Ben5150
05-11-2005, 06:22 PM
For Sammy Hagar, 2005 was supposed to be his year off. After playing
some 30 shows last year as a solo artist and then reuniting with Van
Halen to record three new songs and do a major headlining tour, he
needed the break.
"That was a very grueling tour," Hagar said of the 80-date Van Halen
trek. "It was brutal. So when I was done, I said I'm taking next year
off. I don't even want to talk to you or anybody else about anything.
Don't even ask me about when you want to get back together Really
honestly, I think everyone was just worn out from it."
But Hagar, who is having major success as a businessman marketing his
brand of premium tequila, Cabo Wabo Tequila, and last year opened a
second Cabo Wabo Cantina in Lake Tahoe, Nevada (the original is in Cabo
San Lucas, Mexico), said circumstances demanded that he strap on the
guitar and do a special mini-tour this spring.
"I was going to take this whole year off, but Cinco de Mayo is a
Mexican holiday and the tequila holiday of the year," Hagar said. "So
I'm going, I've got to play somewhere."
Somewhere began with three shows at his Cabo Wabo Cantina in Lake Tahoe
and will include a half dozen more dates, including a Tuesday stop at
Oneida Bingo & Casino.
Being the showman he is, Hagar has turned his mini-tour into an event
by bringing along a side band, Los Tres Gusanos, which up to now, had
only played at Hagar's Cabo Wabo Cantina in Cabo San Lucas.
This trio (the name translates into The Three Worms) features notable
members - Hagar on guitar and vocals, Van Halen bassist Michael Anthony
and Waboritas drummer Michael Lauser.
The trio will actually do much more than a token appearance during the
show. After Hagar and the Waboritas play a full set of recent solo
material, the spotlight will shift to Los Tres Gusanos.
"We play all the old Sammy stuff, 'I've Done Everything For You,'
'Plain Jane,' 'The Planet's On Fire,' 'For Love Or Money,' the stuff
that I don't do anymore," Hagar said. "Then my (Waboritas) guitar
player, Vic Johnson, joins Los Tres Gusanos and then we do like a kind
of a little Van Halen set, five or six Van Halen songs that I normally
wouldn't do."
A no-holds-barred encore tops off what Hagar predicts will be a
three-hour show. The tour wraps up May 14 in St. Louis, and after that
Hagar plans to resume his year-long vacation from music. This, of
course, means that all will remain quiet on the Van Halen front at
least until next year.
That probably comes as disappointing news to the many fans who had
hoped last year's tour would propel the reunited foursome of Hagar,
Anthony and brothers Eddie Van Halen (guitar) and Alex Van Halen
(drums) back into the studio to make the first CD of new material by
this lineup since 1995's "Balance."
Hagar, who began his career in the band Montrose, was already an
established solo star when he replaced the group's original singer,
David Lee Roth, in 1985.
The Roth-fronted version of Van Halen was already one of the world's
biggest hard rock acts, but Hagar's tenure took the band to even
greater heights, as CDs like "5150" (1986) and "OU812" (1988) and "For
Unlawful Carnal Knowledge" (1991) became chart-topping blockbuster
hits. But after "Balance," things fell apart.
First came Hagar's stormy departure - a response in part to his
opposition to the release of the band's 1996 greatest hits collection
and to the band's decision to reunite with Roth to record a pair of new
songs for that CD.
Van Halen went downhill from there. First, the flirtation with Roth
fell apart. So the group recruited a new singer, Gary Cherone from
Extreme, a move that resulted in a dud of a CD, "Van Halen III," and
Cherone's departure.
Then came news that Eddie Van Halen had been diagnosed with throat
cancer - an illness from which the guitarist has since recovered.
As time continued to march on Van Halen remained on what started to
look like permanent hold. That changed near the end of 2003 when Hagar,
while vacationing in California, decided to call Alex Van Halen just to
renew acquaintances. What started out as an opportunity to mend a
friendship soon evolved into a full-fledged Van Halen reunion after a
jam session at Eddie Van Halen's home studio.
While the four musicians were clearly excited to be a band again, Hagar
said getting Van Halen back up and running was anything but effortless.
