In Search Of Excellence - Sammy Hagar: How Rock 'n' Roll Changed My Life | E162

Episode Date: May 6, 2025

Sammy Hagar is one of the most prolific artists in the history of Rock and Roll.  Playing in bands like Montrose and Van Halen, and with a successful solo career that included the rock anthem “I Can’t Drive 55,” Sammy has had 25 platinum albums and has sold more than 60 million albums worldwide.  Sammy is also an extremely successful serial entrepreneur and was the first celebrity to create his own tequila brand which he sold more than 20 years ago for nearly $100 million.  He is also devoted to giving back and is a generous philanthropist. Coaching and Staying Connected:1-on-1 Coaching | Instagram | YouTube | TikTok | LinkedIn

Hey, nobody else knows how to do this? I'll tell you what you gotta do. Let's go take over this fucking world. That band, when I joined them, we released the first album, we all had our first number one record. Straight to the Billboard top, number one for five weeks. If I was one guy who would want to spend

the afternoon singing and playing, it would be Elvis Presley, man. He was the king, okay? When you fall in love, somebody can come up and say, hey man, somebody stole your car, and you go, he was the king. Okay, when you fall in love somebody can come up He's a man somebody just stole your car and you go I don't care I'm in love man. You know, the biggest lesson I've learned in my life is don't lie There's no reason to lie. It will bite you in the ass. You tell the truth at all times. Let's talk about Van Halen, one of the greatest, the most successful rock bands of all time. Van Halen, for those who don't know, is a 19th best-selling music group of all time.

It has sold 56 million albums in the United States, another 29 million throughout the world. In 1978, you're playing at a music festival and Eddie Van Halen, one of the greatest guitarists all time, if not the greatest guitarist of all time, came up to you and told you that Montrose had been his favorite rock band, referring to himself as a Montrose freak, and told you that his own music was influenced by Montrose. Fast forward six years, 1985, and your Ferrari BB512i is in the shop for a tune-up, and his fate would have it. Eddie Van Halen also happened to be at the shop that day.

He was admiring your Ferrari. And when he asked your mechanic, Claudio Zampoli, about the car, Claudio said it belonged to you. Tell us what happened next. You know, this is just one of those crazy things where the cosmic thing that happened to me, back with the UFO, the little flying saucer dudes, ever since then, things like this would happen to me, you know, back with the UFO, the little flying saucer dudes. Ever since then, things like this would happen to me.

And it just was just pure coincidence, but it just didn't get blown out the window. So Eddie Van Halen says to Claudio, oh, Claudio says, oh, that car belongs to Sammy Hagar. You should, you should call him, get him in your band. And Eddie goes, you got his phone number? And Claudio says, yeah. And he sits right down in the office and calls me out of the blue. I just got home from a tour, been home two days, a VOA tour, maybe 120 shows, you know, I was done,

happy to be home and the best shape of my life though, you know, I didn't, man, I was like chiseled. And he says, hey, what? Dave quit. Why don't you come down and join our band? I said, oh, man, nah, you know, hey, I'm just getting off the road, blah, blah, blah. And I said, now, you know, give me a couple days. And he said, no, I like come down like tomorrow. No, I said, when do you want to do this?

He said, they'll come down tomorrow. I go, oh, no, no, you got to give me a couple days. Man, I said, man, I just got my hair. I just shaved my head. I cut all my hair off because my hair was trashed with sweat and every night in the lights. And it was like a haystack, you know, on top of my head. So I cut it all off after most tours.

And I thought, man, I ain't going to go around like this. And he goes, I said, why don't you come up here and, you know, let's try to write some songs. See what we got. He goes, well, I got some idea, you know, blah, blah, blah. So he talks me into it. I call my manager on the left, where he's going, I said, man, I'd love to play with Eddie,

but I said, man, I don't want to be in that band, you know, thinking about their image because of the previous singer. And I'm going, I'm not that kind of guy, you know? So anyway, I went down, the rest is history, Van Halen. Eddie and I hit it off like just creative, on a creative level. He's going, whoa, you can hit that note. I said, sure, I can hit that.

No, you can hit higher now. You can? Hip ding bing bing goes onto the piano. What would you sing to this? He starts going, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah,

ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, and I was going, you know, whoa, whoa, whoa, man, try this, try that. They were using me like they'd never heard anybody that could sing. It's pretty funny. So you join Van Halen, which to many becomes known as Van Hagar.

