Sammy Hagar

Published Jul 6, 2023, 10:00 AM

From Fontana to Montrose to Capitol to Geffen to Van Halen to Cabo to tequila and rum, we cover it all!

Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Sets podcast. My guest today is the Red Rocker himself, Sammy Hagar. Sammy why red?

Well?

Red is my favorite color. There's no question about that. Always has been. And when I in nineteen seventy six, I wrote a song called Red with my co wrote with my dear buddy John Carter, and I became the Red Rocker by accident. It was I didn't call myself the Red Rocker. Someone else called me that, and then fans started calling me that, and I just said, Okay, I'm the Red Rocker, but I love the color red.

It's got a special thing about it.

Okay, how many Ferraris do you have?

Seven? Okay?

Are they all red?

No?

Guess what? I only have one red Ferrari. No too, I'm sorry, I have two red Ferraris. They all have like either a red stripe or a couple of them have red and terrier though, but she red Ferraris are too obvious.

So I'm not a red Ferrari guy.

I know, but that's a classic red color, that's why. So what color are your fasting is?

I got black, I got a kind of a green one. I've got a cream colored almost yellow, but it's not as cream. I've got a couple of black ones and a red one, and I don't know, honestly, thinking about my ferraris, I know I'm missing a couple in my mind right now.

I don't see them in my head. They're in a warehouse.

What's the oldest in the newest you have?

Oh?

Well, the newest is.

The new s u vas call a Puerle singue, but I don't have it yet, but that's the newest.

And before that, I have a lat Ferrari, which.

Rod Stewart just tried to buy from me, and I've got email from him again this morning because it's the color combination once and they don't make them anymore. They only made four hundred and ninety of them, and he wanted one, so he's trying to find a used one, and nobody wants to sell them. I mean, they're we're really special cars. And the oldest ones are seventy one Daytona's coup three sixty five g T Daytona.

Convertible.

No, no, the convertibles are really crazy expensive. They only made like twelve of those or something. Now I've got a coop Okay, So why do you know so much about this, Bob?

Yeah, and I know a little bit about it. So you have them all in a warehouse?

Yeah? I have them a I have a warehouse, you know.

I have my homes have multiple car garages, you know, like I keep four or five cars at different houses. But I have a warehouse where I rotate them.

Okay, and you only have ferraris or do you have other stuff too?

Oh? No, No, I got muscle cars. I got an old ee jagg, I got a you know, a couple of Shelby's, a GT Ford GT forty. I have a Cobra. What else do I have? I have a sixty seven Corvette uh Stingray convertible red right, Yeah, there you go. Yeah, and I got you know, a few yeah, just exotics and muscle.

It's about it.

Okay, are you a you know? Are you a Are you a Mopark guy or a GM guy? Oh?

See, here you go. I'm a Ford guy. Watch yourself. Well, this and that's when when I had when I had my TV show, uh uh a rock Roll road Trip that was one of my this or that. Are you a Ford or a Chevy guy? Because the Chevy guys are always kind of uptown. Ford's a little more red neck like myself, you know, a little more down to earth kind of guy. Uh. And the Mopark guys were always the weirdos.

Okay.

They were the guys that, you know, didn't have a lot of friends. They were kind of loaners. And when I was in high school, that was it. My buddies were Ford guys. We didn't like the Chevy guys. And the more Park guys were cool because they were just kind of they stayed out of any kind of fad situation, you know, they weren't taking sides.

Yeah, okay, So your first car was.

Forty nine Chevrolet.

Forty nine Chevrolet.

Where did you get into?

What kind of condition was it in?

I paid fifty dollars for it, and I wasn't in a very good condition and had a blown head gasket and reverse had a chip in it so when you put it reverse you would have to hold it in there otherwise it would jump, you know, jump out of reverse.

Oh it was. It was really pretty rough.

But hey, fifty bucks to be back in those days, Bob, I didn't you know, that was like real money.

Okay.

And the first car you bought once you made some money.

Oh okay, honestly, I think the real first car, you know, was a Ferrari. Finally, you know when I when Montrose got signed to our record deal in nineteen seventy three, I we got fifty thousand dollars. We got I mean, I mean wait, I got five thousand dollars. We got fifty thousand dollars. We each took five and we bought twenty five thousand dollars worth of equipment. And with my five thousand dollars, I rented a house for two hundred dollars a month because I was living in a really bad apartment in the city. I rented a house in Marin County and Mill Valley, and I bought a Citron, a green Citron.

You know what those things are? You know they raise up absolutely.

Would you buy the two CVX or did you buy a Maserati? Which one did you buy?

Oh? No, it's before the Maserati, but I bought our No, it wasn't before the Maserati. But no, I didn't buy that was too expensive. I just bought a regular DV. I think they were called dB twenty thirty one or something like that. Whatever, it was just a four seater, four door, and I loved that car. I mean that car was so cool but very unusual. I mean it wasn't very rock stars, but the real, first real car about though.

Then I bought a Porsche.

I got a five thousand dollars royalty check one time, and I bought a five thousand dollar Porsche. I was so reckless, you know, I'd spend every penny i'd get it. I'd just go spend it and say, well, hopefully i'll make more. And then then I sold the Porsche, went to England and to record my Red album, and I bought a Ferrari in England, a right hand drive three sixty three point thirty two plus two four headlight version, and that car has been sold recently a couple of times. It was Bluebird Blue because it belonged to Sir Donald Campbell, the Bluebird racing guy, the boat guy who died in the boat in Locknest, and it belonged to him. And now they say it was John Lennon's car. I've seen it advertised in Ferrari newsletters and stuff, you know, three hundred thousand dollars. I think I went for the last time I sold it for eight thousand. I bought it for five sold for eight. And they say it's John Lennon's car, and it can't be because there was not two three point thirty g T two plus two's four headline version bluebird blue.

Well that was white, hadn't drive. Did you take it to America or just leave it in England?

Yeah? No, I brought it, brought it to America and I drove it all for about ten years that way.

But that was before me. You said, when I made money.

But I hadn't made any money yet though John, I mean not John, mister Lennon.

I hadn't made any money yet, Bob.

So when I finally made money, then I bought a real Ferrari. You know, Well that was a real Ferrari, believe me. But I mean I bought a new one. I bought a five twelve boxer.

Okay, a couple of things. The Cituane Was it new?

No?

I think it was a sixty seven or sixty eight. Maybe it was a seventy. I don't you know. I don't remember much about that car, just and why I bought it. I still don't know. I loved the CV two but that wasn't going to work for a family car. You know, that thing would barely go up. So but I was in love with CV twos. I thought, man, if I ever had a beach house and you know, somewhere and I was, you know, I'd just drive around a little CV too, and I might have to get one of those down that You got me thinking about it, Okay, but that's the true dB forty one something like that.

And that had an air suspension and it had the headlights that turned. How much trouble did you have with that car?

Oh, a lot of trouble that when the suspension went out and I was I was pretty much broke on my ass all through Montrose and for the next few years after that after I left Montrose. But yeah, the suspension went out and there was only one guy that could fix it, and it was not cheap for me at that time. It was probably a couple of thousand dollars, and I think that's about what the car costs. The car costs like twenty five hundred dollars when I bought it. But it just was so bad ass. You know, that car was the most comfortable, smooth riding car ever. Still to today. I used to drive that from San Francisco to Los Angeles when Montrose was recording. I would drive it all the way down, NonStop, one tank of gas. It got like about forty miles to the gallon, a little tiny four cylinder with one hundred and twenty horsepower maybe, And it wasn't fast. It was really a dog but it was really smooth. It just it was a cruiser. And certain people. I've always been one of those guys that if you got a certain person's attention, it's the person I wanted their attention. I didn't want normal attention, you know. I wanted certain kind of people. And I'm still that way. I like when I drive a very rare car, I might have like you know, like my old Daytona. You know it's it doesn't scream. It does a little bit now because it's really getting, you know, a classic. But you know, somebody sees it and they go, wow, man, a Daytona and they and they tripping on it. See that's the kind of person. I say, yeah, I stopped and have given the time to date. I don't want to be screaming down the road in some Lamborghini or something, some bright orange thing, you know, and it makes a lot of noise, even though frays do make a lot of noise. But I don't like that. I don't like everybody going, hey, whoa look at that? Oh you know, uh, that's embarrassing to me. It's you know, I don't know what it is. I've always been that way. Even though you want to be a rock star. You want everybody to love you and come and see you and scream for you. But in my everyday life, I don't want that. How about that?

Were you always that person? Like growing up?

Yeah, I'm kind of shy, you know, in high school and stuff, I was shy. You know, girls liked me and I man, I was being I was always shy. I wasn't like a lady's guy going hey baby, what's going on. I've never been that guy, you know on stage a little bit.

But but man, and I was, I'm shy. I turned red real quick.

There here you go, they're not We finally hit the bottom on that one.

Okay, But you're shy, but you want attention, and you don't want the same kind of attention as everybody else. You kind of want to be known as your own unique, cool character.

Yeah, I'd say that's fair enough statement. You know, I'd rather appeal to someone that gets it, you know what I mean. If you don't get it, I don't need your attention. You know, it's like I want to The attension I want is attention that I would be willing to engage with, not just to quick like, well look at me, I'm cool. I'm getting all this attention and walk through the room, you know, like a like a peacock. You know that that's not the kind of attention I want. If I attract someone, I want to know that, yeah, I can communicate with this person and maybe there's something to learn here.

You know, they get it. You know.

I like people that get what I get and like what I like. And my fan base is getting like that pretty much. I got to tell you, you know, it hasn't dwindled down to that. It's just that it has expanded into that. You know, it takes a long time to become famous when you have a certain different kind of charisma about you. I think, you know what I mean.

It ain't like that. I'm not.

I wasn't a natural born star. I had to work on that shit. I'm still working on it.

Okay, So when you were in school, were you like one of the group. Were you trying to be independent unique?

Uh? Yeah, I was trying to be independent unique.

I had my own little group, not really a big group, but I had I had a few friends, but I got to say, everybody liked me.

I was really liked.

One of the shortest guys in high school, and there was a girl that was shorter than me, another guy about my size, and that was it.

So we were the you know, small people.

But I was always really into dressing nice, like I said, but not just normal what you know, I didn't go I'd look for weird stuff. I was definitely kind of a little bit of a weirdo. But everybody liked me. All the you know, all the big job guys. They would say, hey, Sammy, he's cool. You know, hey, come on over and hang with us doing the lunchtime. And I'd be like, hey, it's cool, and hang with them a little bit. I'll kind of a social butterfly, but I never I wasn't really that sociable, but I, you know, I could be.

I knew how to be cool and how to act with the tough guys.

I knew how to act with the jocks, and definitely, you know, I just kind of float around. But my little group was works were they were kind of like the losers in school. You know. They were the guys that, yeah, you know, the parents were alcoholics or you know, like a one guy was divorced, you know, single parent, and and I kind of was attracted to the wounded, you know, butterflies, you know, even even the girls. I like those girls kind of better than the uptown girls, which always which like me, I was really uh, you know, popular in that sense. But I wasn't you know, I didn't. I didn't. I did not click I did not click up. I'm tripping on this myself. Now, you got me thinking I was when looking back, I'm thinking, yeah, I was kind of like a I had a little mistique, I think going you know, I was always happy and sociable and high, you know, got along with everybody. Only got one fight in high school, one frigging fight the whole time when high school is all we did.

Everybody tail was.

Fight, you know, And I was never the guy that had to fight anybody. You know. I was always like, you know, hanging out and watching a good fight.

So tell me about the fight.

It was with the littlest guy in in school. It was like he was my size, you know, And so the tough guys, you know, when they used to they push on me to kick his ash for some reason, you know, because I was supposed to be a tough little guy.

You know.

My dad was a fighter, so I was always you know, kind of spar and boxing and goofing off, and for so finally I just picked the fire with them in a parking lot.

Was so stupid.

It was like, you know, I think we both just threw one punch, locked up, ended up on the ground, you know, you know, and headlocks each of us, and neither one of us could do anything, and finding somebody said break it up, teacher's coming, and we broke it up and went our separate ways. And I never even I never even said anything to the guy ever again. I just see him, you know, we just see each other walk down the hall, just ignore each other.

It was so stupid.

It was probably the worst fight I've ever been in, not that i'd been in any real viguines.

You talk about your father being a tough guy. What did you learn from your father?

Well, I learned unconditional love. And I gotta tell you it's the strangest thing because my dad was, you know, it beat everybody up. He was a tough guy.

You know.

A cop would pull him over in the car because he was drunk driving, or just he was speeding, or you know, ran a stop sign, and he would just get out of the car and knock the cop out, just boom. He was a boxer, so he could hit. He knew where to hit you, how to put your lights out, so he would get out of the car and just knock the guy out, get back in the car and go home. And then hare comes my dad sitting in the bear on the couch, smoking a cigarette, drinking a beer, you know, and the cops beat on the door, come on, Robert, come on out, we know you're in there, and say, yeah, fuck you, you know, come in and get me. And it would be like five cops, you know, they'd finally hit get up, go out there, and he'd just go at it with all five guys, you know, hit knock a couple of them out, and they'd get him. They hit him at the belly club, cut him all up, handcuff him, take him to jail. He'd get out in a few days. It was a small town deal. The judge knew him. It's like they took his license away. They threw him in road camp. He went to road camp. The longest he was gone one time is for six months because he actually really beat up a CHP officer and Palm Springs. He was driving drunk and he knocked the guy out, but we weren't home, so he kept going. He was going down to Braley Colexico, where he had some Mexican buddies. When he was a fighter, he used to he was a bandon weight, so he would always be a border town attraction because he was supposed to the Irish, which we found out he wasn't, but.

I'll get it. Great thing for the Irish.

So they'd have the Irish against the Mexicans, you know, the bantamweight fights. And Manu Artis, who was a great great champ, lived down there, so he's going down there to see him. So they set up a roadblock and they got him, and they really worked him over, and he worked them over pretty good too. And then when he was in jail, he was raising so much hell they come in and beat him up again. So when he went to be arraigned in court, he was handcuffed. I didn't see this, but the word is that he jumped up on the judge his desk and kicked him in the face and went to road camp for six months. And it ruined his life and my mom, all of them. You know, she had three kids. It was I think it was before I was born. And yeah, it's a tough one. I just found out a lot about it. I just did finding your Roots. I did it. It's going to come out later this year. And boy, he had the newspaper clippings and all that stuff, and it broke my heart how rough my mom had it. But my father taught me unconditional love. He made me feel that I was loved more than anything on the planet, and that I meant everything to him, and that he made me feel like somebody. He called me champ. He said, you're gonna be champing the world.

