Red - My Uncensored Life In Rock Part 10

I decided to put a band together. I wanted somebody the opposite of Eddie Van Halen. Every guy I auditioned would try to do Eddie's five-finger tapping thing. Anytime somebody did that, they were done instantly. I wanted a black guy who played more like Hendrix or Stevie Ray Vaughan. Somebody told me that Vic Johnson of the Bus Boys was a big Montrose freak. I brought him up from Los Angeles for an audition. I asked him, did he know "Three Lock Box." "h.e.l.l, yeah," he said and off he went. I hired him on the spot. I had David Lauser back on drums, and Jesse Harms played keyboards. Jesse was real important to my music during this period. He supported my songwriting, writing bridges and choruses, and he was a soulful singer, although we eventually had a head-b.u.t.t and I fired him.

I wanted a girl ba.s.s player and they are hard to find. White Zombie had one. David Lauser found Mona Gnader. She was living way up in the sticks near Willits, California. She pulled up to my house on a Harley, with her ba.s.s strapped on the sissy bar. And she could play her a.s.s off. One thing I loved about Mona is she's like Michael Anthony's twin. She's left-handed but she plays right-handed. She's a little fireplug, about the same size. They both have this high voice. They're like sister and brother from another mother.

The second Mona started playing in my band, I became a better singer. Most ba.s.s players play really hard, like Michael Anthony, banging it until he's knocking it out of tune. Singers get their note from the ba.s.s, whether they know it or not. You may think you're listening to the piano or the guitar, but the second that ba.s.s starts to play, you're singing to the ba.s.s. Mona has tiny fingers and she plays like Paul McCartney, very soft. She cranks up the amplifier, but she hits the strings lightly. Suddenly I sing dead on-key. Kari had to spiff up Mona a bit. Mona never owned any clothes but a pair of shorts, a pair of jeans, motorcycle boots, and a T-s.h.i.+rt, and she never wore lipstick or makeup in her life.

I decided I wanted to dress like Janis Joplin, so I went to Haight Street before that tour, and bought crushed-velvet stretch pants. I was going to go hippie in this band with a biker chick and a black guy. I didn't want a heavy metal, glamorous rock band. It took me a while to figure out exactly who we were, but I knew I had this great, quirky little band that I named the Waboritas-and later shortened to the Wabos-and we rehea.r.s.ed every day.

We did 142 shows that year. I went to promoters named Louis Messina and Irv Zuckerman, out of St. Louis, the two guys most responsible for breaking me way back in the beginning, and arranged for them to coproduce the entire tour. I played three-thousand-seat theaters and did every city in the country, 142 shows that year and another 138 the next year. We went door-to-door. Everywhere we went, I was saying, "I am back. I am back." It was the hardest I ever worked, twice as hard as Van Halen. I kept meaning to slow down, but instead I keep stepping it up. I don't know what's wrong with me.

I tried a bus for about the first two weeks of that tour. We were playing almost every night. I'd get back on the bus and I couldn't sleep. I chartered an eight-seater turbo prop Beech 200. It was expensive for how much we were making in the theaters. I was carrying a pretty big production. I hired Jonathan Smeeton, who did all those great Peter Gabriel shows, and he knew how to take one truck's worth of gear and make it look huge. He was also a great lighting designer, but all that was expensive. I didn't really care about the money I was making on tour. I was just trying to get back in the game.

Kari loved our band and everybody loved little Kama. Vic Johnson would sit with Kama on his lap on the airplane. That's how we rolled. We all jumped on this airplane, every seat taken, tour manager sitting on the toilet in the back, and we flew all over the d.a.m.n country. We were trying to write songs for a second alb.u.m while we were on the road. I wanted to do it the old-fas.h.i.+oned way. When we weren't touring, we went down to Cabo. That's where we started to find out who we were and invent the party.