And with you as a lead singer, they produced four multi-platinum, number one Billboard charting albums, 5150, OUA 12, Four Unlawful Carnal Knowledge and Balance. During that time, the band has nine number one mainstream rock hits, with you as a lead singer. Your time with them had a lot of great moments and some that were not so great.

You joined in 1985, you were fired from the band in 1996, then you returned again from 2003 to 2005, and then either you were quit or were fired again. Can you tell us what those first 11 years were like? You're frontin' one of the most popular and successful bands of all time. You're popping out multi-platinum albums, singing in front of sold out stadiums, 80,000 screaming fans. And from there, can you share with us when you were fired twice, the medical issues, this time involving your pregnant wife, disagreements about their next album, Eddie's alcoholism,

and him smashing his guitar on stage, sending shrapnel into the crowd and almost hitting you? Well, boy, you hit on the good and the bad time. So let's start with the good times. Yeah, that band, when I joined and we released the first album, we all had our first number one record straight to the Billboard top, top of the charts, number one for five weeks. I believe that's what it was. Anyway, and the first show, the album wasn't even out and it sold out in five minutes in Shreveport, Louisiana. And we came out, we didn't even have a new album out yet. They haven't even released the first single, Why Can't This Be Loved?

Everything got pushed back, blah, blah, for some crazy reasons. And we started the tour anyway, and the people, you know, tore down the barricade and the rest is history. We said, man, this band, the chemistry was just magic. So is what that being in Van Halen and having that kind of success, that even though I had success, it wasn't quite superstardom. See, I thought, eh, I'm over it. I've done it all. I'm going to cut my hair off after a few. I don't know what I'm going to do. I don't know if I'll make another record for another year or two. And

then I go right back into fire. I'm going right back into fire. So like I said, I was in tip top shape. My voice was primem. I'd been singing for years, you know, and really singing at the top of my game. I was on a, this diet where it was a Haas diet where I didn't eat fat and I didn't eat proteins. It was carbs that actually without sugar, the carbs would just eat fat right off your body. So I had about 11% fat content.

I could run 12, 15 miles without breaking sweat practically. So I was a machine, man. So when I joined Van Halen, this machine was like, hey, let's go guys. And these guys are like drinking and doing drugs. And I'm going, man, hey, come on, guys, this ain't working. And everybody kind of got on my routine. I became the leader of the band. Here we go again.

Hey, nobody else knows how to do this? I'll tell you what you got to do. Let's go take over this fucking world. Right? And I got my manager, Ed Leffler in there. So long story short, we took off on a carnival ride that got me back motivated as a rock star. I said, oh no, this is real. This is super stardom. I saw the difference. Remember I told you I was kind of saying, I don't know why I'm doing this. Don't know what I really want to do. The dream is kind of over. The dream woke the fuck up real fast in Van Halen. And walking out on stage, giving it, we were great. We were the greatest band in the world at that time. I don't care what anyone says, I'll argue with you about anybody. I'd dare anybody to follow Van Halen in those days,

in their first seven, eight years. Then that just started getting old. The drugs and the alcohol really started kicking in. I was doing quite a bit myself, not in a situation where I needed rehab or where I was hurting my body or my life. But you know, I was partying pretty good. I was girls, lead singer of Van Halen, the biggest rock band in the world, handsome young man out there, you know, multimillionaire driving Ferraris. You bet I was taking advantage of all that. I was having myself a time in my life, but it wasn't taking a toll on me physically or anything, but it was taking a toll on my marriage. So it ruined my

marriage. And then when my marriage, my wife got sick from it, she had a nervous breakdown. I got concerned. I thought, I got to straighten out here. And then when I started straightening out and not wanting to tour as much as I needed a break, it kind of broke the band up. Kind of, not really that particular. But we were kind of going sideways anyway. Eddie was on

in and out of rehab. Alex had quit drinking, but he had gone through a couple divorces in that band and Ed and Val got divorced and things went sideways, you know, absolutely. And like a marriage or anything else, I saw this ain't working no more. I ain't happy in this band. All the fame and the fortune in the world isn't working for me. And I need a change. And I met my now present wife who had been together 30 years, Kari and I, and I fell in love. And when I fell in love, deep in love, you know, I hadn't been in love for a long time. I'd been partying so hard. I didn't even know what love was. And when you fall in love, you, somebody can come up and say, hey man, somebody just stole your car. And you go, I don't care.