Someday.

He'd be drunk on his ass come in my room to you know, at night, because him mom would be fighting. He'd come in and hug me and just worship me. And I got to tell you, I felt protected. I felt like my dad could take care of anything, and I was I wouldn't have to be afraid ever, you know, growing up, except of them beat my mom up or something. But it was a strange, really strange you know, balance in my life that my dad. He taught me that, and I thought, and I think he taught me how to believe in myself because he believed in me. I'm telling you, I'll be four years old. He's telling me, you're gonna be champ with the world. You're gonna be somebody. You're going to be somebody's son. I mean, constantly driving that into my head, and I'm going, yeah, okay, you.

Want to be somebody.

I mean I really believed it, you know, and that's that's that's something to learn, you know.

I don't know if you can teach somebody that. Well, Okay, you had siblings. Did he say the same to your brothers and sisters?

No? He didn't like my sisters. He cursed them because you know, they had boyfriends. He'd you know, threatened to beat up their boyfriends who they'd come to, you know, try to go out and stuff when they were teenagers. He was not cool to them, and he was not cool to my brother, my older brother, he called him. He called me muscle brain, and he called my my brother flea brain. He called me champ. And he used to make fun of my brother. When he would cry, he'd say, sound like a sireen. You know, he picked on him. It was looking back, it was really not cool. I don't know why he favored me so much. He didn't like my my grandfather, my mom's dad, who was a full blood of Sicilian, and my dad didn't like him. And and I was named after him, sam r. His name was sam ROI byo, I'm sam Roy Hagar and my dad, but yet he favored me. I think that's kind of funny too in itself. You know, my dad chased my grandpa.

Around.

He was chasing him. We were camping. I saw this with my own two eyes. My grandma and grandpa they were big campers, and so the whole family. We were camping. My dad got drunk, got mad at my grandpa, and my grandpa took off running, was running around a car. My dad was chasing him, trying to get him, and.

This is true shit.

And my grandma picked up a rock and tried to throw it to hit a big rock, you know, like as big as your head type rock to try to hit my dad just you know, take him out. And instead of hit my granda knocked tip cold bleeding and my dad chilled out. He was like, oh shit. You know, he had a really good heart about him. He just had a crazy, whacked out temperature. He get hot so fast, and that's all he knew had to do is start swinging.

What do you think, since you're not a young man yourself and you've lived a lot, what was going on with him?

He's a super bad alcoholic. He was in World War Two. He was a paratrooper. He jumped out of an airplane and broke his jaw. He didn't he had a Tommy gun and he was shooting the gun supposedly as he was coming down, because you know, he was landing in an enemy field, and he got off course, landed in a tree, broke his jaw, had a couple of ribs, messed up, got left behind, lived in.

A foxhole, he said, for a few days.

Actually shot another man that was in another fox hole, you know, the enemy, and you know they'd take pop shots at each other, and finally he shot him. And I think it messed him up so bad to have to kill another human. And he came back and he took his When he got back into his company, he to his company commander he shot the ground and told him it made him dance. And he got dishonorable discharge. And he was never the same. My mom said he would wake up in the middle of the night and jumping up in the bench, say where's my tommy gun? Where's my tommy gun? And I could see him doing that in my head. You know, I don't think I really witnessed it, but he became a bad alcoholic.

He was a boxer before that.

He'd fought, you know, in the old days, practically bare knuckle, you know, it was just like a piece of leather over your hands. And he had never been knocked out in his life. He was knocked down. I think he holds a record of the most knockdowns in one round in history or something like that. And uh, he just kept getting back. Uh this before my time too. I never witnessed that. But he was fearless and uh angry, but the sweetest man in the world. But boy, when he get drinking, he would get angry. I guess I think that's what he was. He was dealing with that. He was dealing with what we see now is you know, people come back from Vietnam and stuff with this, with that same problem, you know, semi. But he had it in a day where you couldn't be a whimp. You know, you couldn't say, I'm scared. You couldn't say to him. He couldn't anyway.

You know. He was that generation he belonged with. He belonged to the cowboy days.

He should have had a six gun around his hip and just that should have been in That's where he belonged.

He came from that era. You know.

He was born in a cupboard wagon, for God's sakes, coming from Kentucky to California my grandparents with eleven other kids. He was born in Texas. Well, they were picking cotton. They were in a cupboard friggin wagon. And so he he was old school man, you know. And how long did he live? Fifty six, died in the back.

Of the Did he live long enough to see your success?

No? No, terrible?

And whatever happened with your siblings and what's your relationship with them?

Now? My brother has passed. He's three years older than me. He passed about right before COVID. Well, right in the beginning of COVID, he passed. I don't think I was from COVID. He had a lot of heart attacks and he just had breathing problems. He had heart problems, but he did fine. I mean, you know, he had some problems. I got to say, he had to stopped drinking. But he wasn't wounded as bad as you would think. Because we had such a wonderful mother. My mom raised us like to be strong people. She made us work. We worked in the fields with her.

You know.

She would go dig potatoes, pick apricots, you know, pick berries into berry patches.

You know. We were like field workers, my whole family.

And we'd go out, all four of us, right before we'd go back to school. My mom would make us go out and we'd pick fruit and pick vegetables and do yard work around then around our town. Uh, and to get money to you know, buy clothes for school. And I always dress good and I'd make my money. I knew what I wanted to. I'm on a nice pair of Levi's that customize them up. You know, I had my my thing. But my mom was wonderful, so she made us all strong and feel like we had a family with the community. After my dad and they split up, and then my dad finally died, but.

My sisters both happily.

My oldest sister's happily married for fifty some years to the same guy.

Has wonderful kids, very family oriented.

They all live in the same frigate neighborhood, all four of her kids and her very family oriented.

Everyone in.

My sister Velma very successful. She's started a business. She's kind of like me, she's very business oriented. And yeah, everybody's really good. We get along great. I mean, we love each other. We support each other.

So when you ultimately made a good chunk of change, which you did, to what degree did you support your family.

I bought my mother her first home she ever owned in her life when I got my first big record advance and made.

My first tour money. And then later on I bought her.

Really nice house next to my sister Valma, who had a beautiful home in Palm Desert. So I bought my mom the house next door, and they because they really got along well. And those two, my mom and my sister, and you know, when I sold my group will Campari, I basically split up a million dollars with my friends and family, so my close friends and family.

Okay, so where does this entrepreneurship come from being poor?

I ain't going to be that again, you know, I've been there.

Uh. I think the drive that keeps me going at this stage when I don't need money, I don't need fame, I don't need fortune. I just need to be happy and content. But I'm still so driven that it kind of makes me happy to achieve. I'm achieved, achieved, nut and and I give most of the money away now that you know, from all my restaurants and stuff.

But I think that drive come from just humiliation. You know.

One time in high school, because my dad was always such a tough guy, such a small town, I had a girlfriend, my first girlfriend, you know, the first puppy love, seventh grade, and.

I walked over to her house.

I used to walk her home, you know, from school every day, and then I'd walk all the way across town to my house. I didn't want to by know where I lived because we were single parent at that stage and living in a pretty poor situation.

But like I said, I had a paper route.

I'd mow lawns, I would go to my family, my aunts and my uncles and drive my bicycle over there and say, can i'm move your lawa. I need a dollar you know, I need a dollar badge, you know. And so I was always you know, dressed and I so they were in school. Everyone thought I was cool, but really I was poor as shit. Our house was really bad neighborhood and we were just renting and my mom was had a really funky job, but you know, we were poor. So I would walk my girlfriend home every day from school. And then one time her mother invited me and said, oh, come in and have some dinner with us, you know.

So I'm sitting there at the dinner table.

Her dad walks in and my girlfriend says, hi, Daddy, this is my friend Sammy Hagar, and he goes, Hagar is your father Robert.

I said, yay, he goes get the hell out of my house.

My dad had beat him up in a bar and so, you know, it's like I was so humiliated from that.

And then my girlfriend she.

Could I couldn't come to the house and you know, she couldn't see me, and it just I think that honestly said I'm going to be somebody. I went back to my dad said I'm going to be somebody and that she ain't going to happen to me again. It was so embarrassing. It was just brutal, you know. So I think that's what still drives me. I don't know why, but I think that one moment and then a couple of times, my dad would be walking down the street drunk in the middle of the night, and I'd be out with my buddies back then. Now we got a car, and now we're looking for girls, and sometimes we'd have girls in the car, you know, and we'd be drinking the beer and stuff and cruise down the road, and all of a sudden, I'd see my dad staggering down the road. You know, he was homeless at some point, and I would go, oh shit, you know, and some guys in a car would say, a man, it's not your old man. Oh well, yeah, I know a guy who went to jail with him. And you know, I was hanging around with these loser kind of dudes and they had been in a couple of you guys, they know he'd been in jails. Yeah, I met your dad in jail. Yeah, man, he's a badass. Yeah, you know, he beat some guy up in jail, you know, and all this kind of stuff. So one side it was me saying, yeah, my dad's a badass, and as I was saying, well, this is get embarrassing, and I would, you know, so I'd go get my sister and tell her my dad was walking down see her down the street, and she'd go find him, bring him to a house and clean him up. And then he'd just steal five bucks out of her person, go out and get drunk again. He was he was completely helpless. I mean, I could help him now, but then there was nowhere to put him. We didn't know what to do. There was no alcoholic. There was alcoholic anonymous, but all of his buddies from that were just as bad as him.

So you know, yeah, he gave it a shot a few times.

But I think the longest here of stayed sober in my life that we remember was nine months. We actually had one year in our life that was like normal, lived went to the same school for the whole year, you know, had friends over to the house, you know that kind of thing. Yeah, it's pretty much a trip, you know, Bob, You're rolling me back through this thing pretty strong.

When I wrote my book.

I went through this once, and this is the closest I've come to remember and all this stuff. It's not like I try to forget it. I'm not one of those guys that bury my head in the sand. It's just that there's so much good stuff going on. I very seldom go back and think about this stuff. But I had a tough child. It didn't feel like it at the time, but it does now I'm looking back on going we were poorish.

Okay, So you have built an empire, okay, with restaurants, alcohol, et cetera. The only person I can think who's in your category is Jimmy Buffett. Do you think that you've gotten the respect you deserve? Do you still want respect? What's your take on that.

I don't think I will ever.

Be able to satisfy that thing in myself unless I become some kind of a spiritual, enlightened person, which I'm becoming little by little. I'm becoming more spiritual and looking for enlightenment, looking for purpose and what I can do.

Now.

Maybe if I turn around and do enough for others, I may get over it. But other than that, no, I don't. I don't think that's a thing I can a hunger and a thirst that it can be satisfied. Because, like I said, it's not like I do this for money at all. I do it for I love it.

You know.

When I have an idea word, it's thought word action for me. You know, I have a thought, I tell it to myself or tell somebody else, or I write it down or talking to my phone, and then I go to work on it.

I say, oh, this is great. I have something to do.

It's like, you know, I love achieving and it's not like I said, it's not ego way over that I feel real good about myself. Like I don't, you know, have this ego where I I mean, I feel fine about my achievements and fine about everything I do and how would I do for other people in my life?

But I'm still doing it and why I don't know.

It's fun, I guess, you know, it's as much fun as being a rock star going out on stage, you know, with you know, opening up a new business and having it be successful is like you know, walking to a liquor store and seeing my booze on the counter, or walking into a bar a restaurant and looking at the bar, my booze on the back bar. Man, that's like hearing your song on the radio two hundred times, you know in montro So. I remember hearing my voice on the radio the first time. I couldn't even hear it. It was so crazy. I'm just going, I'm not, you know, I didn't know what to do. I wanted more. I wanted to feel it. I wanted to hear it. I couldn't. And it's almost that good seeing your booze and stuff and seeing your restaurant packed, you know, seeing your hotel full. You know, it's like, yeah, Jimmy, Buffet's done really well. Now, though, if Jimmy woke up with my money, it probably filed for chapter eleven.

But that's a different story.

Okay, but Jimmy gets a lot of respect. Are you still fighting for the respect that someone like Jimmy or someone else might have.

Yeah, kind of, you know, you know what I don't like.

I don't like to be disrespect It's not like I need respect as much as I maybe used to. You know, Yeah, I think that was a big deal for me, wanting to be a rock star and rich and famous and you know, but I gotta tell you. I think it's I just really don't like disrespect. You know, there's some people that just don't like me, you know, and it's going to be that way with everybody. I mean, you know, I feel like it's almost like being the president of the United States or something. You know, when you're rich and famous and have all these you know, businesses and people know it, some people don't like you for it, and that makes me mad, you know, Like there's people that don't like rich people, and I think, well, man, there's some poor people that are as bad as rich people. You know, some rich people are bad people, period. Some poor people are bad people. You can't judge a person by their money. You judge them by what they do and who they are and what they do for others. And you know how you know you can you know, look a look at Warren Buffett. I mean, he gets half of his money away. Okay, so what he still got? You know, he says, no one needs more than five hundred million dollars. What, of course not. But truthfully, it gets five hundred million dollars away, you know, to charities and build schools and hospitals, and you know, hell, he's a wonderful man.

You know what I mean.