I DECIDED I wanted to make my own tequila for the cantina. I'd first tasted real tequila when I was shopping for furniture for the cantina in Guadalajara. The 100 percent agave brands were not available in the States at the time, like they are now. I'd always loved the ritual of tequila-the salt, the hit, the lime. That's fun when you're partying with friends. But you don't have to do that with good tequila. The salt is important for the first taste, to clear your palate, like having a salad before a steak. It just sets it right up. When I tasted real tequila, I flipped out. wanted to make my own tequila for the cantina. I'd first tasted real tequila when I was shopping for furniture for the cantina in Guadalajara. The 100 percent agave brands were not available in the States at the time, like they are now. I'd always loved the ritual of tequila-the salt, the hit, the lime. That's fun when you're partying with friends. But you don't have to do that with good tequila. The salt is important for the first taste, to clear your palate, like having a salad before a steak. It just sets it right up. When I tasted real tequila, I flipped out.

Just finding agave growers to make it for me was difficult. Most of them sold their crops to the big manufacturers, and, if they kept any to make their own, they made small batches, like twenty cases, for their friends and families to drink. I finally found a farmer who would do it and deliver the tequila in brand-new five-gallon gas cans and plastic bottles. We transferred the tequila to oak barrels, real tequila-aging barrels that we bought, and served it right out of the barrel.

When I'd just started making the tequila, Kari and I were still going over to Maui every chance we could get, even though we were working so hard. I got reacquainted with Shep Gordon, Alice Cooper's manager, who lived in Maui and owned one of the island's great restaurants. I showed him the tequila and he liked it. He called Willie Nelson, who also has a place on the island, and Willie came over to Shep's to taste the tequila. "That's d.a.m.n good tequila," he said.

I had some porcelain bottles made and we started bottling the stuff. Shep Gordon found a distributor on Hawaii and we s.h.i.+pped a hundred cases as a test. The corks didn't fit, the bottles cracked. Half the cases arrived upside-down. It was a mess. We started making bottles out of hand-blown gla.s.s and s.h.i.+pping over more cases, until we finally got it right. But our manufacturer landed in trouble with the Mexican government, who confiscated some of their property for back taxes, and they were demanding a million dollars to go ahead. We started looking for another grower.

That's when we found the Rivera family, three generations of family, the grandfather, the father, and the son, all working together in the fields. They didn't even have factories. They had mules pulling carts in the field. These guys would dig a hole in the ground, start a fire, and cook the agave right there. Their tequilas were really trippy, much smokier, but very inconsistent. Every batch was different. Every now and then, they would hit on something.

In 1999, Shep Gordon made a deal with Wilson Daniels, a high-end wine dealer. I knew who they were, since I'd been collecting fine wine since Capitol Records president Bhaskar Menon gave me a case of 1966 Pichon Lalande Bordeaux for Christmas. These guys dealt with the echezeaux, La Tache, Romanee-Conti, Richebourg, wines so fine and so limited in production, people are happy if they can buy a couple of bottles, never mind a couple of cases. They were interested in getting into the spirits business and ordered six thousand cases of Cabo Wabo. The Riveras had to step up to deliver. They were used to making twenty, maybe fifty cases a year, but they managed.

About this time, I ran into Narada Michael Walden, the Marin County record producer who'd made those big Whitney Houston hit records, "How Will I Know" and all that. He said he wanted to produce me and I asked him, if I let him produce me, what would he do. He told me to go out and find my favorite rock track, loop it, and write a new song. The rappers were all doing that-Tone Loc's "Funky Cold Medina" had actually used "Rock Candy." The first thing that popped into my head was "Rock and Roll Part Two" by Gary Glitter. I'm thinking, "Great f.u.c.king idea."

I asked Jesse Harms to loop it, and I wrote "Mas Tequila." We went into my little bas.e.m.e.nt studio and Lauser played drums. Everybody at MCA got all excited. The Wabos and I made our second alb.u.m, Tequila." We went into my little bas.e.m.e.nt studio and Lauser played drums. Everybody at MCA got all excited. The Wabos and I made our second alb.u.m, Red Voodoo, Red Voodoo, downstairs, crammed in, totally digging the small-time, bas.e.m.e.nt studio vibe. I didn't care if the drums sounded like c.r.a.p and there was leakage. If it was a good take, that was the magic I wanted. It was the opposite of downstairs, crammed in, totally digging the small-time, bas.e.m.e.nt studio vibe. I didn't care if the drums sounded like c.r.a.p and there was leakage. If it was a good take, that was the magic I wanted. It was the opposite of Marching to Mars Marching to Mars.