I'm in love, man. And so that's kind of the way Van Halen was. It's like, I was watching the Beatles thing, the whole Yoko Ono thing. That's the way John, he fell in love, you know. But unfortunately, Yoko was, she jumped into, and she joined the Beatles where Kari didn't join Van Halen. But I was in love and I just wanted to be with her. Eddie would say, well, let's practice. I don't want to be home with my wife. You know, I want to practice. I want to do this. I want to do that. I want to, you know, let's go back on tour. And I say, look, man, you know, I can't just work, you know, every day, all day, every day and get nowhere. Because we just argue, we started arguing about stuff because Eddie just didn't want to finish anything because he didn't want to go back home. That's before he split up with Val. So he had, she had bust him for being drunk or for, for being, you know, on drugs and he'd get in a fight when

he went home. So he didn't want to do that. You didn't want to go home. So you expect everybody just to sit in the studio with him all day, smoke cigarettes and drink and I'm going, well, I can't do that. I want to be with my new love. I'm in love. I want to go home. I want to go dinner with her. So we kind of fell apart and it was a tough split, I got to tell you. When finally they called me up and threw me out after I had my first baby, You know, Carr and I got married and had a baby and it was, wow, disheartening. Just like Montrose, I thought, what am I going to do now? And Carr kept saying, hey, you wanted this. You wanted to quit, but you didn't want to quit. So they just helped you out, you know? And I thought, yeah, but wow, now I get, you know, Van Halen, the biggest band in the world, man, you know,

it's a nice launching pad, but how can I do better than that? And I, the only thing that drove me then was my ego and my pride and sin. I can't get thrown out of a band and disappear. So I roll up my sleeves and we're right back to work again. Here we go, Sammy can't take a break no matter what he does. You know, the God's going, oh, no, you're not going to just lay around doing nothing. So I put together a new band, made a record and went out with started a whole new life, a whole new direction, a whole new image. I changed into a lifestyle thing. I just said, I'll never work for fame and fortune or to be just to make money or just to, you know, I'll never do that. I'll never play with people I don't like again. So we all have challenges and sometimes our greatest disappointments turn into our best opportunities.

And let's talk about your incredible success as a serial entrepreneur. There's too many to talk about on the podcast, but I wanna focus on two of them. And I wanna start with a People Magazine spread in December of 1983, which showed pictures from Keith Richards' wedding at the Finisterra Hotel in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.

You worship Keith Richards in your back in So Keith Richards and you're back in SoCal. You're looking at these pictures. You thought the resort looked pretty spectacular. What'd you do next? I hope you're enjoying this video so far. But before we jump back in, I want to know if you've ever thought about what you need to do to reach a nice level of success in your life. Over the last 25 years, I've been an advisor to more than

50 companies. I've invested nearly a hundred including Google lift and Seagate and I also co-founded a company that today is worth more than 15 billion dollars. I've been incredibly blessed in my journey and at this stage in my life I want to give back. I want to share the lessons I've learned so you can reach incredible success way faster than I did. In my own journey, I've learned that having the right mentor is a massive advantage to achieving our goals. I'm hugely passionate about mentoring others and I'm looking for a few hungry entrepreneurs who are excited to take action on their journey to incredible future success.

So if that's you, I've got an opportunity. In the description of this video, there's a link where you can apply to work with me. All you need to do is answer a few simple questions and if you're a good fit My team will reach out so we can build a game plan together. Alright, now let's get back to the video. I Told my wife let's go See that place. She looked it up twin dolphins of hotel. There's no longer there There's a montage resort there now and same property in Cabo. And I say, yeah, you know about that. I said, I want to go there. And I went and stayed at that resort and I fell in love with that place. I said, this place is killing. And so I went down for my birthday in October and I decided

make an annual thing. So every October I went down there. I said, did that for about three years. And then one time when I was there I hadn't joined Van Halen yet. Actually, this is before Van Halen. This is 1983 82-83 when I first went to Kabul, but when I was in Van Halen I had already bought a condo and I was living down there, but I said I want to build a Cantina I want to build a tequila bar. When I bought my first condo, to put things in perspective, I went to my Mexican friends that I had met down there, and the architect friend whose father had built the condos who lived there too.

