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Sammy Hagar is a merchant of hard liquor -- selling his own brand of tequila and running Cabo Wabo Cantinas -- but he is never the troublesome alcoholic in any of his bands.No, the troublesome alcoholic always has been someone else, like Eddie Van Halen."Yeah," Hagar says when I tell him that. "I drink, but I don't have the disease. Alcoholism is a disease. My father had it. My brother has it; he can't drink." Hagar doesn't drink in the mornings. He generally doesn't drink before sundown, but sometimes he has a glass of wine with lunch. And he stops imbibing when he's buzzed, he says. Tequila company -- like if you're a drug dealer -- you can't do your drug. So I just drink responsibly." He hates the feeling of being sloppy drunk in public. And Hagar -- who fronts his solo band, plus the supergroup Chickenfoot -- thinks it's embarrassing when others go too far. "I have a low tolerance for people who are out of control." If that's true, how has he dealt with drunks in his bands? "I tell them, 'Get out of my face, dude. Come back and see me tomorrow -- sober,' " he says. He thinks he has more fun than anyone on the planet -- with his music. "But I don't allow anybody in my band to walk onstage wasted and sloppy. I'll fire 'em. "When I was dealing with Van Halen, we were always pretty responsible onstage. And when we went in the studio, we were, too. "If Eddie came in trashed, I'd say, 'Show's over, I'm going home.' I'd leave the studio. And the next day, everybody would be apologizing: 'I'm really sorry.' I'd say, 'It's OK, it's cool.' I don't hold grudges. "But I don't like trying to be creative or doing business of any kind when you're trashed, because something ain't gonna be up to standards." Speaking of Van Halen, Hagar is writing a memoir with music writer Joel Selvin, probably for release next year. And Hagar says no one in his past should be worried about what he'll write about them. "The Van Halen stuff -- I think Valerie (Bertinelli) put Eddie's stuff 'in the street.' So I'm just telling how it happened to me." Hagar was famously "pissed" at the way he and the band split. "They were really bad guys at that time. And I hated them. I would have drug them through the mud." But looking back, getting out of Van Halen was the greatest thing that ever happened to him, he says. "If that hadn't happened, I probably would still be in that band, and I'd be going to rehab with Eddie and Steven (Tyler)." And getting out of Van Halen led to much more success beyond the band, he says. "You know, the Van Halen brothers were my partners at one time in the original Cabo Wabo (cantina in Cabo San Lucas). They hated Mexico. It was 'too hot.' They wouldn't leave the room. "As soon as I got rid of those guys, the whole thing exploded." Still, he says, everyone in Van Halen, including Hagar, made stupid mistakes which seem comical now. Besides, it's not just famous people who annoy Hagar when they're sloppy drunk. When trashed "knuckleheads" approach him and ask him to get trashed too, he tells them, "I don't get all drunk and come to where you work, so leave me alone!" he says, but with a laugh, not with anger. The party routine Hagar recommends is drinking a couple of shots of tequila, then maybe a margarita, and spacing out the next drinks. "People go, 'I can't believe you're still walking around and still functioning at 2 in the morning.' I go, 'I've only had about six shots and three margaritas over a six-hour period.' " This means Hagar, 62, has turned down a lot of drinks in his day. "If I had every drink that someone tried to buy me, I would be in the hospital, man." Since he's married with kids, I tell him he must have turned down both many drinks and many ladies. He reminds me he wasn't always married. "I haven't turned them all down," he says, laughing. "I've had my fill of about everything, and I've probably turned down more than I've had. "I try to maintain a family life. I'm on my second marriage. In this business, that's not too bad. My first marriage lasted 19 years. And my second marriage now, we've been together for about 17 years. I'm proud of that, man. I've got young children. "I'm the luckiest man in the world. I've got two great bands. I do anything I want, anytime I want. It's just awesome." "If you own a |