The first major challenge was writing and recording three new songs for
"The Best Of Both Worlds," the greatest hits CD that was released in
conjunction with the tour.
"It took us four months to write three songs, and it wasn't really as
easy as people probably imagined, trying to put the four of us back
together," Hagar said. "There were a lot of things, not necessarily
problems, not necessarily arguments. It wasn't like that. It was just
that it wasn't easy.
"Eddie, he didn't really have the music together," Hagar said.
"Everyone probably thinks Eddie's a genius musician. He can just pick
up his guitar and you've got a song. It ain't like that. He picks up a
guitar and you've got a bunch of great musical riffs and chord changes
and ideas. But to carve it out into a song, which is what Eddie and my
job has always been, and I've got to write lyrics and get a (vocal)
melody and get a coherent structure out of the song, it was work. It
was like doing five albums trying to do those three songs."
Then came the tour, which taxed the group both physically and
emotionally.
"It really felt good. It felt like the old times and there was really
an energetic thing about it and a full kind of energy," Hagar said.
"But then you go out for a year with that group of people, and you get
to those points where everybody gets a little irritated and everybody
gets a little worn out. You get a couple of injuries here and there.
At one point my knee was so bad and my left ankle, I just twisted
everything up so bad on stage, man for a couple of shows I was
practically limping around the stage. And your throat is bashed up and
Eddie smashed a guitar into his face and had a big cut across his nose,
there are points where you just get irritable. 'When's this going to be
done?' So all that fun and excitement of getting back together was
great and all, but we used it up. We used it up that year. Now we need
another reason and another situation, and the best thing that could
happen is put time in between it."
So for now, all is quiet on the Van Halen front, but Hagar said he's
confident the band has a future.
"There is no plan, there is not speculation about when," he said. "But
I'm sure that we will do it again. You have to. Something that
powerful, it's not even about the money. It's more, it's just something
that the world will force you into doing by hook or by crook.
Promoters, our manager, the agents, the record companies, all those
powers that be little by little will start chipping away at it and
we'll be back in there doing it again. I'm sure of that."
some 30 shows last year as a solo artist and then reuniting with Van
Halen to record three new songs and do a major headlining tour, he
needed the break.
"That was a very grueling tour," Hagar said of the 80-date Van Halen
trek. "It was brutal. So when I was done, I said I'm taking next year
off. I don't even want to talk to you or anybody else about anything.
Don't even ask me about when you want to get back together Really
honestly, I think everyone was just worn out from it."
But Hagar, who is having major success as a businessman marketing his
brand of premium tequila, Cabo Wabo Tequila, and last year opened a
second Cabo Wabo Cantina in Lake Tahoe, Nevada (the original is in Cabo
San Lucas, Mexico), said circumstances demanded that he strap on the
guitar and do a special mini-tour this spring.
"I was going to take this whole year off, but Cinco de Mayo is a
Mexican holiday and the tequila holiday of the year," Hagar said. "So
I'm going, I've got to play somewhere."
Somewhere began with three shows at his Cabo Wabo Cantina in Lake Tahoe
and will include a half dozen more dates, including a Tuesday stop at
Oneida Bingo & Casino.
Being the showman he is, Hagar has turned his mini-tour into an event
by bringing along a side band, Los Tres Gusanos, which up to now, had
only played at Hagar's Cabo Wabo Cantina in Cabo San Lucas.
This trio (the name translates into The Three Worms) features notable
members - Hagar on guitar and vocals, Van Halen bassist Michael Anthony
and Waboritas drummer Michael Lauser.
The trio will actually do much more than a token appearance during the
show. After Hagar and the Waboritas play a full set of recent solo
material, the spotlight will shift to Los Tres Gusanos.
"We play all the old Sammy stuff, 'I've Done Everything For You,'
'Plain Jane,' 'The Planet's On Fire,' 'For Love Or Money,' the stuff
that I don't do anymore," Hagar said. "Then my (Waboritas) guitar
player, Vic Johnson, joins Los Tres Gusanos and then we do like a kind
of a little Van Halen set, five or six Van Halen songs that I normally
wouldn't do."
