Sammy Hagar Explains Why Chickenfoot Will Never Play Van Halen Songs
Outspoken Chickenfoot frontman Sammy Hagar has a few steadfast stances that he will never budge on. One is that Chickenfoot will never play any Van Halen or Hagar solo tracks live. Another is that air will eventually destroy us all.
Let him explain.
In an interview with Get Your Rock Out, Hagar revealed, "We really do not want to dilute this band and become a Van Halen cover band, or become a Sammy Hagar cover band or a Joe Satriani cover band... The idea is that we are Chickenfoot, and we will stay that."
So is there any hope of hearing the Chickenfoot lineup playing 'Right Now?' According to Hagar, there's only one circumstance in which that will happen. "I don't think we will ever play any of our old catalog unless you catch us in Cabo jamming," Hagar said, "and then it's more Hendrix and Zeppelin and Montrose and that kind of stuff."
This isn't to say you'll never hear Hagar's trademark powerhouse vocals singing his pre-Chickenfoot material live again. "I save that for my solo tour -- if you see Sammy Hagar on tour, you're going to get my whole catalog," he assured. "You're going to get (songs) from Montrose to the early Red Rocker years, Van Halen -- the Van Hagar era ... everything but Chickenfoot."
Hagar also talked about the inspiration behind the band's new album 'III,' and as happens from time to time, it led him onto an astrological, apocalyptic tangent that would make most Mayans blush.
"My inspiration is the world around me ... things I've witnessed, things I've been seeing around me in life and the world that I live in. My life, my relationship with my wife, and my kids, and my family and friends."
So, how is Hagar's outlook? Surprisingly bleak for a healthy, successful rock star and business mogul.
"It's got a lot of darkness to it," Hagar revealed, chuckling softly. "Because unfortunately, I'm not too optimistic about the world we're living in right now. I don't think we're doing so hot."
"I try not to point the finger, and I try not to put my opinion [in]," Hagar said. "It's the same as when I wrote my book," Hagar said. "I didn't put my opinion in about what happened in Van Halen. I just said, 'This is what happened. You read it, you tell me what you think.' You probably think the same thing I do -- it's f---ed up," Hagar laughed.
"The way I tried to write about the world was like that too," he continued. "Like 'Something Going Wrong' -- that's a real deep song. It's very Biblical about the four seasons, solar ages, every 2,000 years something very cataclysmic seems to happen on the planet. We just moved into the air, from water -- 2,000 years of the age of Pisces, and we move into the Age of Aquarius. We're in the air age, so we're going to be destroyed by something from the air."
Listen to Sammy Hagar's Full 'Get Your Rock Out' Interview