Shep came down to Cabo. We went to the factory. He came to the cantina. He saw the band. I had this 100 percent agave tequila that was freaking out everybody who tasted it. He saw me onstage in a bathing suit, Mona wearing shorts and flip-flops. "Roll it all together," he said.

It made sense. Take the lifestyle and bring it to the stage. It was who we were. We were getting ready to bring out the tequila. It all snapped together.

I had heard of Jimmy Buffett, but didn't really know what he was about. Kari drew the connection immediately and she took me to see a Jimmy Buffet concert at Sh.o.r.eline Amphitheatre in Mountain View. I asked Jonathan Smeeton, who'd been so great on the last tour, to design a set that looked like the Cabo Wabo. He went down for a week, took pictures, made drawings, and came back with a stage. He's got the audience onstage. He's got the palm trees, the palapa palapa roof, everything. roof, everything.

"Mas Tequila" comes out and is a huge hit-most adds the first week, fastest rock radio track to the top of the charts, stayed there for weeks, one of the big hits of the year in 1999. (After the song came out, I ended up with only one-third of the songwriting credit, even though I took out the loop and reversed the chord change. MCA's lawyers split the take with Gary Glitter and his songwriting partner.) Tequila" comes out and is a huge hit-most adds the first week, fastest rock radio track to the top of the charts, stayed there for weeks, one of the big hits of the year in 1999. (After the song came out, I ended up with only one-third of the songwriting credit, even though I took out the loop and reversed the chord change. MCA's lawyers split the take with Gary Glitter and his songwriting partner.) Shep Gordon talked the Hard Rock Cafe into hosting a promotional tour. He got MCA to pay. We did fourteen cities, free concerts, tied in with radio stations, the works, and we launched the tequila. We sold thirty-seven thousand cases the first year, instantly the second bestselling premium brand in the country. Something like Tanqueray gin only sells fifty thousand cases.

Looking back now, I can see I wanted to be a small-time band again, get far away from that gigantic Van Halen scale. I wanted to go back and be a club band, roll that whole Cabo Wabo vibe into everything. We loved playing down there. We'd go down there on our time off and have a blast. We'd play for free at the cantina. The place was always packed. Everybody was drunk. n.o.body cared what we played. I was done with that big-time Van Halen thing.

When we went out on that tour, I opened the show by walking out in front of a closed curtain wearing shorts, shades, tank top, and flip-flops, house lights up. I'd introduce the Wabos and then I would have a waitress in a bikini bring me the fixings and make myself a c.o.c.ktail. I'd finish with the tequila. "Here's the way you do it," I would say. "You put a little Cabo in there." As soon as I said "cheers," the band would break into an a cappella version of "Cabo Wabo." It was something a little different for my crowd.

That was the invention of the Wabos. We became exactly who we are. This is the way I live. This is what I eat. This is what I drink. This is how I act. This is the way I play. These are the kind of songs I sing. We found ourselves and that's when the whole birthday bash thing took off.

The Cabo Wabo became a place where anybody could come down and play. I never charged for my birthday bash. It was special to me. I brought my whole family, my brother and sisters and their families, everybody. People started showing up-Slash, Alice Cooper, Rob Zombie, Mickey Hart, Bob Weir, Stephen Stills, drummer Matt Sorum and ba.s.sist Duff McKagan of Guns N' Roses, Jerry Cantrell from Alice in Chains, Billy Duffy from the Cult, and, of course, Michael Anthony. Chad Smith, the Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer, started coming.

Toby Keith flies in every year for my birthday. Kenny Chesney came down one year with his whole band and played for three hours and forty minutes. He holds the record at the Cabo Wabo for how long he played. He wore my a.s.s out playing "Eagles Fly," "Fall in Love Again," some of the Van Halen songs, his favorite stuff. He still claims the only reason he came off the stage was because he had to take a pee. He was drinking a lot of beer up there.