If we had more people like him, the government wouldn't have to be so strapped trying to take care of all these people. So I feel like I'm one of those kind of people. I want to I want to do really good with my money, and when I open up a new restaurant and I give all that money away. I just opened up a restaurant here in Orange County at the Waterfront Hilton. It's called Kabbo Wobble Beach Club. It's my first beach club. I'm kind of morphing Kabo Wobble into beach my beach thing, Sammy's Beach Bar and grills and Sammy's Beach Bar run Beach Bar, cocktails and Kabbo Wobble. I'm melting them together. So it's Kabo Wobble Beach Club. If you see what I'm saying. That saying I'm loving this project. I want to have a beat Kabbo Wobble resort. But my point is when I opened it up, I give every every penny every month goes to Chalk Children's Hospital of Orange County. And if there's extra money where it starts being so dam much. But I'm going, well, you know, then I'm gonna give some to food banks and give them to Tillies. This Attillies thing where this really helps teenagers up. So I mean, I'm giving them money. Well I'm not even touching it. But when I walk in there and it's packed, I'm going, yes, this is so great, you know, and I see that check. Yeah, that's so you can't. I don't want nobody mad at me. I don't want nobody dogging me for that, you know. I mean, if I do. You know, I got five restaurants I do that with, and it comes to about six hundred thousand dollars a year that I give away every year for ten years, and every every gig I've ever played for the last thirteen years since I sold Cobbo Wobble Tequila for the zillion dollars I give every city I play, I give twenty five hundred dollars minimum to the local food bank every cent for you know, like twelve thirteen years. So I want to be respected for that, not not necessarily respect. I'm not asking for it, but just don't disrespect me and call me an asshole or thea ain't call me a rich shirker.

Oh that folk are so rich man, you know, I hate him. Don't do that to me. That's that makes me mad.

Okay, we live in an era where people are here and hate all the day long online, and you have to ignore a little bit about that. But on a higher level, tell me about a couple of times you were disrespected.

Ah, nothing really comes to mind.

I had a couple business partners that really try to take advantage of me and really stole from me and actually cheated me and when they knew what I was doing with my money. And I call that disrespect.

You know. It's like.

If I do something really nice for someone and they take advantage of that and I you know, I've got a business partner right now. I feel in the same way about a guy. I got to get away from this guy. I got to get rid of him. But I have a philosophy that you never fuck anybody like you. Just don't do that. Any situation I get in is supposed to be everyone wins, you win, I win. I don't want to win and you lose. I do not want that. I won't I won't get involved. Uh, And I don't want where you win and I lose, I won't get involved, but I have before. And so that's the ultimate goal for me is to never fuck anybody. And then so when I go into a relationship and I do something really nice for someone, say hey, you want to be my business Parker, you do this and I'll do this and we'll be partners. Yeah, shake hands, no contract, And then they turn around and fuck me. That That really that makes me mad. I mean, I'm really angry to be disrespected. That's to me, it's pure disrespect. For someone to take advantage of someone that's trying to do something nice for them, that's disrespect.

Okay, you talked about Warren Buffett, and famously Warren Buffett taught Bill Gates how to be a philanthropist. Where do you get all your phillianthropical elements? Where did you learn to give back?

Uh? Wow, oh boy, I got goosebumps. And I don't know if you can see these things. My hair is standing up on my body. That's how much I love giving back. This the it's man, It's what drives me now is how much more I can do? What more can I do? How can I fix that? And where it came from was I went to a charitable event that was high falutin in San Francisco, long long time ago, I want to say fifteen years ago or more.

It was for a Painted Turtle, which is.

An organization that's kind of like Make a Wish where they build this little village and playground type thing for children that are dying, have termally ill and which my biggest my biggest concern is determinedly ill children that parents cannot keep supporting them. They've run out of insurance or whatever. That child has only got a couple of years to live. Who but Paul Newman. They showed a little clip and they showed Paul Newman. He was just leaning on a counter, had a beer in his hand. It was at a race. He had his race thing on and it was he was pasted already, but it was just an old clip where he was part of the paintal I think that was his one of his main things. And he said, when we see when you see a situation of someone in a position that you can help, a bad situation, that you can actually do something about it, and you don't.

He goes, I couldn't live in myself.

So he saw a situation that he thought, well, I'm in a position I can actually help that.

I can change that, you know.

And that's how he got in the hook in philanthropy. He thought, you know, and I thought to myself, Wow, what a beautiful thing. I just hit home with me that if you see something a person that's in a bad situation, it's like, you know, an elderly lady falling down in the street, you stop your frigging car and you get out and you help that lady, you know what I mean.

It just hit home with me.

So I just thought, man, I'm in a position now where I can actually start doing something. So I started the found I looked into it and I found out, you know, you give a dollar because you have to pay taxes on it. So I thought, well, that's stupid. You know, that's horrible. You know, I want them. I want that person to have all that money, you know what I mean. If I if I got a Ford one hundred dollars, I want them to have the full hundred dollars. So someone, my attorney, told me about you know, you started a foundation, and I said, oh shit. I looked into it, started to hag our family foundation, and that's how I give money away. It's it's just it's really wonderful because my foundation and is not one where I allow people to give me money. I tell everyone, no, no, no, I don't want you money. I earn my own money, I put it in my foundation and I give it away. You just come and buy my tickets, you buy my booze, you come to my restaurants, and I'll take care of the other thing. Don't try to write me a check, you know, because you start taking other people's money. Now you're that's a rough gig man. I don't want to be that responsible, you know. So my idea of philanthropy is not raising money through other people. But I go play music like acoustic work cure. I do it every year and except in COVID. We just race finally hit a million dollars that we did in eight years for Children's Hospital for.

The cancer. Children that are infants that.

Are born with brain tumors and they have to be radiate it and their parents got to stay with them for months a brand new baby. You know, you can't just drop it off, say okay, we have to go back to work and go home. A lot of people come from out of town to UCSF where they have a wonderful division of gene knockemora. She's doing wonderful research where she's dealing with the toxins of radiation and getting rid of them and getting immune system back up so that the tumors don't come back, because otherwise radiation ninety percent of the time tumors come back. So I'm supporting that so she can have a assistant, so she can spend more.

Time in the lab.

And the money though that from this concert, then we support the parents that need a place to stay that we can't afford to stay in San Francisco for a month, you know, say yeah you can't, I'll take care of that, you know. So it's really grassroots stuff. That's the way I like to do it. But so far now we've raised a million dollars one hundred thousand dollars a year. Fifty goes to the assistant and fifty goes into the tank to support, you know, families. So that's the way I like to do it. I say, look, i'll play the music. We're not going to show you pictures of babies dying. We're not going to have a silent auction, We're not going to ask for donations. You come to the concert, Bob, we're taj Mahal joon't bias. Sammy Hagar, Chris Isaac and Mike Anthony did it this year and it's just like it sells out in five minutes at the Fillmore. Every penny goes except for the expenses, you know, right to the college.

And that's the way I like to do it. Man, That is so cool. Same thing.

You open up a restaurant, Come love the food. I guarantee the food and drink's gonna be good. You gonna hear my music. It's gonna be the food that I eat. And I give the money away. Don't try to give me your money. I don't want your money because that's dangerous, you know. I mean, but if you give it away and it got ripped off, it was a bad deal.

You know.

It's like you never know. There's there's plenty of crooks and philanthropy folks. Let me just tell you that much right now. It's harder to give money away than it is to make it. How about that, Bob. That's Sammy Hagar's philosophy. I can make money easy, giving it away is tough.

Man. You got to make sure it's right.

You know, that would be disrespect if you gave somebody some money for something.

Like that and they misused it. Who see, I got to ax to grind here. There's something my dad taught me. Maybe I learned that from my dad too.

Okay for you to get into a business, you know, I get so caught up making sure everything's right that I don't do it. So to what degree do you vet what's going on or you just say we're going we're going to fix the problems after.

Yeah, I'm stupid like that. That's my downfall. I have no downside. I can't even see a downside. When I see a vision of a business and I see all the way to the end of the tunnel, you know, it's not I never just it's never. Just first thing, I say, oh, that's a good idea, and then I say, oh but oh.

Oh oh, oh, oh yeah, and oh man.

And then it just starts flying. And when it starts flying, I say, somebody say, well what if what do you mean what after? This can't lose There's no downside, you know. That's my biggest fault as a businessman. That's why I tell people I'm not as good a businessman as you think, because I never weigh it. I mean I was starting to now a little bit. But I never do anything though until I find the guy. I always find the guy first. It's all about finding the guy to run the business. And that's where I need to partner that I can trust and that won't disrespect my vision. And I've had that happen a few times. But that's the most important thing, is finding the guy. I can't do it every day. I just have one meeting a month with my companies, and I just go out with the tattoos, you know, and I get the tattoos for promotion.

I wear the shirts.

I'm not wearing one now because I didn't want to insult you by wearing one promoting one of my businesses.

Okay, so before you got involved, it was called Cabo San Lucas, not Cabo, and it was really sleepy. I mean I literally think you gotta get you get credit for building up Cabo. What did you see and how did that all come together?

Well, boy, Bob, that was a vision. That's a dream I never had. Keith Richards got married down there to Patty Hanson. I think it is her name Patty, and they got married and I saw in People magazine a picture at their wedding of an infinity pool with the ocean in the background, a palm tree and a cactus, and I went, where in the hell is that my favorite thing? Ocean desert? You know, A palm tree man. You know, I got a philosophy. If palm trees don't grow, Sammy, don't go. You know, I'm a beach nut. I'm a beach nut. I love it, and I love the desert, you know. And there they were, was, you know, and I thought, where is this? So I went and it was one flight in a week, one flight out a week, you know, flew in, picked up people took him out from San Francisco, and you know, but and then I had a There was no phones, no TVs, no nothing. Three hotels. I stayed at the Twin Dolphins. I fell in love. I just fell in love. So I'd go there as much as I could. And I was there one year and I said to I made friends with the matri d there. That the guy that was kind of the bellman. He took care of everything at this little resort, very small resort, fifty rooms.

And I said, hey, uh, I need to make a phone call.

Man. You know, somebody came down with a newspaper and they said the stock market had crashed.

It was like an eight. I guess.

Seventy nine eighty. Something had happened economically. Not that I was worried about my money, but I was worried, what's going on? You know, I heard these guys talking pool side. Yeah, man, it's well yeah, yeah, you know.

What I said.

I said, hey, I want to go make phone but I wanted to call my my manager, my accountants or somebody.

So he said, I got to take you into town. So it was a dirt rope.

He took me into town, had to go down to you were royals, about six miles into town. Seven miles into town. You go to a to the phone company. You gave him the money. An operator said it's going to cost you this much to talk for three minutes. I says, okay, gave her the paesos. She plug it in, dial it up, gave me the phone and I said, wow, I saw downtown. I'm going, holy shit, this face is unbelievable. There's nothing here. There's palapa roos. And he goes, oh, let's go house some tacos. I know, this great little shock. I mean these are shocks, no windows, no air conditioning, dirt floor, chickens running around. Went into this place with je and he goes, I said, what do you what are you going to have?

He goes toyo.

The owner of this little thing was called Gudalajara.

And he goes, Boyo, there's sickens running around.

I swear went back and killed the damned chicken, put it on the grill, and I'm glad. This is unbelievable. You hear the chicken back there, you know. And I just fell a love and then another. So I made him take me into town. A couple other times, I'd come down there and stay for two weeks at a time. And I came in and we went right back to the same restaurant, and there's two little kids.

At this time.

You can see lands in You can look at the marina and nothing, no hotels, no nothing down there. There's hotels but Solomar and Finisteric where Keith got married.

We're at the other end.

So we're right there in the strip on the on the marina, and two little boys had a stick stuck through swordfish eyes right through his eyes. And they were each had the stick and if the swordfish probably weigh one hundred pounds. And they were dragging it down the road into these little shack restaurants and they had had slices taken out of it, chunks was bleeding and stuff, you know. And I'm going, whoa. And they come by where we're sitting. The owner of the restaurants, Scott, starts talking to him and he comes to us. They said, you guys want Marlon said, yeah, hell yeah, cuts a couple slashes off, give us the kids some paesels, throws it on the grill. Dude, I fell in love. Didn't you hear a mariachi band? You're drinking shots at tequila? I said, I'd have found fucking paradise. And I said, I want to build. I want to buy a piece of land. I want to build a little PLoP a bar down here and sell real tequila because I had tasted real tequila and Jorge found the spot. I bought it for one hundred thousand dollars. I built the Cabo Wobble for two hundred and sixty three hundred thousand dollars and it makes that much a month. You know, it just it just was the biggest gold mine ever in the history. And the first three years it lost money. You know, it was because there was no people down there. You know, It's like so then they finally paved one of the roads, and then they put a new hotel up, and then they did this, and then they did that. And now I still Lovekabo, but it is so fricking here's hotel, hotel, hotel hotel. When I when I first went there, there was occupancy was six thousand people between locals and all the hotel rooms between San Jose Delcabo and down talk about six thousand people. Now there's half a million people, and it's crazy. But I still love the hell out of it. It was a weird vision. I just fell in love. It was pure passion. I had no idea I was ever going to make a penny or ever going to make tequila.

I mean, that's a dream. I did not dream.

That dream was never dreamt and everyone thought I was crazy. I broke a band up, I lost an accountant. People just quit on me when I was doing that project. You know, Van Halen were going nuts, you know, you they went down there and there was no phones in anything yet, you know. And they were staying at a hotel, no room service and stuff, and they were freaking out.

They didn't like it.

It's so funny when I think back, because now they would love it.

Well legend is, and you know the truth who knows, because I certainly don't. Was they were invested and then they freaked out and got angry at you, and you had to buy them out.

What really happened there.

Well, it wasn't even a biot. We were in debt. The Kabbo Wobbo was in debt once again. I had a bad manager partner down there. It became very heavy into drugs and he lost everything and the government came. He wasn't paying the vendors. We weren't making money, but he wasn't. He was ordering the beer and the food and the but he wasn't paying anybody. So they shut him down. They came to put a red a yellow ribbon around. The government confiscated the Cobbo Wobbo. And I was on tour and we got I said, hey guys, we got to kick in some money. We owed eighty thousand dollars. He had about eighty thousand dollars debt, so I could call a friend down there, you know, hoard hand guys, and I said, hey, go down and see what's going on. I said, yeah, you got we need you need to pay eighty thousand dollars to get the keys back, you know. And the guy took off that was that he did it. He was out of tech. He just took out it. And so, uh, they said.

Fuck you.

