Mas Tequila!!
Red: My Uncensored Life In Rock - Sammy Hagar 2/5
I have no idea what I was expecting when I started reading this. Maybe a lot of dirt, a lot of drugs and alcohol maybe. What I didn't expect was Sammy being by far one of the sanest guys in rock and roll. This is a guy that made more money outside of music than he did inside. If there was money to be made he found a way to do it. You get an alcoholic father, a batshit crazy wife, and a batshit crazy guitarist named Eddie, but the problem is that Sammy comes off as a nice guy which is really unexpected. The problem is that the book truly captures Sammy's manic energy and the book often comes off incoherent. This isn't a bad biography. It's just boring.
If you're a fan of Hagar this is going to be a good solid read. It really doesn't pick up until the Van Halen years or even the Geffen years. There's not a lot of detail in his dealings with Ronnie Montrose. I was expecting him to say something bad about the guy but he doesn't. These books were designed to start shit, yet Sammy truly comes off as a genuinely nice guy that never really seems affected by anything that happens to him. I wasn't a big Hagar fan and I wasn't a fan of Van Halen until 5150. As an artist his records were always a bit uneven and lacked something. It's funny that I would read Red and feel the same damn way about his book. I read this in a day just to get done with the damn thing.
What you do get from the book is his dealings with David Lee Roth and of course Eddie Van Halen. That is reason enough to pick this up from your local library. Casual fans aren't going to care about Sammy's attitude toward the music business and how he became a millionaire. What's interesting is that he was actually worth more than Van Halen when he joined the band and when he did the reunion tour he did it for the fans not the cash and it quickly became one of the worst experiences of his life.
He was able to take a mediocre band and inject some life into them. Van Halen was ten times better with Hagar but sadly egos clashed and the band found themselves becoming a nostalgia act while Sammy headed into the tequila business and laughed all the way to the bank. The best way to get revenge is to make money and lots of it. Sammy wins and he's able to hang out on the beach and enjoy life while most rock stars are struggling to survive.
I have no idea what I was expecting when I started reading this. Maybe a lot of dirt, a lot of drugs and alcohol maybe. What I didn't expect was Sammy being by far one of the sanest guys in rock and roll. This is a guy that made more money outside of music than he did inside. If there was money to be made he found a way to do it. You get an alcoholic father, a batshit crazy wife, and a batshit crazy guitarist named Eddie, but the problem is that Sammy comes off as a nice guy which is really unexpected. The problem is that the book truly captures Sammy's manic energy and the book often comes off incoherent. This isn't a bad biography. It's just boring.
If you're a fan of Hagar this is going to be a good solid read. It really doesn't pick up until the Van Halen years or even the Geffen years. There's not a lot of detail in his dealings with Ronnie Montrose. I was expecting him to say something bad about the guy but he doesn't. These books were designed to start shit, yet Sammy truly comes off as a genuinely nice guy that never really seems affected by anything that happens to him. I wasn't a big Hagar fan and I wasn't a fan of Van Halen until 5150. As an artist his records were always a bit uneven and lacked something. It's funny that I would read Red and feel the same damn way about his book. I read this in a day just to get done with the damn thing.
What you do get from the book is his dealings with David Lee Roth and of course Eddie Van Halen. That is reason enough to pick this up from your local library. Casual fans aren't going to care about Sammy's attitude toward the music business and how he became a millionaire. What's interesting is that he was actually worth more than Van Halen when he joined the band and when he did the reunion tour he did it for the fans not the cash and it quickly became one of the worst experiences of his life.
He was able to take a mediocre band and inject some life into them. Van Halen was ten times better with Hagar but sadly egos clashed and the band found themselves becoming a nostalgia act while Sammy headed into the tequila business and laughed all the way to the bank. The best way to get revenge is to make money and lots of it. Sammy wins and he's able to hang out on the beach and enjoy life while most rock stars are struggling to survive.
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