John Entwistle of the Who had a timeshare down there. His birthday was October 9, a day after my brother's. He came down every year for my birthday party-my annual birthday celebration usually lasted two weeks or more. Entwistle loved to party. We probably played together there five years in a row. The last year before he died, he came over to my house. He was so deaf. He spoke really low because his hearing aids were turned up so loud. He took them out to change the batteries and the d.a.m.n things were screeching louder than the waves cras.h.i.+ng outside my deck. I couldn't believe he didn't hear it. He put them back in like nothing happened. What a sweet man. He was pretty high most of the time. John always had a drink and a cigarette in his hand. He didn't walk around with his hands free. He wore his snakeskin boots, tight jeans and giant belt buckles with spiders on them, flashy s.h.i.+rts and big old shades.

I'd try to get him to sing "Boris the Spider" but he'd go, "Oh, man, I can't sing." We'd jam on Who tunes-"My Generation," "Won't Be Fooled Again," "Summertime Blues." I always played guitar when John was there. I loved playing the Who songs with John. He could really play. I never saw a set of fingers on anyone like his. He would take Mona's amp or Mikey's amp and blow them up. Every time. I've got good pictures on the cantina wall of John.

One year, Stephen Stills came down. There were a bunch of people already there-Matt Sorum, Michael Anthony, Jerry Cantrell, and a couple of the guys from Metallica, drummer Lars Ulrich and guitarist Kirk Hammet, along with my whole band.

Stephen's tour manager called ahead. I told him we would be excited to see Stephen and was there anything he likes that I could get him.

"Stephen likes c.o.ke," he said.

Stills showed up around midnight. We had already played a set-Lars Ulrich, Jerry Cantrell, and a bunch of us. He walks in wearing a tweed wool jacket. It's 110 outside. He's got long pants, boots, sweating like a maniac, dragging his overweight a.s.s up the stairs. I'm a big fan, but this guy is f.u.c.ked up. I take him in the bathroom and give him a gram of c.o.ke that I had somebody get. He opens it up, closes it back, throws it on the ground, reaches in his pocket, and pulls out a Bayer aspirin bottle full of c.o.ke. "I've got my own," he said.

He tapped out a bottle-cap for each nostril, pow...pow pow...pow. I did a little. It was powerful. A guy who tried some later told me it was so strong, you touched it and your face went numb. Everybody dug in.

We went out and Stephen started playing "Crossroads." Matt Sorum played drums, Jerry Cantrell and I were playing guitar, and Michael Anthony was on ba.s.s. After a bit, Lars slid in behind the drum set and Stephen struck up "For What It's Worth." Lars didn't know the song, so he just started beating on things. Stephen stopped the song. "Where's that other drummer?" he said. "Get that other drummer down here." Lars practically crawled offstage. But Stephen was cool. He didn't care. He wanted the other drummer.

Then those guys got lost for three days. They disappeared. They went out that night, they went someplace and didn't come back. I can't hang like that. When they came back, I heard what happened. They all said Stephen took them down, all the young bucks, and showed them. "He put us all to shame," Lars said. "We saw the sun come up three times."

I tried to get with Stephen another night. I went over to this penthouse place where he was staying and took a couple of acoustic guitars. He is really a great acoustic guitar player and I wanted to learn something from him, some of his tunings, maybe cowrite a song. We got so high, by the time we picked up the guitars, it was useless. I tried to show him a song idea, and he couldn't care less. Then he would try to show me something, and I'd be like, "Okay, well, maybe, no, next." There was no connection. I love Stephen, but he's a hard guy to communicate with.

"What's with Steve?" I asked his tour manager. "He s.h.i.+nes me on. You say something to him, he'll turn around and walk away."

"He can't hear," he said. "He probably doesn't even know you said anything."

I climbed aboard the airplane to go home-I was flying commercial-and looked across the tarmac. Here comes Stephen, limping his way to the plane, dragging his leg like the mummy. He's still wearing the tweed sport coat-he probably hasn't changed his clothes the whole time. He plopped down in the seat across the aisle, one row ahead in the first-cla.s.s cabin. He didn't even acknowledge me.