This is your deal man. You're a problem man. You deal with it. And I said, wow, not cool. They said let them. They said, let them have it, let the government out. We don't want nothing to do with this anymore. They had already put in about ten twenty grand apiece over the years and three years every now and then say okay, everybody's got to kick in ten grands, you know, or we need twenty grand to keep the doors open. And they didn't like that either, but I didn't either. But it wasn't that much money. For God's sake. We're in van Hale on this days. So they said, let them keep it, and I said no. So I said, okay, I'll take it. So they indemnified, you know, maybe indemnify them if there was a lawsuit they'd want no trouble, so they gave it to me and it was yeah, it really it really put it. Then when it took off, like a year later, it started really the town grew. You know, Ednall are going.

You fuck her?

You know you you ran it into the ground so that you could get it back from us. And I'm going, you guys, if I was smarter, I wouldn't. I wouldn't need you guys.

Man.

You know, it was like god, it just really got it. They got really angry about that when it started really becoming popular. You know, people would we'd be on tour and uh and people would come see us in a hotel say, oh, man, we loved the kabba wabble. We were there, o man, so fucking great. And they'd be like, you know, so because trouble. It didn't I didn't say it broke the band up, but it didn't help. But keep things, you know, with my divorce coming up after that and all that that, you know, the band just and Leffler died and then that band was over.

You know, tell me about starting the Tequila.

Well, when I first went to Cabo, the first thing it happened to me, it was I had a real margarite, a hand squeeze line good fresh sea salt on the rim control, uh, and real tequila. And I said, man, before that I was I never really had a real marguerite, you know, mixer, you know, and uh, it blew my mind. I said, this is the best speaker I've ever had in my life. What's in it? Blah blah blah blah blah blah. Oh, let me see that tequila. And it was just some you know, one hundred percent of goby tequila. I don't even know what it was. At that time, there were no one hundred percent of goby tequilas in America. There was every everything was meek. Still, it's fifty one percent tequila, forty nine percent whatever you want to put in there to make it, make it brown, make it look like it's aged, and make it sweet and make it, you know whatever. Anyway, the headache stuff, so you know, I had that disease like everyone else. You you know, Oh, I can't drink tequila. No, it's I had the worst hangover in my life on tequila.

Don't know.

Thanks, you know, then all of a sudden I taste pure a hundred percent of goby Tica. I go, man, I've never had anything like this. I never had a margarita like this. So I was getting ready to look to buy a condo. So I finally built a condo unit down here. The roads were still dirt and everything. So I was going to go buy this condo. And I said, uh uh, while we're in Gualajara, let's we were starting construction on the coppoll. Let's go to Gualajara and let's look at furniture because it's really cool, artistic town. Gualahara has got some of the coolest shops. It's like Rodeo Drive, but it's of Mexico. And I so Guy said, let's go to Tequila Horterhay, my partner who's still my partner, by the way, who still runs the cantina, who's still you know, he's he's rich now too, from a bellman. I told him you're going to be my partner, and he never fucked me. We're still partners. It's a beautiful story. I mean, I love him and his family. Without him, I wouldn't wouldn't have made it through all that. So he said, let's go to Gualahara. I've said, friends there, let's take us for some tequila tastings. So I went and I saw what tequila, how it's made, and I saw rila gave and I saw him cooking it, and I saw him doing all this stuff, and we stayed and we so we stayed there a few days, and I said, I want to start my own tequila. I'm going to make Cacabo wabble tequila. And we went around, went back. I had an airplane at that time, a small plane, but you know, a turboprop that I used to take down there. So we fly straight over to Gualajara and spend a few days and fly back. And I had my condo and we we went around knocking on doors, and one family said, yeah, we'll we'll make tequila for you, bring us to bottles. And I'm going, oh, you know, I was tasting all these tequilas. I mean it was take your ivan bottle, dump the water out, take it out of their barrel, or take it right out of their bottle, and they'd let you taste it.

I mean it was like that primitive.

These were farmers that were growing their gave and made their own little private stash of about twenty cases a year for their family and their parties, and they sold all the agabe. So I said, well, I want you to make me tequila because that's the best tequila ever tasted in my life. And it was El Vahito who now makes Santo. I went back to them after I sold it because they changed it. So anyway, long story short, I said. They said, bring us bottles. So I said, hoory, hey, where are we going to get littles? Said?

Oh, I got a friend.

So I went to this bottle place with the hand blue fricking bottles and I saw blue them. I said, yeah, let's do the blue bottom. Okay, hand blown great glass in the bottom. It could cut your freaking hand on right. And they were not perfect, all of them. I took a case of bottles. They filled them up for me, put corks in them, and I brought them back to the cantinas and they were sending me samples, and pretty soon we bought these little barrels and put them all in the cantina when it first opened, and they and they sent me samples and like gas line can, like five gallon gas line can of tequila had sent it and we'd pour it into the barrels and serve it out of the barrels in. After six months you had a reprisodo. After four months you had a ripissoda. And it was just so good. It was unbelievable, handmade tequila, the biggest fat ripe of gobvis is. Before there was a shortage like now, I mean you get Gobby's this big if you're lucky, and so it was like unbelievable. It exploded, and Andrew Diaz Blue tasted it and said this A wrote a story in a mag Sea said this is one of the three best tequilas in the world, Kabawa and and all of a sudden, phones ringing, Wilson Daniels, you know, the DRC guys calling me saying we want to, you know, import your tequila. And I'm going, wow, I don't even know what to do here, you know. So it called Shep Gordon. You know, Shep Gordon is the biggest brain at that you know for me, Shep Gordon's got one of the most he thinks more out of the boxing name.

So I called chef Shep. Here's what's going on? What am I gonna do?

Well?

Send me let me taste of tequila. I send a note Willie Nelson tastes it.

He goes.

Willie says, it's fucking good. I said, shep goes, I never had tequila.

I'm going. Willie says, it's good. You know, it's fucking good.

So so we I had to find another bottling company.

I hired a.

Guy in Gualajara, a guy named Julio escandone who's passed now, but he he said, I'll take care of everything down here. I'll get you the better bottles and we'll take him deliver them to the place. And and pretty soon the they're making six thousand cases of kaba waba and they're going, whoa. The farmers are going, man, were like rich, you know, and I'm going, yeah, this is awesome. And then the next year we had thirty seven thousand case order and because the tequila just exploded, not because of me, it just a patron came out and I was right behind him. So it was amazing that this little factory, I mean, these said little farmers that had a small little distillery, they grew right with me. They said, oh no, we'll do it, we'll do it, we'll do it. They bought bigger tanks. They you know, they hired they got a truck instead of honestly they had horseback and fucking carts. You know, they said they bought a truck. And I was in the tequila business and it exploded. I made money the first frigging second year. I started making money, huge profits, like you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars, and then millions and millions of dollars, and it was like, wow, it just exploded. I ever seen a luckier guy in my life. That's where I say the dream. I never dreamt the whole Cobo thing. It just was like, thank you, Keith Richards. I still haven't met I met Keith, but not in a situation where I've been able to talk to him about this.

Dude, I owe you. What do you want from me?

You know, I'll send you down there and give you the penthouse sweet for as long as you want it, you know, And he doesn't need my money, but I owe that man.

Okay, So you had the company, you built it up, you supposedly sold it for one hundred million dollars. Usually there's a non compete, but now you're making tequila again and run too. So explain what's going on here.

Well, when I sold it, I did sell it for one hundred million dollars, but I only sold eighty percent of it, so I only got eighty million dollars. And then I sold the twenty percent back to them five years later because it wasn't the kind of deal that I thought was going to be right, and it postponed me from being able to make tequila again. And I tell you, I got hooked on this game. It's really really fun and exciting.

It's so.

Organic and holistic, the way the process they make tequila reel together. Now, these people put everything in all these preserves and crapit, tequila, there's not There's only like seven natural tequilas on the market right now. I think In Santo's one of them, and that real tequila's made the real way. We don't put sugar in it because we use greenagabe. You know, we just wait till the agave is big enough and we you know, we pay more for it and all that stuff trim it properly. But that's a long story about the process of making. But anyway, I loved it so much that I just no matter I said, I got all this money. What the fuck am I doing? I just stuck in the bank. I started a foundation. Okay, yeah, I started giving money away. I helped a lot of people. But I'm still saying my lifestyle hasn't changed. So I bought an airplace, you know, the biggest purchase I've ever made in my life, you know, A big airplane, A nice airplane, beautiful airplane. Take my whole band in my family, go on tour. That was my only thing I did other than that. I didn't buy a new house. I already had houses. I didn't buy a new new Ferraris. I did, but I mean I would have anyway. You know, when the La Ferrari came in, I had to have that car. So long story short, it was like I thought, I liked the game, I don't like the money.

You know, I'm having more fun with the game than with the money. You know.

So I already had enough money, So it was really a strange thing to have that feeling where I really now, I don't have the need. I'm not money hungry anymore, you know, from being poor, so that there's life changing. So I sold it back to them so I could do a non compete. The non compete would end in five years. But in the meantime, I started a rum company, Sammy's Beach bar Room in Hawaii. And this was my big stupid idea that I still make the rum, but I had to move to Porter. I was making rum from cane in Maui. Okay, Maloi property. How much Maui property is worth, So sugar cane is like a weed. And I was They had these sugar cane farms, and I was supporting all this because they cut the sugar cane down. Take it down to the old C and H sugar factory, which had left one little department open for me, so that they could make you know, sugar out of the cane, drive it back up, make a handmade rum in Hawaii. White rum that costs by the time it hit the market was like forty nine dollars a bottle. When you can buy a bottle of white rum, you know Bacardi or any of the rum's white rum, you can buy a bottle for like nine dollars, and mine was like forty nine dollars. And people say, well, nobody drinks white rum. But I thought I was going to elevate rum the way I elevated tequila because see, I was making real tequila that people say, oh wow, this is better than any tequila have ever drank. Well, my rum is better than ay rum you drink. But nobody was wanting to pay forty nine dollars for it. I wasn't getting it in the well, and and so I said I had to move. It started getting more and more expensive. It'd be seventy dollars now. I moved it to Puerto Rico, where the real cane, you know, grows, and they make rum much less expensive and it's not as good, but it's still better than the competition because once again, I don't cut corners. I'm not having to meet margins like, oh well, well we got to raise our price because it cane. It just went up. No, no, just you know, I just won't make as much. It's okay, you know. I want to make the best cane, best rum. I don't want to use dirty cane. I don't want to use old caine. I don't want to add you know, molasses and things to it. So anyway, long story short of got in the rum business, which is not like the tequila business. The rum business has never exploded. It exploded like in the twenties. I miss I missed that ride, you know. So my rum company, yeah, it breaks even it you know, makes a couple thousand dollars here and there, but it's really not a It's just a labor of love. And I refuse to quit, you know. So I thought, well, I'm going to make these cocktails now. So I've made now, I with the trying to keep the rum thing alive, I made Sammy's Beach Bar cocktails pure Rum, pure sparkling rum ward winning gold medal Rum. Sammy's Beach Bar Rum is in those cocktails. Everyone else just puts generic alcohol in those cocktails. You know, they were beer originally, they put beer based, and they put wine based. And I was the first guy to make spirit based. And I thought, well, I'm on top of this. And during COVID, I'm doing all this right. So it's going slow, slow, you know, in mail order and phone calls and zooms.

Get it all done.

COVID in is and about fifty friggin the big boys came out with the cocktails now and the cans. You know, but they still don't use the good rum. They still don't use the good noun. And there's no artificial flavors, no artificial colors. Mine's the best, the best of the best, and that's way I like to do things. But the division exploded. I mean, these guys came out spending forty million dollars on a launch, you know, for Super Bowl ad for whoever came out with that limon one a smear and offer somebody anyway. You know, all the big boys came out all around me and they're crushing me. But I'm just keep my head above water. But my tequila. I went back to the same Elva Eito guy when the don compete, and I made mesquila, the world's first mesquila. Everyone was drinking mescal. It's the hip is saying, oh, mescal, mescal. I went to down to Oahaka and went to every mescal maker, the rarest ones, the most expensive ones, and I can't drink more than one shot of that stuff, and man, you feel like I smoked a cigar and licked the ashtray afterwards. So I said, I want to tone this down and I wanted to mix it with tequila, and everyone said, you can't do it. It's either mescal the made in Ohaka or tequila made in Jalisco, and I said, well, what do you mean we can blend them. The government said, no, you can't. That's illegal. There's no such thing. As I said, it's misquilla. I'm gonna call it misquilla. I fought for a year, hired lawyers, nothing.

Nothing.

Finally, my distiller, my old cobbo wobble Guy el Vehito, who makes Santo for me, he said, look, I can do it off premise.

I can't do it my distillery.

I said, okay, So we bring a truck truckload of the scallop from Wahaka. He goes to this little shack on the outskirts of Jalisco and blends it. And now they say it's okay, it's but I can't trademark it. And I said, okay, okay, so it's misquilla, but you can't trademark the name. It's like Kleenex, you know, It's like everybody calls a Kleenex, no matter what the brand is. So anyone can do it now, and a few people are doing it. But but it was the first blend. And then Guy Fieri comes knocking on my door seeing me. I thought, you said, next time you started it's a tequila company. You were going to make me your partner, man, you know what the fuck here's I said, Oh well, I forgot because I did, you know. So we had a we had a shake over the phone, and he said, now let's make real fucking tequila. I want to make Blanco Reposanto and a Yeho And we just are releasing our in Yeho right now because we put it in barrels and we aged it, write and we did everything right, Bob. I could go on and on. This would be this whole interview could be about the tequila business.

It's so.

It's so crazy, it exploded, and everybody and his dog has a tequila, but they have dog tequilas. The difference between a pure real tequila and the one things that are on the market now is just it's sacrilege.

Okay, how's Cosamigos compared to yours?

Not even close.

I ordered a shot of costume because I haven't had it in probably three or four years, because I'm not a fan.

Nothing against those guys.

I love George Plooney, you know, and I looved Randy Gerber and Mike Millman's one of my dearest friends in the world. So these guys are cool guys, don't get me wrong, but they make Their quote was, well, we didn't, you know, we wanted to make a tequila that was a lot easier to drink.

Well that's impossible, you know what I mean.

Real tequila is fucking who it's got that shiver. You got to ask why you have the salt and the line's fun. It's it's just you know. Oh see, I get goosebumps once again talking about it's such a wonderful spirit. So I ordered a cosamigo the other day with Michael Anthony.