I said, I want to furnish my place. Let's go to Mexico City. He said, oh, no, we go to Guadalajara, man. Let's go to Guadalajara. That's where all the great art is and all the great, you know, furniture makers and just a lot of great artists there, you know. So I said, OK, so I had a little airplane. So we went to Guadalajara and while we were there, I said, you ever want to go to tequila? You know, I said, yeah, let's go to tequila. That'd be cool. I like tequila, you know.

And I hadn't I hadn't really thought about making tequila yet, but so I tasted real tequila and I said, whoa, man, this is unbelievable. 100% agave tequila had not come to America yet. It was, you know, people were drinking tequila with a worm in it back then, you know, 82, 83, you know, before Patron, before Cabo Wabo, Don Julio. I was before Don Julio. Don Julio was down there, but not in America. So I tasted Don Julio, and I tasted a lot of other tequilas from the town of Tequila in Jalisco.

So I said, man, I want to build a little cantina, a little club where I can play music when I'm down here and make my own tequila, bring my own tequila. You know, they have a Cabo Wabo tequila. Well, you know, the name Cabo Wabo came from the guy walking down the street and all this other thing. People have all heard this before, I think. But the Van Halen guys, when we wrote the song Cabo Wabo, they had no idea what I was

thinking. I'm going, I'm going to build it. I'm going to build the Cabo Wabo. We're going to put that song out. I'm going to build song Cabo Wabo, they had no idea what I was thinking. I'm going, I'm going to build it. I'm going to build the Cabo. We're going to put that song out. I'm going to build the Cabo. And I'm going to have my own tequila called Cabo Wabo Tequila. You know, but I didn't think about bringing it to America. I did not dream that dream. This is one everybody said, man, you were smart. That was before tequila. You were right in the beginning. And no, I was not smart. I was lucky. My little spaceship guys, you know, intervention again, my brain is always really open from them that experience. And so I was open to making tequila. So I went down to a distillery. I said, Hey, we went to all

these places. And these farmers, the Rivera family, they said, Yeah, we have to bring us bottles. We make our tequila, we sell our tequila to, I mean, we sell our agave to the big tequila makers. They were farmers, but they had their own little private batch to make about 20 cases a year for the family. And I said, well, can I have some of that? They said, well, no, you gotta bring your own bottles. So I said, okay.

Because I thought it was the best tequila I ever tasted in my life. And we had tried 20, 30 different places. So I went and found out how to get the bottles, went to my other Mexican friend and said, hey, do you know where we can get bottles made? Sure. I know this guy, hand blows them. And I go in and say, okay, we want to order 150 bottles.

Okay. And I want to deliver them to this place. Take them down there. They're pouring it in there with siphon hoses. You know, they look like they're full. OK, that's enough. Put a cork in it to the next one. I mean, it was that primitive. And I was then I built the cobble wobble van Halen was involved, but I was.

You know, they weren't involved, but, you know, I mean, I was still doing it. And my manager said, if if you really want this to be successful, you better bring them guys in because they're not going to, you know, I mean I was still doing it and my manager said if if you really want this to be successful You better bring them guys in because they're not gonna you know, they're gonna torture you for doing this because they what's he doing? What's he doing in Mexico all the time? He you know, he's not showing up for we're trying to write songs He's writing the lyrics in Mexico and I'm going damn rights where I'm inspired to write lyrics I come to the studio walk in blow out my new songs my lyrics boop boop See you guys back down to Mexico. I have my own the studio, walk in, blow out my new songs, my lyrics, boop boop, see you guys. Back down to Mexico, I have my own little plane. But that kind of freaked him out a little bit. But we weren't getting into it

because we still had a great manager. But anyway, he just said, bring them in. So they become partners in Cabo Wabo. And when they threw me out, that ended. But I know I went back to Van Halen, but I was in Van Halen when I started Cabo Wabo. So let's just go back a second, because there are some very interesting details here that I just want to go back to.

You're down there, you decide you want to open a performance space. We're not talking about a little bar like with a stage in the back like the Chubador in LA, which holds 500 people. We're talking about a 14,000 square foot venue with indoor outdoor seating for a thousand people. Your accountant loved it so much that he quit. Your awesome manager. She, she, she quit.

