Who Asked Me?

I wrote a definitive piece on the rock n roller Sammy Hagar some years back and before I started logging my writing on this blog in its current form. It was probably one of the better things I’ve written, and I titled it Genius Redefined. I posed a particular definition of the word (genius) that included the innate sense to write about and work with what one knows instinctively. As example I referenced the Hank Williams line “you’re just in time to be too late” in conjunction with Hagar’s song “I Can’t Drive 55″ and his lyrics “when I drive that slow it’s hard to steer / and I can’t get my car out of second gear.” It was never Hagar’s music that impressed me; I outgrew that at about sixteen. It was his ability to work with what he had, and to sustain that over an entire career without falling in to the various trappings of ego and fame.

Panned by critics and “discerning” fans alike, Hagar has motored on for forty years. He fronted the seminal California-based hard rock band Montrose before beginning a notably successful solo career. He joined Van Halen mid-stride in 1985, leading them to a string of number-one albums and singles. And he did it all singing songs with titles like “Poundcake” and lyrics like “red, red, I want red / there’s no substitute for red.” (Two different songs, but they make an equally adept point.) Some might attribute this to dumb luck or an uncanny ability to step in to gold everywhere he goes. For them, Hagar embarked on a string of successful business ventures. He invested in Fontana real estate and patented a fire sprinkler system for his apartment buildings. He started a travel agency that became hugely popular with his rock star brethren. He helped start the beginning of the mountain bike craze in California with shops in Corte Madera and Sausalito, and produced his own line of bikes that sold faster than they could make them. He built a club in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, and called it Cabo Wabo. It faltered initially, but Hagar enjoyed the area so he stuck with it and turned things around. Along the way he also developed an interest in good tequila and began his own boutique line, naming it after the club. Before long, it was the best selling specialty label in America. In 2007, Hagar sold all but a 20% interest in his Cabo Wabo Tequila brand to Italian liquor conglomerates Gruppo Campari. His take? Eighty million bucks. Or, to put it another way, “get on the phone and tell all your friends – it’s going to be a rock and roll weekend.”

My buddy Paul sent me a copy of Hagar’s recent memoir “Red – My Uncensored Life In Rock.” Paul is familiar with my continued curiosity regarding the man. It’s a fast read – 238 pages blurted out in spoken-word prose as interpreted by Hagar’s co-writer, Bay Area music journalist Joel Selvin. The back cover includes unqualified words of praise from both Ted Nugent and Whoopi Goldberg, not to mention Emeril Lagasse. And, of course, it went to #1 on the New York Times best seller list shortly after its release. Perhaps some of those who bought it share my same fascination and were hoping for clues regarding Hagar’s apparent life-long Midas touch. There’s a difficult upbringing in southern California, an abusive, alcoholic father, scrambling from shoddy house to shoddy house .. but really, not much to differentiate his from other hardscrabble childhoods. A more subtle clue might lie in the few words he uses to describe his mother, a woman who both bought him his first guitar on layaway and occasionally sifted through dumpsters to keep her kids fed. “She was so solid,” Hagar notes. “I don’t feel like some big star .. but there’s something inside of me that is my mom, and I really like that.” In observing her recent death he relates simply “I miss her every day.”

Hagar also touches on his business success, noting casually but convincingly that he could be a billionaire if he wanted, taking everything and leveraging it “like Donald Trump.” But he concludes “that would be the biggest waste of time on the fucking planet.” The post-script notes from Selvin take effective aim at those critics who have held Hagar in scorn for his average talent. “As a lifelong card-carrying member of rock music’s critical elite,” he writes, “I am fully aware of the regard in which such circles hold Sam. To them, I say, fuck you, the guy had ‘Rock Candy‘ on his first album.” Who knows, maybe Hagar’s success can be attributed to dumb luck and the fact that, unlike Trump, he always had the hair for the gig. But I prefer to chalk it up to correct cosmic alignment, humility, an unfaltering work ethic, and maternal influence. Either way, it’s been a heck of a run. Rock on, Sammy.