Uh.

We were at this place and they had a bar and I went, I said, what do you got? And I saw they had patron which is wonderful tequila. And I looked in and I and they had Constamigo, of course because it's one of the biggest tegabos in the world. Now, Uh, and I go, give me a shot at blanco. Uh on the rocks. And he said, you don't want don't want to market readia. Do you want a cocktail? Say no, no, I just wanted on the rocks. He was almost like you sir, the bark and they put it on the rocks. And I took a sip and I said to Mike, and I looked at the part and I said, hey, I ordered a shot, not a cocktail. This has got more shit in it than a cocktail. It's got vanilla, it's got coconut, it's got uh, it's just sweeteners, glycerine. So it's like makes your tongue thick. It's like a syrupy feel on your tongue, you know, because that makes it easier to swallow and makes it smoother. And it had all these things, and I'm going, oh my god, but I'm sorry everybody. They're not the only ones. Everybody's doing that. And that's why tequila is so big now. Real tequila drinkers don't like that. But there's the masses are drinking tequila now, and the masses don't like real tequila.

They go, oh that's too hot. Oh my god. No, you know, I've seen it of my own two life. Tequila burns a little bit.

It's it's a spirit, and it's it's got very subtle flavors, very subtle. You get a little bit of oak when you put it in wood, you know, you get a little bit vanilla, little coconut, out of the wood. But you don't get that out of a frigging blanco unless it's the Crystali, which is at the new style where they put it in wood for three or four years and then they redistill it and filter the color out and it's a white patrol and started that trend. It's a white tequila that tastes delicious, but you know it's it's it's very expensive to do that because you got an agent and lose all that product.

But anyway, I don't want to make that tequila.

I'm making a blanco and nyejo, a reposanto and a mosquito that's santo.

The real shit.

Okay, anybody who's in this business knows that the real key end is distribution. So you start these new companies, how a you're handling distribution.

Well, a lot of these guys got a lot of backing money. A lot of celebrities got big money, and they go to some backers and they they pay for it. You know, it's like you pay to play and the old day, you know, you get a record on the radio too. You know, that's kind of what's going on with the distribution. But yeah, it's all about distribution. But the whole thing is it's the end is one thing, getting it in a store. If it don't sell, you're out of here. And that's why you're seeing tequila companies come and go. Every year there's another one hundred one starting and another forty going out of business, and it's it's really a tough game. You have to the distributors take a big chunk to begin with the big boys Southern Wine and Young's and Young's markets with oh, come on, who is Youngs with?

I forget the.

Name of it, but anyway, there's two major distributors now Southern Glazier merged and Youngs merged with oh why can't even remember them? They used to have to kill, used to have Cabbo Wobble. When I sold Caaba Wobble went to Southern. Now I'm with Southern now again. But they have a lot of power. But they they're careful because see their names. They're the reputation online. So they go to Safeway and go, hey, you know, buyas a couple thousand cases, put them in your stores.

Yeah, you get paid.

They buy in, and then they sit there and go, hey, it ain't moving, Get this shit out of my store. I need the space. So it's a tough game. You don't want to make mistakes like that. And that's where my expertise of being in the business before comes from, because my first idea was, oh, man, just get it everywhere and my fans will go buy it.

Man.

Not necessarily they go buy it, but they got to run across it, and they're not really you know, it's it's a tough game right now, but I still love it every time you win. Wow, Like you know, Santo, we just got Caesar's Group, the whole group. You know, they have more hotels in Vegas than anyone and between all their bars and it's like, you know, Guy Fieri's friends, because he has a couple of restaurants with Caesars with the group, and so he got to the owner and the owner put the hammer down and say, yeah, you know, but it's it's it's uh. I'll give you one hint for new guys. It's about relationships. If you know somebody and they're a fan, they'll take care of you. You'll get your booze right in their liquor store or right in their bar. So it's like the old DJs when you used to know the DJ. You're friendly, You go in there after your show, you go in and do a night at midnight show, you know at KSJO or whatever, and they, you know, they.

Play your record.

You know. It's like you got a friend, you got a DJ friend. Well, now if you've got a bartender friend, he'll put your boos in his bar. And the bartenders are the new DJs in this business.

Okay, how do you know Guy Fieri? And then you were Bottle Rock was with Jose Andre some chef. It's like, how do you know all these people? And are you one of these people who literally knows everybody or you just have a select group you hang out with.

Well, now you know what I'm like back in high school, Bob, We're coming full Silindier. I love this. I love this interview. You're killing me. You see, it's like when I was in high school. I know everybody, but I have my little group. Still, I'm still that same guy. You know, Emma La Gazi's my friend, Jose Andres my friend. Guy Fieri's my friend. You know, I've got a few really good close chef friends and they are close friends and we cook together and we.

Michael Mina.

I patronize their restaurants when I'm in their city where they on tour, and I call them to get special favors. Hey, I can't get in, you know, like Jose Andres, Hey I can't. You can't get into his restaurants. It's like Jose, I got it. I need a table for six. It's you know, it's six o'clock. Well done. So we're those kind of friends. I love chefs. I love cooking. It's my second favorite thing, you know, besides music. I'm if you want to ask me what I do. I come home from the studio of twelve hours and I go straight to the kitchen and I whip something up, and I can cook my ass off. You know, I've had them, Lagassi tell me. You know, Sammy, I've been good cook you son. I'm a bitch, you know. So you know I can hang with those guys. I can't. I'm not as versatile. Maybe you know, they have more knowledge, but I really have a good palette. So Guy Fiertti came when Cabbo Wobbo when we were having a promotion back way before I sold it, back when we had the very you know, at about forty thousand seconds third year, I was doing a local tour in the Sandmans in the Bay Area and we had a contest for whoever sold the most tequila in their bar got to come to the show. I sent a limo for him. They meet me backstage. I got a signed guitar. They got on the side of the stage. I got to, you know, witness the whole nine yards right, a VIP thing. So Guy Fiertti being a huge fan at that time, I didn't know it.

I didn't know him.

He had a little restaurant called Johnny Garlics, and he said, I'm going to put it in my will. Now, this is a high end tequila. They got nine dollars bottles of booze in your well, nine dollars a leader and this was a seven fifty for thirty forty two dollars. He put it in as well. Of course, he won the damn contests and didn't make any money on his on his bar for a few months. He walks in, looks just like me. He's got shorts, flip flops. You know, his hair, my head. That time we were wearing gators glasses. He had my same glasses on my little goatee.

You know.

My beach looked that I had going back then, and uh, I'm going all of this fucking guy. He's out of sight, you know.

Boom boom boom.

We have fun. I love his personality. He's exactly like he is now. He didn't invent himself. He didn't grow into this gig. He was born like this.

You know.

He's one of those guys. He wakes up at eight o'clock in the morning, he already has his bling on. I think he sleeps with the ship, his hair spiked up, he's got his sunglasses. He's a badass. He's really really the real do. I love that guy? So he after the show, I give him the signed guitar before the show where I met first, and I say, you know, after the show, coming back, I have some food. He went and had his sushi chef because Johnny Garlak has had a sushi menu. He put made a bunch of sushi. He put it on the guitar and I came walking out stage into the dress room and he had guitars, sushian and guitar served it to me. I said, this is my fucking pal right here right. So we we became friends. He came to every show I've ever done in the Bay Area and around the country.

He was doing that.

So I helped him get in with Emma Lagazi and my Food Network friends. I helped him get you know, uh not that didn't help him win. I helped him get it audition. I turned him on to some people. He got involved and became the next Food Network start. Now he's the biggest celebrity chef on the planet. And and when I sold Kabba Wobble, he read it. He calls me up and says, dude, did I read what I just read? I said, I don't know what you just read. He said, you sold Wobble for like a hundred million dollars. Said, that's what the deal was. And like I said, I only took the first twenty. I left twenty on the table.

For a while.

I thought the brand was going to get much bigger and my twenty was going to be, you know, worth even more than that. I thought I was a smart businessman, already smarter than me. Trust me, those guys are the greatest. I love that brand in that company for doing what they did for me. But anyway, so I said, oh yeah, he goes you know, dude, you ever want to do this again? I said, I can't do nothing for five years. He said, if you ever want to do this again, I'm your partner. I said, okay. And we just been friends and friends and friends and friends and hang out in cobble. It comes to my birthday bash then, like I said, I started Santo and wasn't thinking about him, and he busted my ass and he's Boom, he's partner instantly, I mean we have We just shift hands. We didn't even shake can We're on the phone. I said, yeah, you're my partner. Okay, here's how much I got in. Here's how much going to cost for you to buy in to you know what I got in. You know, I'm not selling you nothing. I'm just exchanging my shares for what I have. And boom, we just did it that way. And he's the best partner you could ever have. I don't think anyone could outwork Guy Fieri. He's most He gets up at four in the morning, does morning shows in fucking New York from California. Then you know, and then out the door he's filming two or three TV shows he's got going on. He's got seventy five eighty restaurants. You know it's the guy's rocking man.

Yeah.

Okay, so you had a number of big victories, the victory with tequila, et cetera. Musicians are legendary for blowing the money. Where is the money? Is it in real estate? Is in stocks? His bonds? You pay attention? Do you not pay attention?

I kind of when I got that big money, I start paying attention because I didn't want to lose everything that I know. This is my my nest egg. So I investigated some things, and I tell my brokers and my management and my accountants, I do not care about making money with my money. Don't go out there and say I'm gonna make you, you know, twenty percent of your money. I'm not interested. I want the safest saying possible. I invest in the United States of America, and I invest in cities and states because ones that I think, you know, that look like they're not going to go bankrupt, you know. So it's kind of like keeping your money in places like that that if the United States goes under, well then I'm gonna lose my money. But if I had it in other place, I'm gonna lose it. Way before that, you know. So I'm just I'm so conservative you'd be surprised. It's it's like I don't like making money with money. To me, when I say, nobody gets fucked. To me, if you're making too much money with your money, somebody's getting fucked.

You know.

It just doesn't work that way all of a sudden magic, you know, just somebody's gonna hand their money over to you. Somebody must lose for you to win. So I don't like that game, and I don't know enough about it. So I invest in myself. I have a ton of real estate, and I believe in things. I have, you know, a car collection from heaven and I use it. I drive my cars, and I stay in my homes, and I bought my family homes, you know, like and.

You know, my kids.

I have a wonderful, wonderful trust set up for my kids, which I really believe in. I believe in my parents are gone. But you know, my mom. I put a lot of money into my mom. She always had a nice new car and she had a beautiful home. And it's we're all in my name, And it sounds cheesy, but it's like, no, it's not. It's like you can make your mother, your family, your parents and brothers and sisters really happy. If you're really rich enough, you can really do wonderful things for them. And then you know your mother is going to pass and your parents are going to pass before you, and you just inherit it back and then you know, you give it to someone else, so you you you turn it. That's that's the way I do my money. I don't like to just stash it away. Someplaces say, look how much money I'm making on my money. I'm still earning enough money where I don't have to live off my money. And so it's it's just all my kids name. And you got to do it properly so they don't get robbed from the government when you die, you know, they so that they have their The inheritance taxes are fifty percent, you know, and then there's then there's.

Income tax on top of that.

You know, you give your kid a million dollars and he ends up with a couple hundred thousand dollars. It's just not cool, you know. So you've got to have really good estate planning. And I spent a lot of time and effort and investigation on that because you know, when I turned seventy, you know, five and a half years ago, I really started thinking about mortality, and all said, you're going, I never thought.

Of that before.

I'm so busy, I'm so I'm still driven, you know, I'm still progressing and working on things. And I go, what, well, it only only got Maybe I plan on living to be one hundred at least, and then I'll tell you if I'm on live any longer when i'm a hundred, because if I'm healthy, I said, okay, I'm gonna live longer. But so I got twenty five years to live. And I think how fast the last twenty five years went. I just go, holy shit, I got I got a lot to do. I better take care of things. I got to make sure my kids are cool, you know, and I got to make sure that everything's set, you know, and I don't leave.

A mess when I die.

And I've never thought of that until I turned seventy, and I wrote that song father Time about it. It's like all of a sudden, Wow, you just go, wow, I'm not afraid to die and whatsoever. And it's but it's just interesting to start thinking, Wow, m I got to make sure my people are taking care of you know, and everything's cool.

And it was a strange thing. And I spent a whole year.

I took two years off and then COVID hit and I got to take more time off and work and all that kind of stuff. That's if anyone asked me, you know, what's the positive that came out of COVID, it was one was.

I got time.

I had down time, so I took care of a lot of things. And I learned that we are all in the same fucking boat man. The COVID made the biggest realization on the planet. Rich, poor, You're all fucked now, you know what it's like. So it kind of brought a nice reality to me and a more of appreciation of health and life and freedom and this country. You know about the freedom in this country, it keeps getting taken away. It keeps getting taken away by things like COVID and by the nine to eleven situation. It's like, freedom's a wonderful thing. It's wonderful.

Okay, just switching gears. Your kids, you grew up poor, they did not grow up poor, So what are they up?

And my oldest one, did.

You know, how do you incentivize them.

I know, my wife and I if we fight about anything, it's every time I'm trying to do something for the kids, it's like you're gonna ruin them. Yeah, I will ruin them. Happily. I could careless if they ever had to work a day in their life. I would be happy for them if they were happy. Now they're not happy. That's different. But my oldest son, who's fifty two years old, he Aaron. He saw the pors we were on well for he was born in a county hospital and I was on food stamps, you know, so he saw the whole process.

He went right with it. You know, he's he.