Finally, he recognized me and said h.e.l.lo, but he was shut down, not talking. His leg was obviously hurting. Then it occurred to me-all the seafood, the dehydration, the booze, the blow-this cat has gout. I've had it. I know what it's like. He'd been eating shrimp and lobster, rock clams. I bring all that stuff into the dressing room. We have these wonderful seafood feasts. He was drinking tequila like a fish and wearing that jacket. He sweated his a.s.s off, probably didn't drink any water. He said he was in such agony on the plane, his leg was killing him. Gout, definitely. I left him alone. When we got to customs, I ditched him completely. I didn't see myself going through customs with him. No telling what he had on him.

13.

ENTER IRVING.

My pal Johnny Barbis called me from lunch at a restaurant. "Sam, have you ever met Irving?" he said. "Let me put him on the phone."

Irving Azoff was the notorious manager of the Eagles. He was one of the most powerful figures in the music business. Barbis handed Irving the phone and he wasted no time saying the right things. "You should be making a lot more money than you're making," he said.

He seemed like a really nice guy. He told me to give him a call if I ever needed a hand, and, shortly after that, I asked him to look into a record deal I was about to sign. He came back with everything b.u.t.toned up, some nice little perks included, and when I asked him what I owed him, he told me not to worry about it. Smart guy.

The next time I was in Los Angeles, I went to his office for a meeting. I was very impressed with Irving. We were talking about my tequila business, and he said, "I know somebody who might be able to help. Let's get him on the phone."

He picks up the phone, click, click, click, click, he's on with someone. "Hey, Joe, I've got Sammy Hagar sitting here. He's trying to get his tequila in Costco. Think you can help us out?" he's on with someone. "Hey, Joe, I've got Sammy Hagar sitting here. He's trying to get his tequila in Costco. Think you can help us out?"

Irving knows everybody. He's smart and he knows how to make things happen. He took me under his wing and did me right. I started making a little more money. Things start happening a little better for me. If I have a problem, I call him, boom, the problem goes away. He's got power and smarts. Next thing I know, he's making deals for me, managing me, taking his percentage. I never signed a contract. Never even shook hands. But he was very fair. He didn't charge for expenses. He would send out a guy named Tom Consolo from his management team. Consolo would fly in and out, get his own room, his own transportation, pay his own way, and Irving charged me 15 percent of the gross after production expenses. A lot of managers take more than that. I thought Irving was great.

At this point in my career, I felt comfortable doing anything. I didn't care about my so-called image.

I was open to all sorts of crazy ideas. Irving and I were sitting around his office, scheming about what to do for a tour in summer 2002. We were talking about special guests and opening acts and somebody asked if I ever thought about going out with Roth, just to p.i.s.s off Van Halen and get the fans worked up.

"What a great idea," I said, "but he's never going to go for it."

"Let's see," said Irving, picking up the phone. He called up somebody, and, what do you know, Roth wants to have a meeting.

I had never met Roth, only spoken to him on the phone once, so I was surprised when this tall, statuesque rock G.o.d walked into Irving's office in full drag-big hat; shades; tight, s.h.i.+ny black outfit with pants that hung down over his boots. I didn't know he was so tall, but when he sat down and crossed his legs, I saw that he was wearing five-inch platform heels. I was dressed in a T-s.h.i.+rt, shorts, and flip-flops. He sat stiff on the chair, trying to stay taller than everybody else. I went to the bathroom.

"There has been a lot said between us," Roth said. "Let's forget it and take it from here."

It would be the last sign of cooperation from him.

Right at the start, he rejected my suggestion that we sing a few songs together and make it a friendly thing. He envisioned something more along the lines of a WWF SmackDown. We agreed to do the tour, decided we would trade off headlining-Roth one night, me the next night-with the first date to be determined by the flip of a coin, but every day after that brought another new demand from his camp.

