He couldn’t drive 55, wouldn’t sing “Jump,” and used blue collar sensibility to forge a heavy-metal career clad in red leather.  He didn’t fill David Lee Roth’s shoes because he didn’t have to, instead piloting Van Halen to lofty new heights.  And when he left brothers Eddie and Alex in the nineties, his solo career only prospered—whereas the VH camp only issued one new album, critically and commercially regarded as its worst. Sammy Hagar converted an old Gary Glitter hit into an infectious commercial-anthem for his burgeoning tequila business.    

 Le Rouge Rogue would be first to tell you he’s enjoyed more success than anyone has a right to.  From Hagar’s early “Bad Motor Scooter” days with Montrose to his late 70’s solo triumph, from his stint fronting the multiplatinum Van Halen to his current gig with super-group Chickenfoot—the story is compacted neatly into the 240 pages of RED: MY UNCENSORED LIFE IN ROCK, available now on Harper-Collins’ !t imprint. 

 The tome reads like a lot of Hagar’s hits sound—hard and fast, but playful—rife with quick jabs (witty rhetoric) and occasional uppercuts (unexpected revelations).  The paragraphs are informal and casually-tailored, as if Sammy were speaking directly to you from across a coffee table in a living room (indeed, he very likely dictated to co-author Joel Selvin).  The prose thus bears hallmarks of Hagar’s hippie-rocker speech.  The profanity is forgivable; for a man boasting such fame and fortune he’s surprisingly down-to-earth.  Anyone familiar with the shaggy-headed blonde knows it wasn’t just music that inspired his Red Empire.  Sammy’s got a lust for life, and this “Give to Live” attitude pervades his work.  And it’s the stuff that happens on tour—at the gigs, backstage (or beneath it), at hotel rooms and on private jets—that change a man.  Sammy’s journey is marked by many highs (not all of them drug-induced), and his tale ends on a decidedly happier note than those of other high-caliber rockers. 

 The first of fifteen chapters segmenting Hagar’s odyssey details his humble upbringing as the middle son of a frugal mother and steelworker (turned-unemployed alcoholic) father.  Sammy and his siblings harvested in the orange groves of Fontana, California.  They kept chickens in their yard and skinny-dipped in irrigation tanks.  Even at a young age Hagar determined not to let his deadbeat dad’s broken legacy weigh him down.  As a teen, he learned how to play guitar and drive a car from a pompadoured pal.  It wouldn’t be Hagar’s last significant relationship with a six-stringer named Ed.

 Stints in Mobile Home Blues Band and Justice Brothers informed Sammy’s stage mannerisms and music biz savvy.  Relocating to San Francisco with young wife Betsy, Hagar joined Montrose, with whom he enjoyed a delicious first taste of the big time.  But after butting heads with that band’s egocentric guitarist namesake, Sammy stuck out alone on Capitol Records, where he groomed his Red Rocker identity.  Encouraged by family and friends along the way, he bankrolled a clothing line and brand of mountain bikes in between albums.  The fashion venture didn’t last; Hagar’s flannel shorts were ahead of their time—but Sausalito Cyclery prospered.  Emboldened, Sammy had the notion to develop his own signature resort at one of his favorite getaway destinations—Cabo San Lucas in Mexico.  The resulting terracotta juke joint was not an immediate hotspot; it took several years and as many managers for Cabo Wabo to become a tourist attraction.

 Hagar dishes on the chain of events that brought him to Eddie Van Halen’s studio in 1985.  Singer David Lee Roth had left the popular group after touring their monumental 1984 album.  When Eddie took his Lamborghini for a tune-up, the mechanic passed his phone number to Sammy—who just happened to bring in his Ferrari for a fixing.  Everyone—including Sammy’s manager and record label—questioned whether “Van Hagar” would fly.  Roth was a charismatic performer whose output with the Van Halen brothers was something to reckon with.  Moreover, Hagar’s handlers insisted he’d be financially better off remaining a solo artist. 