And then your awesome manager, Renata Ravino, who was awesome in helping me set this up, didn't love it so much either. So she convinced you to enlist, as you said, the Van Halen fan base. No, not Renata, Ed Leffler, my man. Oh, Ed Leffler. Renata took Sarah's job as my kind of bookkeeper

at that time. She's become my personal business manager for the office and so forth for 30 some years now, 40 years, whatever it's been. But no, Ed Leffler was the manager of Van Halen. And years now, 40 years, whatever it's been. But no, Ed Leffler was the manager of Van Halen. And he said, if you're going to do this and you want to get MT, I wanted MTB to have a big party and film it, you know, the opening of the Cabo Wabo. And he said, it better be Van Halen's Cabo Wabo, otherwise you're not going to get their support

and the MTB is probably not going to support it. So he got them involved. Okay. So you build it got them involved. Okay. So you build it, it's on the edge of the marina in downtown Cablas and Lucas. It's awesome if you haven't been there. I've been there lots of times, primarily in college, by the way, where my life now with five kids

is a little different than it was now. No, it's grown up now. You're welcome to still come. By the way, I hope we can meet there when I'll, in a couple of weeks when we're down there for the holidays. Absolutely. I'll let you know when I'm going to be there.

Yeah, because I'm going to be gone. All right. Awesome. So its motto is, where the land ends and the party begins. It opens in 1990 and people made fun of you. They were mocking you. The LA Times wrote an article that said, celebrities just can't resist opening a restaurant. And at first, it's bleeding money and lost money his first three years.

It was $300,000 in debt. We've already talked about what happened on the venue side. So Van Halen, you bought back what they had to put in. You're an optimistic guy, okay? Then you leave Ann Halen, a music manager named Shep Gordon came to visit you, gave you some advice, right around that time you also met your wife Carrie,

who told you that you reminded her of somebody and urged you to meet him, which you did. What did Shep tell you? Who did Carrie want you to meet? And as part of this, tell us about Juan Eduardo Nunez, the Hounds of Jalisco, and the $5 gas cans. Man, you are deep, brother. Listen, we're rewriting my book now in my own voice now, you know, like something I refuse to do. But,

well, first of all, Shep Gordon, a brilliant guy, he said, he came to Cabo and he saw me down there, saw me go on stage in a bathing suit and no shirt, you know? And he's going, you know, why don't you roll this, why are you putting on leather pants to go on stage and then you're, you know, and going on tour, and why wouldn't you just do this lifestyle thing? He goes to this, he turned me onto the word lifestyle. And

I'm going, I don't know what lifestyle is. My wife says, you know, you need to go see Jimmy Buffett. You know, she goes, you remind me of Jimmy Buffett. And I said, Jimmy Buffett? Wow, that guy, is he still around? She goes, oh man, he's huge. I'm like, get out of here. Because she came from Virginia and in the East Coast and down in Florida and all that. Jimmy was like selling out arenas and amphitheaters and wasn't coming to the West Coast. He was just off my radar for some reason, because he was off of everybody's radar. He was doing his underground lifestyle thing. And because he was off of everybody's radar, he was doing his underground lifestyle thing. So I go to see him. I say, he's playing. Where? That place holds 19,000 people. Packed. Can't get a ticket. I'm calling the promoter. I want to see Jimmy Buffett. Can you give me some good seats or

something? He's going, you want to be in the audience? I'm going, yeah, I want to see what this guy's about. He's going, man, people are going to recognize. I said, nobody's going to recognize me at a Jimmy Buffett concert. Did they? Yes, they did. And so in a long story short, Shep Gordon said, yeah, like Jimmy Buffett. The light went on and I just said, boy, yeah, I can just go out there as myself. I mean, I was living on the beach. I became a, excuse me, born to beach. It's me. I'm all about the beach. And I thought, yeah. And I just started, I put after Van Halen, I just started, I started doing it in Van Halen to be honest with you, but then when I got thrown out, I went 100%. I don't think I wore long pants again. And I got on stage barefoot, t-shirt, the way I rolled into town. I just went on stage that way, and I started casualizing my show instead of trying to put

on a show. I went out, had waitresses bringing me drinks and stuff, and drinking cobbled wine with tequila, and making margaritas on stage. I'd say, hey, you know, you guys got a minute here. I guess, you know, we've been up here an hour and a half. I'm going, you know, I guess we could take a break. I'd come back and play another hour for you. But why don't I just take a break right here?

I'm gonna make myself a cocktail. I'm gonna show you how to do it. I did that kind of stuff. And I built a brand without knowing what in the hell I was doing. It's like, my favorite line is, no, I don't know what I'm doing, but I know how to do it. And that's kind of the way Shep Gordon told me, he said, roll it together, man.