I knew about his business. A few years before, a friend booked him for a show in Tahoe for $10,000 and kept calling me during his show to let me hear how far off-key he was and how badly he was singing. Still Roth insisted on being paid as much as I was, even though we both knew what he'd been drawing at his solo shows. He couldn't match my box office. He wanted ten times what he was making on his own. Irving convinced me to go along.

"You're going to blow him off," Irving said. "He's got this bulls.h.i.+t cover band. The whole world's going to finally see that you are the better of the two. Let's go out and prove it, Sammy. Come on, don't get greedy now. It's about your future. All the promoters are going to say, 'Sammy is better than him and he's the one that's doing the business and we're going to pay him more.' You're going to double your money next time you go out by going out with Dave."

We held a press conference and flipped the coin, but Roth kept renegotiating. He insisted on closing the shows in Los Angeles and New York. Irving finessed that by booking the show into a smaller venue in Los Angeles for two nights, so we could each headline one night, but the booking at Jones Beach in New York fell apart. Roth wouldn't give in and I refused to let him win. We skipped New York on the tour.

It was like that the whole time. Roth wasn't going over all that great. He lost his voice and could no longer sing very well anyway. His lame band played all old Van Halen songs, and the Wabos and I were ripping it up with new songs and my solo material, saving four or five Van Halen songs to play with Michael Anthony. The fans loved that. Roth never once asked Mike to play with him. My T-s.h.i.+rts were outselling his by more than four to one.

Ted Nugent and Kid Rock stood onstage to introduce me in Detroit. After the show, Kid Rock dragged me into Roth's dressing room and asked why we weren't singing some songs together. He said we were ripping off the fans by not doing it. Roth agreed to do it and we shook hands. When I sent the tour manager to see him the next night about what songs we were going to do, he came back and reported that Roth was in a bad mood and wouldn't come off the bus. When I went up to Roth later, he said he stayed up all night with Kid Rock and couldn't sing.

"My throat," he said. "Tomorrow."

He repeated that routine again and again. It got to be a running joke. I'd beat on his dressing-room door and yell, "Hey, Dave, what are we going to do tonight?"

He would go to any lengths to grab the spotlight. The Los Angeles Times Los Angeles Times sent a reporter to write a feature about the tour to St. Louis, my number-one market. Roth refused to give the guy an interview until right before I went onstage. The reporter decided to watch my show instead. sent a reporter to write a feature about the tour to St. Louis, my number-one market. Roth refused to give the guy an interview until right before I went onstage. The reporter decided to watch my show instead.

He pulled bulls.h.i.+t like that all along the tour. We rolled into Fresno and Roth called to say his bus broke down. I either had to go ahead and open the show or wait until after midnight, past curfew, to headline. We went out and opened the show and he pulled up in time to take the stage after us. What a jerk. Instead of showing any grat.i.tude for the big business we were doing, pulling him out of nowhere and putting him back on arena stages, he was impossible. I finally shot my mouth off to a reporter for the Page Six column of the New York Post New York Post.

"He's a f.u.c.king bald-headed a.s.shole," I said, "a swaggering, middle-aged prima donna who was out there pretending to be something he no longer was. He's a nostalgia act who has to wear a wig and he even spray-paints that."

We were at the Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre in Charlotte, North Carolina, when Roth saw the piece. David Lauser was walking through the dressing room, wrapped in a towel, on his way to the showers. "h.e.l.lo, ladies," he said.

"f.u.c.k you," Roth screamed. "You calling me a f.a.ggot? You f.u.c.king f.a.g."

I stepped out of my dressing room when I heard the yelling. "Dave, you need to lighten up," I said.

"f.u.c.k you," he said.

A couple of the road crew jumped between us, but Roth traveled with five large bodyguards and they waded in, knocking the roadies to the floor. We called the cops. After that, a plywood barrier was erected to divide the dressing room at every gig. He wasn't allowed on the premises until I was finished and I couldn't show up until he was done.

I had originally hoped that Roth and I going out together would jar those lame-brains from Amsterdam into joining up for a stadium tour by Sam and Dave and Van Halen. It would have been the biggest tour in the world. But that was never going to happen. The Sam and Dave tour was a huge financial success, but a personal disaster.