 But something felt right about the musical combination, and the resulting 5150 became the first of many multi-platinum, #1 discs for the revamped VH.  Conversely, Roth’s career fizzled by his third solo album.  Diamond Dave was penning his memoirs by 1996 (CRAZY FROM THE HEAT), whereas Hagar—after fifteen additional years of recording and touring with Van Halen and his own Waboritas band—only just recently decided a retrospective was in order. 

 It’s those years—Van Halen circa 1985-95—that will most interest the average reader, as Hagar’s time in that group was characterized by the addictive personalities of brothers Eddie (guitar) and Alex (drums)—two Dutch-borne immigrants who partied too hard and too often.  Al would clean up his act following the OU812 tour—which saw the band playing stadiums with Metallica and Scorpions—but Eddie continued drinking and digging deeper under Hagar’s sun-kissed skin.  Back home in Carmel, Sam’s already needy wife developed a hodgepodge of mental health issues.  Betsy Hagar would repeatedly insist her husband walk away from his career and wait on her, lest she curl into a fetal position at home or throw a tantrum on a private jet at 30,000 feet.

 Hagar tells of his acrimonious departure from Van Halen in the mid-1990s, when Eddie tried pressuring him into recording songs for the TWISTER movie soundtrack and new tracks for a best-of compilation.  Hagar, whose new wife Kari was nine months pregnant at the time, would have none of it.  Sammy’s willingness to put family first would continue rubbing the Van Halen boys the wrong way.  By the time of the band’s induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2008, only Sam and bassist Michael Anthony showed up to receive the honor.  The Van Halens—who hadn’t recorded an album since the tepid Van Halen III in 1997—buried their heads in the sands.

 The book’s most gripping chapter, “Samurai Hair,” chronicles Hagar’s misadventures with Eddie on their 2004 reunion tour, during which the health-plagued guitar hero sank further into alcoholism, and whose surly personality was a shadow of the soft-spoken, hard-working genius Hagar once knew.  In an excerpt that ran in the March 2011 issue of Rolling Stone, Sammy concedes he probably should have run the hell away from the reunion road trip.  Eddie’s teeth were black from slurping vodka straight from the bottle.  His hair and clothes were disheveled.  His tennis shoes were taped together and a he used rope for a belt.  He’d lost a lot of weight—not to mention his wife of two decades, actress Valerie Bertinelli.  The guitarist was “a fucking loon,” by Hagar’s account, and while he hoped his old friend would sober up and return to work, Sam was only too happy to quit the VH camp a second time and press on with Michael Anthony.  Even if doing so meant touring with David Lee Roth himself.

 One never gets the impression Hagar enjoyed speaking ill of anyone, or of reporting unflattering behavior—particularly in Eddie’s case.  Still, he isn’t one to sugar-coat the truth.  Indeed, two people who will most likely detest Hagar for his candor—or deny his version of the facts outright—would be Eddie Van Halen and basket case ex-wife Betsy.  But as Hagar observes, when multiple parties insist you’ve got a problem, you might want to stop projecting blame and look in a mirror.  Roth, Bertinelli, and Hagar aren’t the only people who’ve shared secrets regarding Eddie’s substance abuse—they’re merely the closest people to the musician to do so.

 If it’s Hagar, it’s in here—from making of Nine on a Ten Scale, Standing Hampton, For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge, and Chickenfoot—to the rocker’s bohemian personal life in both Cabo and Maui.  He shares his love of fast cars and loud guitars.  He comes clean on the blow, booze, and bimbos.  He explains his interest in numerology and belief in extraterrestrial intelligence.  He divulges his on-the-road indiscretions, admitting that he rationalized his early promiscuity by not counting blowjobs as “cheating.”  He spins hilarious yarns about partying with the likes of Van Morrison, Stephen Stills, and the guys from Grateful Dead and Metallica.  The man’s bonhomie is contagious—his taste in good food and fine wines resulted in the creation of a billion-dollar tequila company—even when he sometimes comes across as a hard rock version of Jimmy Buffet.  Hell, Hagar even admits as much, and it’s hard to not like someone who is as frank about himself he is others.

RED features a forward by Michael Anthony, Hagar’s bass-thumping friend of over a quarter-century—and an epilogue by co-writer / pop music guru Joel Selvin.

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