A no-holds-barred encore tops off what Hagar predicts will be a
three-hour show. The tour wraps up May 14 in St. Louis, and after that
Hagar plans to resume his year-long vacation from music. This, of
course, means that all will remain quiet on the Van Halen front at
least until next year.
That probably comes as disappointing news to the many fans who had
hoped last year's tour would propel the reunited foursome of Hagar,
Anthony and brothers Eddie Van Halen (guitar) and Alex Van Halen
(drums) back into the studio to make the first CD of new material by
this lineup since 1995's "Balance."
Hagar, who began his career in the band Montrose, was already an
established solo star when he replaced the group's original singer,
David Lee Roth, in 1985.
The Roth-fronted version of Van Halen was already one of the world's
biggest hard rock acts, but Hagar's tenure took the band to even
greater heights, as CDs like "5150" (1986) and "OU812" (1988) and "For
Unlawful Carnal Knowledge" (1991) became chart-topping blockbuster
hits. But after "Balance," things fell apart.
First came Hagar's stormy departure - a response in part to his
opposition to the release of the band's 1996 greatest hits collection
and to the band's decision to reunite with Roth to record a pair of new
songs for that CD.
Van Halen went downhill from there. First, the flirtation with Roth
fell apart. So the group recruited a new singer, Gary Cherone from
Extreme, a move that resulted in a dud of a CD, "Van Halen III," and
Cherone's departure.
Then came news that Eddie Van Halen had been diagnosed with throat
cancer - an illness from which the guitarist has since recovered.
As time continued to march on Van Halen remained on what started to
look like permanent hold. That changed near the end of 2003 when Hagar,
while vacationing in California, decided to call Alex Van Halen just to
renew acquaintances. What started out as an opportunity to mend a
friendship soon evolved into a full-fledged Van Halen reunion after a
jam session at Eddie Van Halen's home studio.
While the four musicians were clearly excited to be a band again, Hagar
said getting Van Halen back up and running was anything but effortless.
The first major challenge was writing and recording three new songs for
"The Best Of Both Worlds," the greatest hits CD that was released in
conjunction with the tour.
"It took us four months to write three songs, and it wasn't really as
easy as people probably imagined, trying to put the four of us back
together," Hagar said. "There were a lot of things, not necessarily
problems, not necessarily arguments. It wasn't like that. It was just
that it wasn't easy.
"Eddie, he didn't really have the music together," Hagar said.
"Everyone probably thinks Eddie's a genius musician. He can just pick
up his guitar and you've got a song. It ain't like that. He picks up a
guitar and you've got a bunch of great musical riffs and chord changes
and ideas. But to carve it out into a song, which is what Eddie and my
job has always been, and I've got to write lyrics and get a (vocal)
melody and get a coherent structure out of the song, it was work. It
was like doing five albums trying to do those three songs."
Then came the tour, which taxed the group both physically and
emotionally.
"It really felt good. It felt like the old times and there was really
an energetic thing about it and a full kind of energy," Hagar said.
"But then you go out for a year with that group of people, and you get
to those points where everybody gets a little irritated and everybody
gets a little worn out. You get a couple of injuries here and there.
At one point my knee was so bad and my left ankle, I just twisted
everything up so bad on stage, man for a couple of shows I was
practically limping around the stage. And your throat is bashed up and
Eddie smashed a guitar into his face and had a big cut across his nose,
there are points where you just get irritable. 'When's this going to be
done?' So all that fun and excitement of getting back together was
great and all, but we used it up. We used it up that year. Now we need
another reason and another situation, and the best thing that could
happen is put time in between it."
So for now, all is quiet on the Van Halen front, but Hagar said he's
confident the band has a future.
"There is no plan, there is not speculation about when," he said. "But
I'm sure that we will do it again. You have to. Something that
powerful, it's not even about the money. It's more, it's just something
that the world will force you into doing by hook or by crook.
Promoters, our manager, the agents, the record companies, all those
powers that be little by little will start chipping away at it and
we'll be back in there doing it again. I'm sure of that."