About Sammy Hagar
Sam Roy Hagar , also known as the Red Rocker, is an American singer, songwriter, and guitarist. He rose to prominence in the early 1970s with the hard rock band Montrose before launching a successful solo career, scoring a hit in 1984 with "I Can't Drive 55". He enjoyed further commercial success when he replaced David Lee Roth as the lead vocalist of Van Halen in 1985, but left in 1996. He returned to the band from 2003 to 2005. In 2007, Hagar was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Van Halen. His musical style primarily consists of hard rock and heavy metal.
Also a businessman, Hagar founded the Cabo Wabo tequila brand and restaurant chain, as well as Sammy's Beach Bar rum. His current musical projects include being the lead singer of Chickenfoot and Sammy Hagar and the Circle. Hagar also is the host of Rock & Roll Road Trip with Sammy Hagar on AXS TV.
Sam Roy Hagar was born on October 13, 1947, to Bobby and Gladys Hagar in Salinas, California, and was named after his maternal grandfather, Sam Roy Baio. Despite claims that Hagar is of Lebanese descent he has stated that he is Irish and Italian. Hagar's family worked in the lettuce fields and he lived with his parents and three siblings in a labor camp until moving south to Fontana, California. There, his father Bobby had landed a job at the Kaiser Steel Mill, working in the open hearth. Bobby Hagar was an alcoholic boxer who held a record for being knocked down 20 times in a single fight. Friends said he was "mentally damaged" upon returning home from fighting in World War II. "My father was the town drunk," said Hagar, who described his father as "a complete alcoholic and madman" who was abusive towards his wife and children. Hagar's mother would occasionally take the children to a nearby orange grove to sleep in the car when their father became too violent. The Hagar family moved frequently, as Bobby had a habit of spending the rent money on alcohol; Hagar recalls living in nine different homes in Fontana while growing up. When Hagar was ten years old, his mother Gladys took the children and left Bobby for good.
Growing up, Hagar would pick fruit, deliver newspapers, and mow lawns to earn money. He excelled academically and discovered music while in high school, teaching himself to play guitar on a $40 instrument purchased from a Sears catalog. He fronted his first band, the Fabulous Castilles, when he was 14 years old. At age 17, Hagar went to San Bernardino and snuck in to see the 1964 US debut of the Rolling Stones at the Swing Auditorium. He also regularly attended concerts by surf guitarist Dick Dale at the Riverside National Guard Armory.
After graduating from high school, Hagar "wanted to get out of Fontana as quickly as I could". He moved to nearby Riverside and played in a handful of local bands, while also landing a job running the music department at a local store. Hagar first joined the Johnny Fortune Band as lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist and subsequently played in a string of other pre-Montrose bands including Big Bang, Skinny, Dustcloud, Cotton, Jimmy, the Justice Brothers, and Manhole. The Justice Brothers were the house band at a bar called "The Nightclub" in San Bernardino, before they relocated to San Francisco. During this period in Riverside, Hagar met drummer David Lauser, who would become his friend and musical partner for decades to come. Hagar then got married and moved to San Francisco. At some point after landing in San Francisco, two members of his band were arrested on drug charges, and Hagar found himself broke and without a band. He subsequently spent several months driving a dump truck for his father-in-law in New York as a means of supporting himself until he could put a new band together.
In 1970, Hagar returned to Fontana with his wife and new baby, pursuing a career in music full-time. While in Fontana, he claims he was visited by "a ship and two creatures inside of this ship" while he lay in bed one night. "And they were connected to me, tapped into my mind through some kind of mysterious wireless connection", he said of the experience, adding "I was kind of waking up. They said, in their communication to each other, no words spoke, 'Oh, he's waking up. We've got to go.' They fired off a numerical code, but it was not of our numerical system. All of a sudden, pow, the connection instantly broke." The experience affected Hagar deeply and led him to travel to Yucaipa, California to consult a psychic, who told Hagar that he needed to go back to San Francisco where fame was awaiting him.
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