And he's the one that's really more of a spender and does it put value on it than anyone. He wants things like me. He wants my cars, he wants you know, he wants all that. And he's talented like crazy, and he does a great job with his hobbies. He's turned hobbies into making a living. But as soon as he got his trust money, the way I haven't set up, my kids get their trust money at certain stages, they get a certain amount of twenty five and then they get the big chunk at forty and then they get dressed when I die. So every time he gets his chunk, he just blows done both through it. But I have to stop him, Aaron. I know, you got a new car. You got five cars already. You don't need another fucking motorcycle. You know, he's the only one that I got to slap around. Everyone else seems to be pretty cool. My youngest boy, Andrew is singing and playing music and doing a great job. He's awesome. He's got everything going for him. He's a great songwriter. I just blew my mind how he just exploded like that when he turned about twenty five. He just decided before that he was a martial artist and I wouldn't let him fight, so he became a trainer. He had two or three fights and broke my heart. You know, he broke his knuckles, you know, get banged up. The UFC fighting type shit. You know, that's not the mixed martial arts. So he became a trainer, and I thought that's what he was going to do, you know, get himself a big, nice gym. But now he started writing songs and singing music. They're playing music and he's really really good. And my oldest daughter, kam Up. She just got her first trust. She's twenty five, twenty seven now, she just got her first chunk, and she bought a nice little house in Maui where she wanted to live.

She has skincare products.

She's got two degrees in business and in fashion, and she's a meditation and yoga teacher and a complete holistic little queen.

Little she just wonderful.

And my youngest daughter, who hasn't got anything yet, she just turned twenty one. She's a barrel racer and she likes my booze business, which is really finally, finally, you know, someone like Andrew falling in my footsteps of music. I pray for him because it's not easy. But my daughter, I just I just pray that she will do it. She's she goes out on trips with my head of sales for the Beach Bark Cocktail Company, and she goes into accounts and she just landed the mix She took mixologist courses. She landed the mixology course at the a Montage Hotel in Healsburg, which is a really super high end place in the wine country. And so she's really going down that road. She's got she got a palette on her. You know, I use her with my products. I said, what do you think of this? You know, what do you think of this? She's she's awesome, and she's Samantha Hagar perfect, She's Sammy, but she drives a truck, she's got a horse. She's a fucking barrel racer. She's as redneck as you get. You know, she's all about that. Just it's they're all different. I mean, I'm talking about not even from the same planet.

Okay, you've been married a couple of times. You got married before or you had your big success now, certainly at the time before the internet and cell phones, a lot of guys wanted to get successful so they could have some of the perks the lot rock and roll, lifestyle, romance, sex, etc. What have you learned about, you know, relationships, et cetera, being on the road so much being famous.

Well, Bob, you know I've saw both sides of that movie. Let me tell you, I've been the worst husband on the planet and I've been the best husband on the planet, which I am now and have been for a long time. For my second marriage, I learned you never lie to anyone, to your children, and especially your spouse, your partner. You don't lie to that person. And so once I've became a rock star, we got married. We're high school sweethearts, and I was completely not it. Never had a relationship, but neversed another girl for seven years. And then I start getting a montross around on the road. I start becoming a rock star, and I started being a really very unfaithful person that I'm ashamed of.

But I was having the time of my life. I mean, I'll admit that, you know I'm not. I'm not.

But I became into a situation where I was lying all the time to her and I had to, and it was It's what ended my marriage. If I wouldn't have fallen in love with someone carry my wife now of twenty seven, I don't know, gotta be careful getting close to thirty with her. I had twenty four with Betsy, my previous marriage. And but if I would have never, if I could have got out of that lie, I probably would still be married to the same person. But I went and fell in love in the middle of the lie. So I once I got out of that relationship and the divorce and all that, I just made a pat I will never lie again, because that then you're you're fucked. You got to living a lie? Is it ruins anybody's life. Some people just go through life just lying, lie and lie and lying lying. And so that's what I learned about a relationship. Don't lie to your partner and if you can help, but don't cheat on them. And if you do, you should probably come clean with it sometime and hopefully it doesn't. You know, they're understanding and you can work it out. But because boy, uh, it's it's a big deal having a I feel terrible about my former relationship, even though I had the best time of my life from you know, being successful rockstar.

I got to tell you, there is no better time.

You can have fast cars, all the money in the world, jet airplanes, you know, sex, drugs and rock and roll. I never was a big drug guy, but you know I did enough to have fun and I and I sexually. I had more fund than anybody in the planets. That probably Rod story he was He might have been the most glamorous rock star, you know, him and Elvis. I can't imagine how much fun they must have had. But you know, I'm a very sexual person. I still am at my age and very very sexual and I think it's one of the most important things in the relationship to me. When it's over in the bedroom, that's when you start, you know, fooling around, looking around, looking at other women thinking, you know, it's it's really important a good physical relationship in a marriage.

So that's what I've learned.

Just don't lie to your partner and be as good as you can and keep the sexual drive going in the house.

And usually you don't be looking around so much.

You know.

Okay, so you have so much going on with busy, this, et cetera. Where does music fit into all this?

You know, it's all built around music.

Bob Shep Gordon, that's the my genius buddy, He's the big I always say, checked the big brain out on Shep. He said to me one time he came and saw me when I first built the Cabo Wabbo and then Van Halen, when I start wearing shorts and T shirts on stage, you know, and I just didn't get dressed up anymore, just walk out on stage the way I was because I learned how to do that in Cabo. I come off the beach in Avadian suit flip flops, no shirt back in the day, and you know, I just jump up on stage and start jam with the band, you know, and it felt so good. You know, it's like wow. You know, they didn't pay I don't have to get fucking dressed up, you know. But I mean I get dressed up a little bit now again, because I feel like you kind of owe at least some kind of glamour to the business. I like to keep a little bit of that glamour going. I think it's important showbiz. But when I first start doing that ship and then I got thrown out of Van Halen, and I said, I'm never gonna get dressed up again. I'm never going to play with people that I don't get along with. You know that people are gonna fuck me. You know, I'm not gonna suck it away. And Sheep said, yeah, you remind me of Jimmy Buffett. You know he came down to Cowboys going. You remind me of Buffett. And I said, Jimmy Buffett, you know that one hit wonder.

You know. I mean, I had no idea that Jimmy had this thing going.

And and my wife Cary says, oh man, you you've never seen Jimmy Buffett, And I said no. She goes, well, god, you got to go see Jimmy Buffa. She was from Virginia, you know, beach and shit. She had seen him a hundred times. She took me to see him. And I walk into this nineteen thousand seed amplifier packed, sold out, fucking parrot heads and balloons and Frisbees, and it was like a day on the beach man. And he comes out. Nobody liked the grateful dead. Nobody's paying attention to Jimmy. They got their own party going. He just playing the background music. I'm going, this is fucking living right here, and I'm going, I'm down with this shit.

You know.

So I kind of really rolled heavily into that line lifestyle thing, and is what shef Gordon said.

It was kind of managing me.

He was co managing me and kind of executive managing me at that time and helping me when I was with the tequila. And he goes, he goes, man, you rolled it all into one. He's going, you know, since you don't have to put on different hats, you're not a businessman, you know, make your business your lifestyle, Make your lifestyle your business, and everything's related. So people drink your tequila and they come and see your music, and they have a better experience.

And that's what I figured with the Cobble Wobble.

I learned that you have a better experience if you're eating the same food I'm eating.

These are my menu there, you know, I don't. I don't. I'm hands on with my restaurants.

My food's got to be a certain you know, level, and a certain stop, and the type of drinks.

And then you're up there playing the media. You're all drinking the same thing.

It's like the old days, you know, in the Grateful Dead and the old Fillmore, where everybody took the same acid, smoking the same weed, and is this thing happens and it's a deeper experience. It's not just let's go see them, sit and seat, you know, drink a beer and go home.

You know, you didn't that there's a better experience than that.

So I I realized that that's where my music comes in, is that it's still an integral part of everything I do. I sit around and play music in my house more than anything else except cook and sleep.

You know.

I spend more time with my guitar. I write songs every day. This morning, I turned on my tape recorder. I played this this little una like a stone's kind of but can't you hear me knock it? I was thinking about that song and I was kind of riffing off of it. I had to turn my tape recorder. I say, oh, this is really cool. Look, because when you try to learn somebody else's thing, when you're like me, you end up writing your own thing. Because I can't ever learn to play somebody else's ship, right, you know, I can. I hit this bad note, but well that's kind of cool. Yeah, And that's half the way I write. I play music all the time. It's and I you know, I went down on my basement yesterday and sang for an hour. Just always try to keep my voice where for the emergency I had to jump on stage, I can sing. My voice is more important to me than my dick. And I'm not joking as much as I'm you know, my dick's important. But if it doesn't work for some reason, I say, well i'll work tomorrow.

If my voice doesn't work, I'm going in.

I'm fucked because you step up on stage and you can't sing. That's the most embarrassing thing on the planet. And I care about my voice and about my chops, and I'm ready, and I'm I'm That's why I'm I like to the idea of being able to jump on stage stress the way you are, because that way I feel like, well, I got all the other shit together in case I just have to do it.

Well, I'm ready.

You know, I don't want to say well I couldn't sing because I wasn't dressed, right, That would be kind of funny.

Okay. I love my music now, it's my basis.

You've had this great success, but parallel to your success in the twenty first century, the music business has changed. I don't care if you're Paul McCartney or your Bruce Springsteen. You make new music has a very minimal impact. Okay. Whereas it used to be went all the radio stations that we listened to the radio, there was a learned amount of product. Then there was MTV et cetera. Has this you know a lot of people stopped making new music. Has this affected your motivation? No?

Uh.

The thing that affected my motivation was I felt like I was dried up a little bit like I said, pretty much said it on you. I'm a lyricist, so I've written every lyric of every song.

You know, I never have a lyricist for it.

Well, a couple of times, but three out of five hundred songs I've written, I'm the lyricist. It's hard to find inspiration. So without inspiration, I won't just finish and write a song.

I said.

I was jamming around today, but I didn't have the inspiration to finish it.

You know.

Sometimes a song like father Time, which is my favorite song I've written in the last forty years, maybe maybe my whole life. It was so inspired that I picked up the guitar and just played it and say it. And I had to actually turn on my little tape recorder on my phone. I just had to say, fuck, I better record this. It's coming. It's coming, the whole thing, the words, everything I had a thought about. I told you about the growing old, thinking, wow, how many more years I got left. I started looking at the other side and and and I just the words just came, you know, And I just started talking about the situation I was in, and you know, where I was sitting, I hear the waves crashing I'm in my house in Maui. I'm hearing the waves crashing on the shore. That's been going on forever and more, you know, But there's something about the sun in Mexico. It just burns different. Those are lyrics that those were that was a thought that I had right then and there I'm hearing the waves crashing that's been going on for ever. Yeah, but I'm in Hawaii, Mexico. It's different, you know what I mean. And that's the kind of songs that I look for nowaday and if they come, enough comes, I'll make a record every time. And I'm sitting on about five of them right now, and I'm sitting and thinking, I don't feel like making another record, but I might have to my last one. Crazy times, you know, I think it's the best record I've made since Standy Hampton. You know, it's maybe Chicken Floy the first Chicken Fit record. I just think it's just fucking brilliant. I love that record. But I had a guy like Joe Satriani. It's like when you got a Eddie van Halen or Joe Satriani, it's much easier to be a lyricist, trust me, because they bring you a piece of music that just speaks to you. So I'm fine with making records. You know, I don't care about money I spent. I've probably lost three hundred and fifty thousand dollars on my last record. I paid for it, you know, I didn't care. I don't need a record company anymore. I mean I need them to distribute, but I don't need them to give me money to write.

You know.

Okay, on this last record, you work with Dave Cobb, who's the hottest, most respect producer national does Chris Stapleton along with a million other things. How did you hook up with Cobb? And what did he add?

Oh, he's the greatest producer on the planet. Man, He's He's right up there with Templeman. You know, Ted Templeman was a great producer because because he produced you, he didn't make you come to him. You know, he took your music and just made it better. That's what Cobb does. He's brilliant. He's fucking the best. I've said I couldn't work with another producer ever, I don't think if I'd make another record have to be a cop. Well, he came to me, he said, he reached out to my management company and said his manager said, said, Dave wants to produce a Sammy Hagar record, and is he interested? And I said, look, yeah, you know, so I talked to him on the phone. I told him I wanted to make At that time with the Circle, when we were brand new, I said, I want to make a Maricana record. I want to make a record like the band, you know, like I want to write that kind of music. I want to be very acoustic and heavy harmony, very you know, Americana.

You know, to the bone and bluesy folky.

And he said, oh no, man, he goes, I grew up on fucking Stanley Hampton and fifty one fifty. Get the fuck out of here, he goes, I make those kind of records.

I don't.

I want to make a record of you because I want to make your record. I want to make the definitive Sammy Hagar record. I want Montrose, Sammy Hagar, Chicken Foot Van Halen, I want everything you did in that. I want to make it just you know, blah blah blah. I want Michael Anthony in there with you, with those harmonies. And I'm going, shit, Well, I just don't really want to make a record like that right now. And then a couple of years later, I started writing these cool songs I got, I got riffed out. I started playing these badass guitar riffs, and father Times was in my pocket. I'm going to have to record this song soon because otherwise, you know, it's just I'm.

Not going to be in love with it the way I am now.

It was a song that every time I sang, I got goosebumps and choked up. That's the kind of song I want to write, and that's what I want to sing.

Goosebumps.

It can be because it's so bad ass, and I could get tears of my eyes because it's so bad ass. It don't have to be a sad song, you know what I mean. But so anyway, so I said, okay, I want to do it, and he said I can do it, and blah blah blah, blah blah blah.

We went back and it was the quickest record ever made.

My life is right up there with fifty one to fifty in the first Montreals record. Those records are just done in ten days, you know, And god, it just he's so good. He pick up a guitar. He was the fifth beatle. I didn't even play guitar on a freaking record. He played all my parts and reinvented a lot of them, and him and Vic just smoked on guitars live as fuck. I sang every song live except for a couple of them Pump It Up. I couldn't sing the lyrics because I was trying to read them. There're too many lyrics. I didn't know him well enough, so I had to overdub those. And then the last two songs that we wrote, I didn't have lyrics for him because we wrote Crazy Times and we wrote Slow Drain, the opening track on the Spot. He co wrote it with me and Uh. I had to go home and write the lyrics that night, and I did and came back the next day and sang them, and we were done with that freaking record.

And then.

Mercuridius said I played it for him because I wanted I wanted an opinion. I would have wanted your opinion, Bob. I'm not just saying this because I'm talking to you now.

You know.