DESPITE THE FRUSTRATION of the Roth tour, I kept trying new opportunities. I jumped at the chance when I was invited to play with the Dead on Valentine's Day 2003 at the Warfield Theater in San Francisco, the first time those guys got back together and used that name since Jerry died. Kari and I went to dinner before, so we arrived a little overdressed, but just seeing the marquee reading of the Roth tour, I kept trying new opportunities. I jumped at the chance when I was invited to play with the Dead on Valentine's Day 2003 at the Warfield Theater in San Francisco, the first time those guys got back together and used that name since Jerry died. Kari and I went to dinner before, so we arrived a little overdressed, but just seeing the marquee reading THE DEAD THE DEAD was heavy to me. I went over to Bob Weir's house a few days before and he told me to pick a song to jam at the show. I chose "Loose Lucy." was heavy to me. I went over to Bob Weir's house a few days before and he told me to pick a song to jam at the show. I chose "Loose Lucy."

We talked it over on the break backstage. Phil Lesh was really cool. When I asked about the arrangement, Phil told me to just feel it. I asked how many bars before I came in singing. "Come in when you want," he said. "When you come in, that'll be the verse."

I'd sat in with these guys years before, when they were the Other Ones, but I just played guitar on the last song, "Fire on the Mountain." This time they were backing me, big difference. We did a great version-Deadhead tape traders love it. I sang a verse and let it rest. I looked around to see if anybody was going to cue me. These guys were off in their own vibe. They didn't care. When I came back in, everybody fell behind me. I really felt what they do. I didn't think it was one of those goose-b.u.mp moments, but the audience accepted me. It wasn't like when they introduced me, I got a big roar of recognition, more like, "Huh, what's he doing here?" But after I started singing, I could see they were digging it. When I came off, Mountain Girl came up and gave me a big hug. I'd never met Garcia's old lady, but I knew who she was.

"Sammy, you owned that song," she said.

For the summer of 2003, I made plans to go out with Lynyrd Skynyrd, "Party of a Lifetime" they called the tour, only to have surviving Skynyrd guitarist Gary Rossington collapse at the start of the tour from heart problems. The band canceled a string of dates. I came up with the bright idea of putting Montrose back together as my special guests and going ahead with the shows on my own. I offered the three of those guys ten grand a night to split, all expenses paid, private jet, road manager, the works. Bill Church and Denny Carma.s.si jumped at the chance. Ronnie Montrose was less eager.

"Okay, Hagar," he said, "but you sure you got the private plane?"

It turned out pretty great. I did my whole show and came back for the encore with Montrose. We did "Rock the Nation," "Bad Motor Scooter," "Rock Candy," "s.p.a.ce Station Number 5," and we always got an encore. They got paid more money than they'd ever made, and there were moments when we were really f.u.c.king good. But Ronnie started ego-tripping with my band, trying to tell my guitarist, Vic, where he could put his gear onstage, stupid s.h.i.+t like that. It was inevitable, I suppose, but I only did it a couple of more times.

But Irving didn't leave it there. He wanted some kind of Van Halen reunion and, since I looked like the sane one in the bunch and I was the guy he managed, he started working behind the scenes to make that happen. He got Al to give me a call on New Year's Eve 2003-the dawn of what turned out to be a very big year.

I love Al, always have. Even after I left the band, he and I would sometimes call each other on our birthdays or New Year's Eve. It was our way of staying in touch even when things were bad. The brothers had accomplished very little since I left.

They'd made an alb.u.m with Gary Cherone-who'd later told me that they had auditioned him while I was still in the band. Ray Danniels managed Cherone, because he managed Extreme. First, he tried to get Cherone into Phantom of the Opera Phantom of the Opera on Broadway. Later, Danniels told him he was going to be the singer in Van Halen. Gary's a talented guy. Good singer, good physical shape, a healthy guy, not a druggie, really a cool guy. Wrong for the band? A hundred times over. on Broadway. Later, Danniels told him he was going to be the singer in Van Halen. Gary's a talented guy. Good singer, good physical shape, a healthy guy, not a druggie, really a cool guy. Wrong for the band? A hundred times over.

