September 19, 2006

In this exclusive conversation, Retro-Active correspondent Ken Sharp spoke with Sammy Hagar about his impressive new CD, Livin' It Up , the uniqueness of the Sammy Hagar & The Cabos live shows, and the secrets behind a "Three Lock Box."

In recent years, your live shows have taken on a life of their own and become events ala shows by the Grateful Dead and Phish.

Sammy Hagar: I think I've grown into that and I don't know how or why. I've never been influenced by The Dead or Phish or Jimmy Buffett or those people that do the same thing. But I just fell into it myself. I've been friends with the guys in The Dead and have jammed with them two or three times. My shows go around the normal system. As long as I've been performing, if I was still doing a regular show and playing a specific set, I don't think I could do it anymore. As a performer you have to grow in some way and change. The way I've grown is I've become more and more myself. I've been living in Cabo St. Lucas since 1983. The way you do it down there is I'm sitting in a bathing suit. You go down to the Cabo Wabo and get something to eat, and the next thing you know you're onstage with no shoes and no shirt and wearin' a bathing suit. And you're going, "Hey, this is a gas!" (laughs) Eventually you start breaking down those barriers. I think I got brave enough to go out in front of 20,000 people in St. Louis the same way saying, "I'm here but on a casual level."

Stylistically, your new CD, Livin' It Up , shows off your versatility. It's not just Hard Rock. There's Country, there's Blues, and there's Roots Rock.

This record is not an experiment. It's not something I thought over saying, "I think I'll do this or that." When I went out on the last tour with Van Halen , I moved the studio from my house. I did my last three or four studio albums at my house since the Marching To Mars record. So I moved the studio out of my house and built a real professional studio. My band got in there and just started getting really great sounds. To make a long story short, when I came off the road with Van Halen I was a little frustrated to say the least. I just went into the studio with my band and I wrote songs and recorded them one at a time. I was strictly letting out exactly who I was, what I felt, what I liked to do. It's like the manual for Sammy's lifestyle. (laughs) It's like, "beach all day and dance all night." It's pretty much what the whole record's all about.

The Country side, the Blues side, all of that stuff is totally my roots. If anything, throughout my whole career I've been distracted from my roots by the bands I'd been in. Long before I started Montrose I was in a Hardcore Funk band. We were playing songs by James Brown , Otis Redding , Wilson Pickett , and Tower Of Power . Then I joined Montrose and we were a Heavy Metal band, so I just began singing like that to fit within the Heavy Metal format. I loved that band and when I left Montrose I was still hanging onto that style a little bit.

Then all of a sudden I'm in Van Halen. Van Halen was a pure Southern California Metal band. As much as I loved being in those bands, I wasn't being a phony and I was totally lovin' what I was doing. It's a blast playing music like that. But I can do a lot of other things. Also, after the last Van Halen reunion, the pure onstage volume alone was enough to make somebody my age go, "You know what, I can't handle this anymore." (Laughs) I mean, why be onstage and wear ear plugs? Everybody in the band had ear plugs on except for me. I don't like wearing ear plugs because I like to communicate with the audience and I like to hear what they're doing and what the band's doing. My band plays loud too, but if you've gotta wear ear plugs, turn down, you're too loud. (laughs) It's as simple as that.

Livin' It Up has your personality stamped all over it.

You're absolutely right. Livin' It Up has songs that are about my family; it's about the way I live. It's about Cabo. It's about drinking tequila and eating Mexican food. It's just about the most honest record I've ever made. I've been around a long time and made so many records that there's a point where you're just gonna say, "All I want to do is write about who and what I am." I could be political if I wanted. If I had a solution to world hunger or to save terminally ill children I would spend every second of my life working toward that, but I don't. So I figure, I want to be happy. Everybody wants to be happy. Who the hell wants to sit around and be bummed out all the time? The music I'm writing now is intended to make people feel good and that's what I feel I'm here for.

As you get older you start to think, "what am I gonna talk about?" Well, when I walk onstage and I see 10,000 people put their hands in the air and have big smiles on their faces, I feel this is all worth doing. I tried to make a record that kept from getting political. When I got serious on the album it was in a soulful, touching way that made you feel good. Songs like "Sailing" and "Someday" make you feel good even though you almost get a tear in your eye from them. But it's a good feeling so that's what I'm out to do. I can't fix the world so I'll throw the party for you and we'll all have a good time.

So there's a message behind the album.

Oh yeah. Livin' It Up is not just a great record, but it's a manual on how to have fun. If you wake up in the morning and you're in a bad mood or you're feeling lethargic and not wanting to do anything, put that sucker on and crank it up. By the third song you'll be saying, "You know what, I'm gonna go for a run" or "I think I'm gonna go for a hike" or "I'm gonna go for a bike ride." It'll motivate you because it just makes you feel good.

Lastly, answer the million- dollar question: What is a "Three Lock Box" anyhow?

Everyone thinks a "Three Lock Box" is sexual and it certainly could be. It's about the spiritual, mental and physical. When you have those three in balance you can be a lot more solid as a person. A good example is a weight lifter who spends every day building himself up in the gym, and then it comes time to have some intellectual conversation and all the guy's thinking about is pumpin' iron in the gym. He doesn't develop his mind as well as his body. You need to have your body healthy and in good shape and you need to stimulate your mind and have it healthy and in good shape. Then you need to have heart and soul and some kind of passion and believe in something strongly. When you believe in something and you're physically capable of doing it and you're mentally sharp enough to get it done, you have a much better chance at success when your "Three Lock Box" is together. A real "Three Lock Box" was a treasure that The Queen would travel with in the old days by ship. They would put her most valuable belongings in a box that had three locks and three people had a key so no one person could get in there by themselves. If you were a treasure hunter and you found a "Three Lock Box," you'd know there was some real good stuff in that box.