I wasn't thinking he was reaching out to me at the time because he wanted to hear the record. Because of David Cobb. A lot of people were saying, hey, we want to hear what you guys are doing. It's a country what is it? No, it's rock, man, It's fucking right. And anyway, so I took it this house. I played it for him and he said that last song is just classic childhood's end. He goes, you need to take a piece of that and re record it, running through some effects way in the backgroun. He just came up with this wild idea and put it at the beginning, just for a few seconds, and then you have a concept record. And I said, wow, you're right, I do because it was it is a concept record.

It's about Covid child who's.

In Man, we're all grown up now, went we all went through that shit together and nobody, We're not fooling ourselves.

Man, this is real, uh, hard times.

And so I re recorded that thing and Cobb did it in the hotel room. He was on tour with Chris Stapleton. He was in Vegas in a hotel room. I told him what I wanted to do. He got acoustic guitar. He put it on his frecking iPhone. He played the acoustic guitar part. He said, I want to do it different because I want to put it in a different key so that you don't have to scream it. And I said yeah, yeah, yeah, and then he sent it to me. I went into my studio played his thing back, saying it sent it to him. He's on the front of the record and we have a concept record. I mean, that's how brilliant he is. He's just ficking good. I never see a guy work so fast and don't he don't get hung up. He never says hmmm, let me no, no, He just fucking you know, yeah, boom, let's do there. Okay, don't play let's watch out, watch out your drum part there to go back to the bridge, play the bridge?

Good? Yeah, Well, you know he's like that.

He just bam bam, bam bam and just orchestrating and has his shit together.

He's a bad motherfucker excuse. And so is Chris Stapleton, by the way.

Okay, so you make new music when you go play live, it's like Jimmy Buffett. There's a core number of songs that he has to play every night. Okay, do you find that your audience will listen to the new music.

Absolutely, I didn't this new record. I wanted to go out and play the whole damn record. But I took the year off, you know, I did. I did a quick tour with George Throgod last year and then and then this year I wanted to take off. And so the record's coming gone now and we never got to rehearse and build a new show.

We just do spotty shows.

And I said, oh, I'll take that weekend like we're playing Vegas and Tahoe in a couple of weeks.

And I say, well, I guess got to do the same show. You know.

Maybe we'll throw one new song, because this band can learn in the dresser and we can play a new song just like and we we do it constantly. We always sew a new song or two, and especially the van Halen stuff. We got a reservoir of van Halen that we can play. Sometimes we go out and say, let's just play a fucking hour of van Halen. This fuck with these people hard, you know what I mean, They keep it hit you know, fifty one, fifty oh you know, oh you wait one too, you know, four and off gone out. So we'll play a record a song from all these different things, and you know, the audience goes crazy, they lap it up. They'd rather hear that than anything. But my songs are I can deliver. I'm a I'm a performer, you know, I'm more than an artist. I think it being such a performer. I'm such a performer. That has kept me from getting artists respect, like you know, like these guys that just stand there and sing, and you know, I never get that respect.

You know.

They always talk about my show and my rap, what I sit on stage, and my antics and and this and that. So I jump around and run around. I can deliver a song, a brand new song, as good as I can deliver. I can't drive fifty five, so so I don't worry about new songs and my fans if I'm not opening for someone, which I never do. If they're all my fans, and they'll they love anything because they're used to be in cabbo where I go on stage and I'll play two hours, but not even play one of my own songs, you know, for two ficking hours with the right guys, you know, so they're used to that. You know, I'm almost like the grateful dead. They're used to saying, well, these you don't know what you're gonna get, but you know you're going to get a party, you know. And I like being that guy. I love it, and I of course I play. I always end the show with mas tequila, heavy metal, one way to rock or if I can't drive fifty five. Almost always end my set that way. I don't do encores anymore, haven't done on Coors for fifteen years since I left fan Hanel, and I don't think.

I don't leave the stage. I finish my show.

There's an hour and forty minutes whatever it is, and I stand there and I've opened up a cocktail or make mix myself a drink right out stage. We fuck around, Everybody goes to towels off, Mike and I do a toast, do a couple of shots, a couple of pops.

Drummer walks around. You know.

I talk to the people and they don't even bother, like yeah me. You know they know that we're not done, you know. And then when I feel like it, then we just start playing encores.

And I usually like to end my whole show of all together.

Before you walk out that show, you're gonna hear either Eagles Fly, Father Time now or when it's Love by Van Halem, and it's usually Eagles Fly or Father Time, and then when it's love and then it's all like, thank you.

This is what it's all about. You know.

That song it's one of the greatest ballads ever written in the history of rock, I think. And I'm proud of that lyric. I'm proud of that music Eddie wrote. And that song gives me the goosebumps every freaking time. So that's playing new songs, it just would just be it's just part of the event because it's an it's not a show, it's not a set, you know.

And I can't wait to go back out again.

And I'm really interested in really really digging deep into van Halen. See I've shied away from doing that because of now you know, the friction between us and you know, and there was van Halen. But now that Eddie's gone and I've hit al a hundred times out, call me. Let's get together. Let's make some music, you know what I mean. It's not about trying to be van Halen. It's about give a servant the fans, and let's play that music together. For God's sakes, how could you not when you're the least singers still alive. You've got two of them that are still alive. One of them is less user friendly. But Mikey and Alan myself just let's just go play music, you know, And he just won't respond. Since Eddie's death, he's been really shut down with me anyway. So I'm gonna go out and play that fucking music, you know what I mean. I feel like it's well, I can still sing it. I got Michael Anthony, He's the other half. We call ourselves the other half, you know. There's ed All and Sam and Mike, you know, and we've roomed that we've traveled that way too. So I'm really horny after taking this year off to do some of them, more of even more than I've ever done, because I think the fans need it, you know. I just hope I can sing long enough to be able to play my greatest hits, A little Chicken Foot, a little Montros. Always got to play one Mantro song, you know, Space Station of five, rock Candy or Bad Motor Scooter. I mean, I have to do that, and I don't know, so if I can my voice a hold up to be able to sing two.

And a half or three hours.

Maybe taking a break in between, maybe Mikey sings a few of the old Van Halen songs and like we do now, he sings around with the Devil, or he sings Ain't talking about love in the middle of the show. Maybe he sings a few more of those and I take a little break, but somehow so we can get it all in to the definitive Sammy show. You know, let's you know, finish what you started here, you know what I mean. It's like Eddie's death really really made it so dysfunctional because either you know, him and I were the fearless leaders, you know, really, I mean, roth was a leader in his day. I was a leader in my day, and then Eddie became the leader, you know, after I was gone, and it's like without a leader, there's no one hurting the cats, you know.

And Wolfey it's not his job. You know, I love what he's doing.

He's he's killing it out there by himself, you know, playing all the instruments. You know, he doesn't want to carry on the vand Handle legacy, but it has to be carried on. Some of the greatest songs in rock ever written, and for nobody to be able to go out there and do the whole thing is crazy. You know, Roth can't sing my song, so he you know, I don't want to say it, but you know he he doesn't do that great of a job on his own, so he don't want to. He don't want to mess around with mind. But you know I can sing his songs, and Mikey can sing his songs. It's like, you know, if he wanted to join us, oh, I'd say, come on in a minute, but I already tried that. He's not so user friendly. But they're not criticizing him at all. Man, those songs are great. The early fucking van Halen. Van Halen don't have a stinker in their whole fucking catalog. You know, even stupid songs like on the Inside that we did on fifty and fifty, it's still great. You know, ice cream, man, it's still great. You know they're they're they could do no wrong. You got fucking Eddy van Halen playing guitar. It's got to come out pretty good.

Okay, speaking of songs, and you mentioned Murk, which has the company Hypnosis, who owns your songs.

Now, I sold a great deal of my early catalog to Warner Chapel, which was my you know label for most of the years for all that, and they've always been my publishers, and I sold a lot of it to them, but not my new stuff.

I still own all my new stuff.

And when I say my new stuff from about Chicken foot on.

Now you sold the stuff, do you regret selling it?

No?

The I mean if I needed money, I would regret because the amount you can sell it for today from what I sold it for is like ten times. But I don't need money, so I don't regret because the amount of money those songs were earning and for compared per year, it would have taken me twenty years to get the money that I sold them for. And I thought, well, why just sit and collect them little trinkets when I could have a big chunk and I can do something with that, right, And that was my philosophy way back then, way before these people were selling their kind of like boy was the only guy that you know, I remember Bowie sold his rights years ago. First got to do that, and that impressed the fuck out of me. But I didn't know how I was going to do it.

You know.

It's like nobody was beating on my doors saying hey, So Warner Chell said hey, we want, you know, want to buy you your songs, and I thought, well, maybe they'll do something with them. You know, that would be great because the music just kind of sitting there dying. Things were changing, records weren't selling. So I thought it made a good deal. And I did make a good deal, but not by today's standards. So I'm like Mark, you know, I'm sure he would be right there in line. He's a fan, and we talked about it.

Believe me.

You know, it's like, yeah, if I needed money, I'd be kicking myself and the assid right now.

I'll just sell another tequila company. What the hell?

You know?

Okay, going back to Van Haalen, Legendarily, you were hooked up by your mechanic. Yeah, you had been with mocros on Warner Brothers. You were then with Capital, you'd switch to Geffen. You really had some emphasis, you were really going you go to play with the boys and ye, well wait a second, you know I got something going on with myself phone. Do you immediately say I'm all in.

Boy? Bob you're telling it like it is. I didn't plan on joining that band for five seconds. When Eddie called me, I thought, oh, this is great. Because I was talking to Ted. I was getting ready to start writing. You know, I've just come off tour, but I was gonna start writing, and Ted was coaching me all the time. Hey, you know, how about this song? How about that song? With a song like this? I was sending him little snippets and we were talking about doing a new wear. So I thought, oh, fuck, man, I'll get Eddie to play on my record. This would be like the shit. Yeah, oh boy, but what was it. I wouldn't even considering joining that band. You know, I was selling double arenas almost in every city at that time, and Platt every album was platinum, you know, so uh I it was so weird. I thought, well, Eddie says, well, just come on down. I said, oh, man, I just got off on tour. Just cut all my hair off. Man, I need a break, man, fuck, I said, But I got to come down and get my car anyway, because he had seen my car in there. So I thought, well, okay, I'll come down.

I come down. I walk in the studio. It was a silly thing.

I'm sure everybody's heard this story reading in my book and stuff. But those guys have been up all night playing working on songs. Summer Nights and good Enough and a couple of little other jams that were both on fifty and fifty. And they were burnts in that place, smell like booze and cigarettes. And I actually wore a suit. It was a cool suit, you know, like a Versace suit. I wore a fucking suit down into them, and Alex has got a contract. You have to sign this, a non disclosure or anything.

You're here, you know.

And then I'm going, what the fuck are these guys are? These guys are crazy, you know. But finally I said, well, let's just play some music, you know, and they said okay, you know, so we went in and we started playing did you sign the NBA bok No. Alex is funny. Back in those days, he was really trying to be a businessman. He was trying to, you know, be kind of like the band leader, you know, because especially after Roth, he thought he was going to step in there. And I walked in and we started playing music. I heard those Eddie and Now play together, and you know, never mind Mike. You know, it was the magic between those two guys. Mike was just filling in the holes on base. That's the way you have to play with those two. It was the most loosest, greasiest fucking groove I've ever heard in my life in rock. It reminded me so much of Cream, my favorite band ever, much more than that Zeppelin. I love Cream because Cream always played things slow and the way Ginger Baker played and it was always slow, Budy, It's not slow like Sabbath, but just slower like I'm always hyper.

I'd always say, you know, I'm.

Speed it up, you know, right, But they alan ed kept it down in that deep, greasy pocket. I fell in love the same thing. When I went to Cabo. I just said, oh fuck, I'm in this band. You know what I mean? This is And I just started singing.

Summer Nights and my radio.

And everybody's going whoa, and you know, look at goosebumps. There they are again, here they come. You can't. You just can't describe how it was, like, oh fuck, you know, I want to be in this van. I don't care. My manager goes, are you crazy? I go see David Geffen. Are you crazy? He goes, you realize you're gonna you're gonna take a pay cut. You know, you make more money your SOULO wars they got to and he goes, those guys are a mess, you know. And he tried to talk me out of it. And I'm saying, no, Dave, you don't understand ed Leffer and me sitting there and David Geff and he's sitting on his desk, scratching his head, pacing.

He goes, you're my biggest artist right now. You know. He went on this.

Whole guilt trip on me. And then he finally he goes, you know what, it sounds like, you really want to do this. I said, I really do want to do this. He goes, I would never stop an artist from doing what they want to do. And I went, wow, what a good man. And he said, I mean it. I'll take care of this. Let me talk to Mooston and we'll figure this out. And then he went put a gun to Mosad, said you want to see me in your band?

This is my biggest artist. I want half the record.

This is a rumor I heard he got half of the fifty one to fifty record and he got another Sammy Hagar record, a solo record without giving Warners half of it, because that's what their deal. And then he moved on to Universal after that. But at that time, that's what he got out of that deal. I'm thinking, Yeah, you would never stop an artist from doing with there as long as it's good for you. Na, David Geffen was He broke me, you know, worldwide. And I never forget that man. They believed in me, you know, Carter, I mean fucking Carter. I love Carter more than any other person, and that in this business for what he did for me, and what he did for Tina, what he did for Bob Seeger, how many people, what he did for the motels, he did it. He stood up for you, you know, against the corporate put his neck on the line.

Nobody does that, none of them other A and R guys.

John Klardner was good for me, same way, but he wouldn't put his neck on the line. He'd go, yeah, ain't gonna happen. You know that's single. He go, No, that single's not going to be a hit. And I'd say why not. They say they're not gonna put the money. Come on, you gotta be getting. He wouldn't go in there and go to batle like Carter Wood. So even though I had hits on jupping it out with Carter but anyway.

Okay, so ed Leffler, Okay, he had a legendary reputation. How did you hook up with him? How good was he? What was his magic? Noel was pushed aside. Edward was the manager van Halen? Then ed and to what degree did that break up van Halen?

It totally broke up Van Halo. Ed Leffler was the best manager on the planet. He was a one man dog. He had Juice Newton for five minutes and he you know, but he really he managed van Halen and he was he.

He lived and breathed van Halen. You know.

