on "The Simpsons," in an episode where Homer Simpson starts a dad band. "'The Simpsons' universe has had some of the greatest rock stars of all time. Just to be one of those guys, I'm happy with that. You could just end it right there," Hagar told Rolling Stone.

In October 2024, Sammy Hagar turned 77, a reasonable age to start considering pulling back on one's workload or retiring altogether, and Hagar might indeed be on the track to winding down his five decades-long career. He finished a 33-show tour in the summer of 2024, and that might be all the road-tripping that Hagar can handle. "I don't think I want to go on tour anymore. I hate to say that, because I don't want to p*** my fans off," he told the Miami Herald in January 2025. "I'll go out and do a one-off show and do things like that." 

Not quite ready to be one of the musicians who will retire in 2025, Hagar is embracing the residency. In 2025, he started his first regular, standing gig at Caspian's Cocktails and Caviar in Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas, which will allow him to rock without the hassle of traveling. "At my age, it hurts my shoulders to do all this. And I have to perform. I'm a performer at the end of the day."

Hagar is also a songwriter, and he wrote a song in tribute to his former bandmate Eddie Van Halen with his current guitarist, Joe Satriani. "When you hear the intro on this song, you're going to s***, man. It's just as iconic as anything I've ever been involved with," Hagar told Rolling Stone.