The alb.u.m, Van Halen III, Van Halen III, was the only Van Halen alb.u.m that didn't go platinum. According to Gary, Eddie insisted he do exactly what he was told on the record. He told him what melodies to sing and even wrote some of the lyrics. He had never done any of that before. I remember Ray Danniels telling me, "Eddie wants his band back." I heard Eddie fired Al twice during the making of was the only Van Halen alb.u.m that didn't go platinum. According to Gary, Eddie insisted he do exactly what he was told on the record. He told him what melodies to sing and even wrote some of the lyrics. He had never done any of that before. I remember Ray Danniels telling me, "Eddie wants his band back." I heard Eddie fired Al twice during the making of Van Halen III Van Halen III. Eddie played the drums. I always told him he should do a solo record. It took years to make the record, because of the condition that Ed and Al were in.

I don't know how they managed to tour, even the short one they did. Al couldn't play very long. Eddie was hobbling. The tour for Van Halen III Van Halen III didn't do great business. They canceled a lot of dates. They did sixteen hundred people in Sacramento. I heard they played forty minutes and Eddie walked off the stage. I wasn't there, but Gary told me after we'd become friends. I brought him to play with me at a free concert at New York's Irving Plaza I did for the firefighters after the World Trade Center went down. He said Eddie also walked off the stage in the middle of the show in Boston and didn't come back for a half hour. didn't do great business. They canceled a lot of dates. They did sixteen hundred people in Sacramento. I heard they played forty minutes and Eddie walked off the stage. I wasn't there, but Gary told me after we'd become friends. I brought him to play with me at a free concert at New York's Irving Plaza I did for the firefighters after the World Trade Center went down. He said Eddie also walked off the stage in the middle of the show in Boston and didn't come back for a half hour.

They fired Cherone after the tour and started trying to get back again with Roth, which didn't last. They tried about five abortions with Roth. They would decide to get together, book a tour or start working on new material, but nothing ever happened. I knew what was going on. I kept in touch with Michael Anthony.

Meanwhile, I was doing well with the tequila. The Cabo Wabo Cantina had turned into an oil well pumping money, and so it wasn't like I needed the dough from a reunion tour. But the brothers were a different matter. They told me they were almost broke. Al had gotten a divorce and lost a lot. When he got divorced, he was largely in debt, but Al had been deep in debt when I left the band. They'd made some bad business decisions. They were kind of low on funds and they needed the money.

When Al called me on New Year's Eve 2003, I told him on the phone that Kari, the kids, and I were coming down to stay at Laguna Beach and he should come visit. He brought his new wife and their kid. They showed up around noon and stayed until midnight. We laughed, joked, and drank. Al drank coffee and I had a couple of gla.s.ses of wine. Late in the evening, Al's phone rang and it was Ed. He flipped the phone to me. Ed started drilling me.

"Why did you quit the band?" he said.

It was late at night. I figured the guy was wasted and s.h.i.+ned it on.

14.

SAMURAI HAIR.

I had been waiting at Eddie's 5150 Studios for more than an hour when he finally showed up. I hadn't seen him in ten years. He looked like he hadn't bathed in a week. He certainly hadn't changed his clothes in at least that long. He wasn't wearing a s.h.i.+rt. He had a giant overcoat and army pants, tattered and ripped at the cuffs, held up with a piece of rope. I'd never seen him so skinny in my life. He was missing a number of teeth and the ones he had left were black. His boots were so worn out he had gaffer's tape wrapped around them and his big toe still stuck out. had been waiting at Eddie's 5150 Studios for more than an hour when he finally showed up. I hadn't seen him in ten years. He looked like he hadn't bathed in a week. He certainly hadn't changed his clothes in at least that long. He wasn't wearing a s.h.i.+rt. He had a giant overcoat and army pants, tattered and ripped at the cuffs, held up with a piece of rope. I'd never seen him so skinny in my life. He was missing a number of teeth and the ones he had left were black. His boots were so worn out he had gaffer's tape wrapped around them and his big toe still stuck out.