Every Tuesday night they get together all the promo guys at his house with all the hookers in the freaking drugs and rock and rolling, and they would have the time of their lives to be getting your airplay for the next week. I mean, he lived and breathed it. And when he when Eddie and I we never we never had to discuss anything between us except music, and because ed Leffler took care of it. If we had a problem. We took it to Ed and Ed would say, well, Eddie's not going to like that. I'd say, yeah, but Ed, you know, I want to do this solo record, you know, blah blah blah. I'm getting a divorce and and I can use that money, you know, pay my wife off. You know, so I want to do the greatest hits record. Edie's not gonna like it, you know that. I'm going, yeah, well, can you fix it? He could fix it right, and then you know, nothing to be said. Ever, I never mad to talk to Eddie about it. When Ed Lefler died, I had to talk to Eddie about things, and when he had to talk to me about things, and it was like, what.

The fuck are you talking about? No fucking way am I.

You know, So he kept the band together absolutely, one hundred percent. And then you bring in a new guy who kind of poisons the brothers seeing where the power is at this time. Now they were kind of going against me. We all know that there was a you know, like I was the outsider guy. So you know, he went with them. They said, we don't want Sammy to do solo records. Okay, I'll fix it. Goes to Warner Brothers, take his name off. No more solo records of Samy. I had a contract record do a solo record after every band, Halo record if I wanted, and I never did.

But it was a.

Huge deal Leffler made when I joined the band, so they took that, you know, it just start all that kind of poisoning stuff. And then as soon as I got thrown out of the band and he brought Gary Sharona, and we all know about that, he got thrown out with Gary.

So it just was a shame the way it all went down.

Leffler, if he wouldn't have died, Van Haler would still be together, absolutely and still the biggest band in the world. But Ed I met Ed, he had that band Sweet, and I was just signed to Capitol and Sweet was on Capital. So they were playing their their American debut at with their big hit ballroom Blitz or whatever. It was their first one and at the Santa Monica Civic. This is a great story, Bob, I got. I gotta go in one step deeper because this is a great story. Paul Kossoff from Free who was had a real bad drug problem and I I was opening for him at that that old rock and roll place down on Santa Monica.

What was that rock club? Our Wood? Yeah, maybe it was a star War?

Was it the Star War? That's not on Santa Monic. I mean that's not on Sunset. The star Ward was down.

Not on Sunset, it is on it was on Santa Monica.

Yeah, that's it. Then by the Star Wars.

Okay, So I'm opening for Paul Kossoff there doing my Capital debut. I'm I'm auditioning for a Capitol deal. Paul Kossoff was wasted. I killed it for one thing. Leffler was there, saw me, right, and they said, we want to We're gonna sign that guy, uh, Carter and all those guys. So they said, we want to sign that guy, meaning me, and maybe you can put him on tour with Sweet And Leffler said, quote unquote them, you think I would let that fucking wild ass, blonde, fuzzy haired motherfucker play before my band? You're crazy, right? And Carter told me this story. Ed told me too later, so they said, oh, fuck, you know whatever. So I did get to meet it, none of that. The next two days later, Paul coss Up was on an airplane the next day to San Diego for another show. He died on the plane of an overdose and there hat attack whatever happened to him. He was opening for Sweet, so they go, hey, you know, hey, that guy you saw get him on the show. Head's going fuck yeah, he's all you know, I guess he was all pissed off and he let me do it. I killed it. I jumped off the stage, went into the audience, fucking you know. I did every trick in the book. And Sweet comes on stage. They did good, but you know, I did really good, and and ed after the show, he asked if somebody to bring me into the dress room to meet with Sweet, and he I walk in. He's got the lead singer in the fucking corner. He's smoking a cigarette, he's got his finger in his face and he's telling him, you see.

What that fucking guy did. You see what that fucking guy did.

And you're standing up there, you know, like some fucking pompous, you know, asshole Rock started.

He was chewing him out hard. Man.

I walk in and there goes, hey, just a minute, and I want to see you, And I said, okay. I mean he was so mafiosa. I fell in love with him too. I was like, oh God, I got it. This guy's got to manage me. So he came in and said, okay, I'm gonna sign you and going to get you a deal with the Capital and then and that's that's the way it happened. He became my father, my mentor everything. If I had a business problem, I called ed Leffler. If I had a marital problem, I called ed Leffler. If I had a legal problem, I called ed Leffler and he fucking fixed it. He was the king. He was so hot headed though he hid be I remember Bill Graham. Eddie Money opened for me on a Bill Graham show, and Bill Graham managed Eddie Money and conquered and we had all these special lights, you know, I from my headline too. We had four spotlights on stage operators behind me and Eddie Muddy's opening the show and Bill Graham's telling him, hey, get them spotlights on telling the lighting guy said you can't do it. The left and said, fuck you, those are our spotlights, you know, And they got into it, him and Bill Graham. I'm gotting a freck and fistfight, all rolling, all over the backstage area. And I mean he just was that kind of guy. He was not going to say roll over. He was tough man, he was awesome. I love that man. I'll tell you I still dream about him. I have dreams of him. I have dreams of Carter too. Just every now and then they come to me and just have a nice little dream. It's really cool.

Just to go back to the beginning for a minute. So you're a sharp dressed kid in school. Everybody likes you. How did you get into playing music? And the Beatles didn't hit till seventy four sixty four when you were seventeen, so what was going on there?

You know?

The crazy thing is I was more of a Stones guy than the Beatles. But I did learn I want to hold your hand, my mom. I wanted a guitar. I decided I was gonna I could sing. See And I had this older friend that was in my brother's age, three years older than me. He had a car, he had a guitar, an amplifier. He was kind of a rich kid, and he liked me because I was I was cool. I looked like a rock star and he had met me through my brother and he he you know, it's just really a funny thing.

A guy named Ed Mattson, he taught me how to play guitar. U.

He taught me how to drive a car, and he would he brought his guitar and ample over my house and he said, man, your mom would get you a guitar. And I said, my mom, she said, if you learned how to play never on Sunday, I'll get one from the series catalog.

It was thirty nine ninety five, you know that one in the case. I bought it.

I bought one recently for eighteen hundred fucking dollars right because I had to have it.

But and I learned how to play it.

My mom bought me his guitar, and him and I started a band, just the two of us, and we'd go play parties, you know with you know, one of my girlfriends or something, have a birthday part in her garage. And I'd say, me and my my well, my band will play. And we played instrumentals. We played Dick Dale and we played you know, soft wipe out and songs like that without a drummer. And I want to hold your Hand, I think was the first Beatles song. And then when the Stones record came out, we fucking learned the whole Stones record. But I could sing, so, you know, I decided I was going to be a singer because I'd be hanging around with my buddies in the car and and you know, I'd start singing any song came on the radio. I could sing it. I knew the lyrics and I could sing the melody. And they and they used to get pissed out. I say, how do you know all these fucking songs? I'm saying, I just know them, you know, and I still do. I never used teleprompter, And so he goes, oh yeah, they'd shut the radio off, okay, sing Satisfaction by the Stones, and you know, I'd blow it out man, you know, acapella, and then they'd have contests and'd be like trying to stump Sammy. Man. I was like rain Man. So I could sing. So everybody thought I was going to be a rock stars. So I started telling people rockstar winn at words. I start telling people I'm gonna be you know things, I'm gonna be like Mick Jagger, you know, it'd be like Elvis, and everybody believed me around town. I was one of those guys. I started dressing apart, so they said Mattson guy. He thought I was really cool. He said, yeah, this guy's got it.

Man.

I started a band with him. He's like and so because he was a really good musician. He could play anything. He's really smart guy. So he took me to see Donovan first American parents, at a place called The Trip in La.

Do you remember the Trip? I don't know if you know.

Before I know the Trip, but I didn't live in La then.

So Donovan was playing there by himself, and it was the most magical thing I've ever seen in my life. I was too young to get in and got a fake id ed could get in. He was eighteen. I wasn't.

I was. I guess I was fifteen if he was eighteen.

But anyway, we got in and Donovan sitting there in a stool and velvet and lace, big oh, just fucking velvet and lace and his hair and the way he had a you know, fucking poofed up like Bob Dellan.

But he was gorgeous. He was like an angel.

And he's setting on a stool with acoustic guitar with a spotlight on him, and it was the most magical thing I'd ever seen in my life. I thought, this guy looks like God, he looks like an angels Jesus.

You know.

And he was just mesmerizing. And then he took a break and he came back with a band. He played Sunshine Superman, and I was fucking done.

That was it. I was. I wanted to be Donovan.

If you know, I've recorded Donovan, two Donovan songs on my records. Early Carter introduced me to him finally one day and just a huge Donovan fan. Over Dylan Stones, over beetles Ford, over Chevy, you know, but you know the but so that kind of set me on my path and and s Ed Matson guy really coached me along. He turned me on to the Donovant I mean little He turned me on too, Bob Dylan then and he turned me on to you know, the Stones of course, but I had already seen the Stones. Him and I went to see their first America performance. George Babcock brought him to the Swing auditorium and Semragi and we snuck in and saw the Stones.

I said, I want to be micking Keith together.

Then I then I saw Creams performance at the Whiskey and then I said, I want to be I want to be Eric Clapton, and you know, I just jumped around. But that's in the beginning. I was like a chameleon, man, I could. I could really absorb things from these rock stars people that I would see. And then I became a Rod Stewart fanatic too for a long time, and that's when I really started performing more. I started, you know, running around on stage and saying goofy things and throwing a party. Rod in the Face's best party on the planet at that time. I think Paul Rogers, those kind of guys really all influenced me. Gary Broker from Proc o'harum, I still think one of the greatest singers ever. He could just keep going higher and you go, fuck you take away the higher. And I learned how to sing, you know, the way I sing dreams and those songs that way, or just go hire and hire. I learned how to do that from him. And I don't know how I did it, but I didn't learn anything. I just pushed myself to do it, you know. But I'm otis Redding. All those people have really influenced and they still do I'm a sponge A boy always said that about himself, you know, people said, don't ever wear a new pair of shoes around boy Mick Jagger hurting quotes. He said he'll have them the next day. I'm a little bit.

Like, okay, switching gears. Just back to No. You were talking about guy, you were talking about trust, etc. We have a very divided country. You're one of the few people who can appeal to both sides. Is there any hope? And if you could snap your fingers, what would you do to bring us together?

Wow?

If I knew how to do that, Bob, I would run for president. If I were in my sixties, even right now, I would run for fucking president. And I'm dead serious, and only agenda I would have. I would have one fucking agenda, and that would be to unite this country. How I would do that, I'm not sure, but that would be my only agenda. I'd say, don't talk to me about foreign policy, none of that right now, because this country needs to be at least seventy thirty, you know, get over this fifty to fifty divide. If we could get eighty percent of the people behind the president, and we could say we're united. Okay, this country united can change the world. We could there would we would cure the homeless situation, which is a big problem which I would want to cure. I would want to cure hunger and crime in this country. And but if we were united, we would do it together.

See if we.

Could reunite this country, the United States of America. I want to My platform would be I want to get rid of red and I want to get rid of blue. Let's be the purple country. And I know it's nothing to do with Prince Purple. Red and blue make purple. Let's unite and get rid of this big divide. It breaks my heart to see what's happening in this country. And as long as the people that are running this country are running it the way they are and trying to squash the other side. You know, it's like the right is trying to kill the left. The left is trying to kill the right. You know, they're throwing a president, a guy that was president, you know, indicting him, trying to get him in prison so he can't run again. I mean, it's so dirty. Politics have always been dirty, but the way that each side is treating each other it's just never going to stop the divide. We've got to stop that shit. And I would be independent, and I would I would just say I'm running for the purple. Just make this country purple, and and just stop. That's you don't know how how it breaks my heart because I'm too old, you know, I can't run.

Okay. And do you own any electric cars?

Yes?

Three, both both two of them are in my wife's name and ones on ones in both our names. Listen, you can only drive one car at a time. I got a bunch of cuts and I said, will you own all those gas customers, all those smug making deep cars. I said, no, yeah, I own them, but I only drive one at a time. I'm not out there driving twelve cars and once fucking the environment, you know.

So that's my excuse.

But yeah, we have a Tesla and it's our second one, and we have an Audi or eight or whatever it is, eight hundred full electric. And I'm i gotta tell you, I give, I give. Once you've driven and gotten used to an electric car, it's the only way to go. It's so unbelievable. You stop looking at gas stations, you stop looking at you know you're going, you know, you don't have to take it in and get the oil change.

It's like, it's fucking brilliant.

And if the electric company doesn't stick us up so bad that electricity we can't afford electric cars the way they've done with gas, then that would be the worst thing that could happen.

But it's probably gonna happen.

But we put electric solar panels in the house, put the electric plug in, and we basically drive for free.

And I'm telling you right now, you can't beat that. And our man.

Musk has done a brilliant job with putting charging devices around and places where you can go charge your cars, so it's no longer like, well, I can't go anywhere on a long trip. You know, yeah you can. If you can do, it's the future, There's no question about it. I would give up and I'd put my cars. I'd probably have to build a museum though, so I could put my cars in, so I could go look at them and sit in and put a big movie theater. I always said, if I can't drive my Ferraris and my really exotic cars and they're too valuable or the government won't let me drive them, I'll get myself a really cool museum. I'll put a big giant screen up in there, and I'll go sit in them and eat popcorn and watch movies.

I'm that note, Sammy. I think we're gonna wrap it up. I could talk to you for all all day. I mean, it's easy to see why you're successful. Is there anybody you don't get along with?

Alex van Halen right and Diamond Dave, we don't seem to get along. I can get along with him, but he can't get along with me.

I don't know what it is.

I hope to bury the hatchet with Alan, if there is a hatchet to bury it, and I buried it, and so Alan I can do it too. I hate enemies. I don't go through life making enemies. It's not my game. I'll bend over backwards. Y's guilty, wrong, I'm sorry. I will say I'm sorry so fast you wouldn't believe it. So yeah, I just want to see this country come together. We'll leave it on that and yes, that's where my heart's at.

On that note, we'll leave it till next time. This is Bob left set

S

The Bob Lefsetz Podcast

Bob Lefsetz is the author of “The Lefsetz Letter.” Listen to his new podcast where he'll address the 
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