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 Interview in the 'Huffington Post' conducted by Mike Ragogna 13th July 2010 MR: You had another great project that you've been working on, and forgive me if I don't know anymore about it than this, but it's your "What The Hell Was I Thinking?" project, right? DZ: Yeah, it's a record that I started a while ago, and I just haven't had a chance to really put it all together. I know I'm probably going to add some changes based on my own technical improvements to my playing. I guess the best way to describe the project is it's an audio movie. I recorded a bunch of different music that all segues together, so it's constantly morphing and turning. Each little segment has its own little audio environment, and then you have these cameo appearances by all these different guitar players who sort of start falling out of the speakers. So, it's got about thirty different people on there so far, I'll give you a list of some of the ones people would know: There's Eddie Van Halen, Brian May, Eric Johnson, Steve Vai, Steve Morse, Angus and Malcolm Young--who never played on anything other than an AC/DC record before--Yngwie Malmsteen, Warren DeMartini from RATT, Albert Lee, Brian Setzer, there are a ton of people like Jimmy Vaughn, Robin Ford, Joe Walsh. And the thing is, all these different people, they all have a very recognizable sound, and in the world of guitar playing, that's a real challenge--to create your own sound to where when you hear just a couple of notes you actually know who it is. The fun of it is that you're actually hearing a lot of these people out of context, they're playing on things they wouldn't normally be playing over, and that was part of the fun of making this project happen. So, either people are playing on exactly what you would expect them to play over, or something you would never expect them to play over. The Van Halen thing is pretty funny because I put this section together where I asked Edward to play sort of a "greatest hits" from all his different guitar licks. We just took different licks from different solos from different records and made him play them all and string them together in one guitar solo. That was pretty fun because it was like having your own toy Eddie Van Halen--like, "I'll make my Eddie Van Halen play this." Read the interview in full Here |
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From melodicrock.comMORE VAN HALEN RUMORS - 2011 TOUR!: Nothing going on in the world of Van Halen? Not on the surface maybe, but this from a brand new interview with Triumph frontman Rik Emmett: "We're scheduled to go for a dinner tonight with a couple of guys from Live Nation that have flown into town and want to take us to dinner. I'm sure there's going to be some sort of a pitch. The rumours that have been sort of blowing in the wind are that Van Halen want to go back out yet again next year, but they're going to need some sort of support to make the packaging a little more interesting. Because Triumph hasn't really ever toured in any kind of a nostalgia way, I think Live Nation kind of goes, "Oh, yeah, you guys would be perfect for that." So, we'll see sort of the size and the shape and the glitter of the golden carrots that they have." Full interview at: http://www.gibson.com/en-us/Lifestyl...Rik-Emmett-713. And this comment from a source that contacted me over the weekend who had the chance to hear some new Van Halen material recently: "I heard pieces...one has one of the best guitar riffs I have heard Eddie lay down in a long time, it made the hair on my arms tingle. DLR sounded great as well." |
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Heard Alice tonight.After VH song he was talking about EVH gear and that website.Go onto Wolfgang guitars.Then said how cool a name for a band could be THE WOLF-GANG. Could be a cool name if Wolf ever starts his own band.
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New Van Halen Album Just "Rumors" Band Says "I don't have any updates at this time,"
 In Feburary 2009, Eddie Van Halen told Rolling Stone he was working up new tracks for the band. "I've got tons of music written, such a variety of stuff," he said. "The essence of me is obviously there, and those drums, they're always recognizable. But people expect a certain thing from Van Halen, and this isn't exactly bang-your-head-against-the-wall stuff." As Rolling Stone previously reported, Eddie Van Halen underwent surgery in his left hand last summer to fix a bone spur, twisted tendon and a cyst in the joint of his left thumb, which required four to six months of rehabilitation. The surgery, along with Eddie's desire for his son and bassist Wolfgang to finish up high school before entering the studio, further delayed plans for Van Halen to record again with David Lee Roth. While Eddie should be healed by now and Wolfgang is a graduate, there's been no news from the Van Halen camp. However, Ticketmaster CEO Irving Azoff accidentally let slip last September that Van Halen might be touring again in 2010; so far no plans for a tour have been announced. The band reunited with Roth in September 2007 and their 2008 reunion trek grossed $93 million. |
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