Sammy Hagar Talks Aliens & Hair Products

Someone once asked me, “Who has been your favorite interview?”  My answer is always, “Sammy Hagar.”  Last night, I once again had the treat of talking with Sammy just before he put on a free concert at his Cabo Wabo Cantina in the Miracle Mile of Shops on the Las Vegas Strip.  Once again, Sammy did not fall short of entertaining the ever living daylights out of me.

In these situations we are always pressed for time, but Sammy is always so not pressed for time.  He loves to meet people and talk.  He is so easy to interview.  I just ask a question and let him go.  I will skip talking about what all was going on before my interview, I’ll just say, Sammy is such a sweetheart.

My first question was one he might be so tired of hearing, but I had to ask it, because two people who read this website wanted to hear it.  “Now can you drive 55?”

He let out a giggle and answered, “You know, as I get older, I’m becoming more responsible.  And also, my eyes aren’t as good as they used to be.  So, I’m not as reckless, but I still love to drive fast… but in good daylight, and no traffic.  In the old days, you know, when I was twenty-five, I’d be like rrrrrr, rrrrrr.  I’m becoming more careful as I get older… unfortunately.”

“You are known for your gorgeous curls. Someone asked me to ask you ‘what hair products do you use?’” I asked.

“Ok,” he said, “that’s a good question, because my wife, my gorgeous wife,” and he pointed over to where she was standing on the other side of the room, “you can tell she would be the one who buys the hair products.  I use whatever she brings home.  And she has different hair than me.  Her hair is kind of a, like, more silkier hair than I have.  I have bushy hair like a horse’s tail, you know? And so, I use her hair products. But, I think the secret to having curly hair is that you don’t blow dry it, because it turns into a big frizz ball. And after you wash it you put leave-in conditioner in it.  Just a little bit!  And then just let it dry.  Go shake your head all over the place and just let it dry.  Don’t touch it until it’s dry.  That’s the secret to my hairdo, anyway.

“And there is one other secret and that is you don’t wash it every time with shampoo.  Every other time you only use conditioner. You go in, you wet it, and you put conditioner in it in the water and scrub it just like you would wash it with shampoo.  And then rinse it out…. And then it looks like you just came off the beach… When I come out of the ocean, man I’m looking good. I smell like a fish, but I’m looking great!” he laughed.

Time for the big question, “Someone who reads my website told me to ask you about the aliens.”

“Ohhh,” he said as he gathered his thoughts, “That’s a long subject! If you thought the hair was long…!  I’m a firm believer that we are not the only people here…  When you understand how big our universe, our galaxy, let’s use our galaxy is, that, our little cluster of stars is where we are.  That little sun, I mean, a little cluster of planets where we are is so small.  It is a dot in the sky, that when you see how massive it is and you think we’re the only ones here?  That’s terrifying.

“I would much rather believe that there is every kind of creature on the planet out there.  There is probably some planet in some other galaxies that, you know, are all dogs. And dogs drive cars, you know, drive airplanes, whatever,” he joked. “I mean, it’s that goofy, but we are not the only life form on this planet and if we are, we’re done. When we’re gone, that’s the end of it. I don’t like to believe that. So I believe in aliens completely.  And they come here.  They have worm holes and they get here by ways we don’t even understand.”

“So?” I asked.

“I have been visited, yes,” he smiled.

“That was my next question,” I joked, and he let out a laugh. “And what happened? Do you remember this or…”

“Oh yeah,” he explained, “I woke up in the middle of a dream where I was being occupied.  I was being tapped.  It was in 1968, 67-68, so before computers, and wireless telephones and all that stuff.  And in a way, I would say if you put in nowadays terms, which it still doesn’t quite reach what happened, they were downloading information into my brain.  Or, downloading my brain, into their information like an experiment.  That’s probably more like what it was, but having a little bit of an ego, I like to think they were downloading information into me so I’m special! And I know some stuff nobody else knows!” he laughed.

“I gathered some information somehow out of the process, but I caught ‘em doing it. And they went, you know, in telepathy, they said ‘oh, he’s waking up, we gotta end this, and they pulled the plug and hit a numerical code that wasn’t of our numerical system.  And it went poof! And I opened my eyes. And I was in the whitest room I’ve ever been in my life. And within about a second, it turned black, because this was in the middle of the night.  But for a second it was pure white, my eyes were open and I couldn’t move until it turned black and it was like my body came back to me. It was really crazy.”

Imagine my surprise listening to him talk, given I, too, had something rather similar happen to me in about 1963. I have probably shared that story with only about three people in my entire life.  Well, Sammy now makes four.  In my case, they were telling me something vitally important.  Unfortunately, I don’t remember the information I was given.  They did tell me they would be coming again to talk to me.  Is finding this out about Sammy a sign that the time is now nearing?  Who knows?  But it is nice to know that if I’m going to be branded a nut, I’ve got some pretty cool company!

“I think everybody has had more experiences than even know,” he continued. “Most people don’t wake up. I woke up.  You woke up. That’s the key to believe in it. Because everybody else or the same guy that’s had this same experience maybe ten times, if he didn’t wake up, he’s going, ‘Ohh, you’re full of crap, man. What are you, nuts?!’ Yep, fine. Next!” He laughed.

The publicist attempted to drag me away, due to time, but Sammy stepped in to put a stop to it. “No, she’s fine! She’s my girl, man!” he told the publicist.  I did agree to only one more question.

“The octopus at the Shark Reef Aquarium…” is as far as I got before he was saying, “What?! Who? What?”

“There is an octopus at the Shark Reef Aquarium.  And he picked Marquez over Diaz in tomorrow night’s fight.”

“OOooooo,” he said as he mulled that one over. “Marquez over Diaz,” he pondered. “Yeah! I like Marquez. Marquez, I think is one of the greatest fighters…”  we chatted a bit about Don King, and not paying attention to boxing as much as we used to, “but I love the sport when it’s a good fight! And I think Marquez over Diaz… The octopus is right.”

Okay, now that the questions were out of the way, it was time to beg for my favorite song of his, “Where Eagles Fly.”  He didn’t think he could do it.  “You see ‘Where Eagles Fly’ is, uh, such a spiritual kind of, uh… it doesn’t belong in a small nightclub. Nightclubs are down and dirty, so we were going to rock and be, we were going to make the Rolling Stones look like, like religious fanatics. OK? We were going to make ‘em look like priests.”

I told him about my African Grey parrot, Echo, who loves his voice and loves his songs.  Echo starts to giggle as soon as he hears Sammy’s voice, when I play an interview tape for research or writing an article.  He will make the finger snapping sounds when one of Sammy’s songs starts. He whistles along and bobs his head.  He particularly likes “Where Eagles Fly.”

“That’s so awesome.  See, he feels the heart, then, right?” he said. “My mother wanted that song sung at her funeral. Of course, I couldn’t sing it.  I was too torn up. But, that song has birth and death rites.  It is that, to me, it is that big.  And it’s hard to sing in a club.  But let me see.  Let’s see how I feel.”

With that, he gave me a big hug.  He squeezed and squeezed harder.  I thought my head would pop off.

Tomorrow, the concert…

UPDATE:  Sammy and the Octopus picked it right: Marquez won by unanimous decision scores of 116-112, 118-110 and 117-111.