I'm Seeing Red: Sammy Hagar's Biography

I started to write some silly little piece about Sammy Hagar, shortly after catching about a half-dozen songs from a solo concert not too long ago on DirecTV’s 101 channel. It was awful, and I wanted to let people know this.

But why waste time on something most people already know? Don’t give me some bullshit at how he’s had a few decent songs-you could count Sammy’s good tunes on one hand since he left Montrose and I’ll give you the other hand too if you want to get lazy about it.

10 songs don’t make someone a legend, and if you heard the greatest hits spectacle that he performed on that live special, you’d understand the mediocrity of Hagar’s career and his real contributions to the musical landscape.

Besides, his voice is a headache-inducing earhole fuck that rivals Paul Stanley’s never-ending shriek when he’s not tonin’ it down for “Shandi” or some other mid-tempo filler.

This is hilarious because Sammy recently put his worthless opinion on what he thinks of David Lee Roth’s voice-and of course, he’s letting everyone know that it’s 1.) a tad flat, dog and 2.) a little bit behind the beat. Right now (no pun intended!) I’m scouring my mind to see if I can remember any Hagar songs that go beyond that nasal whine he uses to demonstrate how “heavy” he is…And I’ll be goddamned if I can recall one friggin’ tune that doesn’t use it.

Ok, maybe the spoken word parts of “Finish What Ya Started,” at least until he whips out that cranial breaking voice for the “I got the tools to satisfy” parts.

Sammy jumps around on stage-running back and forth to try to conjure up some excitement, using the obligatory “Let’s party!” script whenever possible. The problem is, it seems too disingenuous-particularly since he’s shelling his own booze in the process. To make things titillating, Hagar has hired a pair of chicks to dress up in bikinis to occasionally yell “Woo Hoo!” and shake their ass to a song from Three Lock Box that they’ve probably never heard before the tour even started.

I’m not kidding when I tell you that I lasted only six songs before I had to turn the channel. He didn’t have Michael Anthony this round. He had some overly busy drummer, a chick on base, and the dude from the Bus Boys playing guitar in some outfit that looked completely out of place next to Sammy.

Sometimes, a roadie would bring out a guitar for him to solo on, but every time he started to “shred,” I could have sworn he was just playing the same solo he did for the last bit of showmanship.

Just when I get this image out of my head, along comes Sammy with a fucking autobiography. They have some excerpts on Rolling Stone’s website-but from all I can tell, Sammy’s life is so boring that all he can do is share Van Halen stories and tell readers that Eddie is a drunken, toothless savant with poor hygiene and poor taste in clothing.

The stories, I’ll admit, are amazing. But then you realize that it’s Sammy’s biography, and all he’s doing is smacking Eddie around, painfully bitter about the last “reunion” tour outcome and how the dude who gave him the keys to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame is a douche.

I think we already figured that out whenever he smacked DLR down during their first reunion attempt during that MTV Awards show in the mid-90’s.

I know there are other parts of the book, but the trouble is, nobody gives a shit about it. I don’t care about the challenges in recording Standing Hampton and I sure as shit don’t care about his overpriced tequila. I want to hear the Van Halen stories and, yes, I want to hear about Eddie pulling out his teeth with pliers too. I just want to hear that story with a little more compassion, that’s all.

It made me appreciate Michael Anthony a bit more-but not enough to stop calling him “the luckiest son-of-a-bitch in show business. But seriously, if Anthony could tolerate Eddie’s drunken shenanigans and still not have enough bitterness to compose a tell-all hatchet job like Hagar is evidently doing (again, based only on the excerpts that I’ve seen), then someone needs to give Michael Anthony the medal of honor for showing restraint beyond belief. If anyone has the right to throw Eddie Van Halen under the bus, it’s Michael Anthony.

It’s pretty clear that Eddie isn’t operating with a full deck any longer, and the concern is that he needs to up his musical output a bit more if he’s working against the clock as quickly as it sounds like he is. Maybe Hagar’s book is the incentive he needs to get started on this. I’d hate to think that Sammy’s description is the last word we’ve heard from Eddie, especially considering that he’s squandered his talents for over twenty years, putting his god-given talent in the back seat while allowing the pop narcotic to run ramshot with “The Red Rocket” at the steering wheel.

The good news is that Sammy is now destroying his own credibility by telling reporters of how aliens abducted him and how he saw a space ship when he was four years old. Hey, I thought fucking cartoons were real when I was four, Sammy, but you won’t catch me admitting that when I go on a book tour to promote my first book!

I find it amusing that this book tour is showing more about Eddie than it is Sammy. Unless you consider that his words and subsequent interviews are more telling than what’s on the written page: that Sammy Hagar is a mid-tier talent who got a ten-year extension on his original shelf-life because some legendary guitarist gave him the keys to the candy store.

And all the book appears to do is merely bite the hand that fed him new life when his own career was in freefall.