The lifestyle brand, sell your tequila, build your clubs all over the country and you know, kabo wabos. And he goes, you got a brand, brother. And I'm going, a brand? You know what I mean? I didn't even think of myself as a brand at that time. So, Cheperly enlightened me to all that and Kari enlightened me to Jimmy Buffett, and I rolled the stuff together and here I am today. Walkin' brand. I got tattoos, a Cabo Wabo tattoo. I got the new Santo tattoo. I got the beach bar cocktails. I got... But you know what's funny is I know you don't want to jump ahead, but it's what I want to say about all this is that it is all rolled together in one person and I own it all. I don't

endorse. So that's why I feel comfortable promoting my brands. I said, no, I invented that. I made these. I went and bought the bottles and took them down to the tequila place and helped the guys pour it in there You know, then I put the name on it said here, you know, it's mine. It's my taste. It's my bottle It's my everything so I'm not endorsing and when you don't when you go out and promote an endorsement You're doing it for money when you go out promote for yourself You're doing it for a reason because you want to be successful at what you do and you believe in your product and then it's the best Product out there. Otherwise, I wouldn't be promoting it.

Drinking tequila back then wasn't nearly as popular as it now. It took you a while. Things eventually started to take off in 2002. Tequila sales in America were growing at an average rate of 6.2% a year. You started making Cabo Wabo tequila in 1996. You're growing it slowly for the first three years. At that point, you're producing around 2000 cases a year. 1999 rolls around, you started to distribute it. Seven years later, Cabo Wabo was selling 147,000 cases per year.

You'd become the second best selling tequila in the United States behind Jose Cuervo. And at that point you started to get some- And Patron. And Patron. And Patron. So it's the, Jose Cuervo was the biggest selling tequila. Patron was the biggest selling premium brand.

And Cabo Wall was a premium brand. I was number two premium brand in the world. And at that point you started to get some buyout offers from huge beverage companies. First you thought, I don't really need the money. What am I going to do? You're going to pay some tax, put it in the bank. So you say no to $20 million, then $30 million.

At this point, you're making around $4 to $5 million as a rock star, which is itself as a ton of money. But this is a different kind of money. What people refer to as fuck you money, putting yourself in a new stratosphere of wealth and then a company called Grupo Campari called and they upped the ante. How high did they up it? And who did you invite to that year's October birthday bash? And what happened then?

Oh, well, well, I invited the owner and the attorneys and the CEO of Campari Group to come to Cabo to talk. They offered me $67 million, which was 10 times earnings. I was making an average of $6.7 million profit from Cabo Wabo Tequila for the last three years. I was making a little more than that the last year because it was growing every year, but if you average the last three years, it averaged $ 6.7 million and they offered me 10 times earnings. And I was flabbergasted. I was like,

you know, my God, you know, uh, I have a 20% partner in Mexico and that's it. I own the rest and I'm going, man, then I started thinking and it's making so much money. It's like, I didn't need money. I'm going, what am I going to do with that money? Then I got nervous. So I invited him down to talk and I was thinking about doing the deal. And then I said, you know, it's not going to change my life. Why am I doing this here? I'm going to lose my brand. I'm in love

with growing this brand. This is the most fun I've ever had outside of Sex and Rock and Roll is growing this brand. Seeing it grow, it was just unbelievable. Patrone by then had taken off and they broke their deal with their spirits partners, Seagrams, and they've hired 40 people and they spent, I heard like 10 million dollars that year and started their own really spirits company. I was associated with another company that was partners and they were distributing and importing and all this stuff. I didn't have employees, I had four employees and nothing. It was really low income, I mean low operating expenses. I was making all profit So long story short, I didn't want to do that

I said I don't want to do a proton to but then they took off and they got to like Three four hundred thousand cases and they really started taking off and everyone saw that so group will compare it came to me And they wanted this bad. They said man, you're like, I'm number two. They know that I'm under achieving so I said no I sat down with Luca and they wanted this bad. They said, man, you're like, I'm number two. They know that I'm under achieving. So I said, no, I sat down with Luca Gariboglia. The lawyer at that time was a guy named Stefano and Bob Kunci, the the CEO of Campari, and he was brand new.

He had just come in. Then the old guy was a guy that done the deal with us. I was making the deal. And it's kind of complex. That's why I'm bringing this up. Cause Bob, I don't think was a fan. I think he was saying, you guys are crazy. You're paying this guy way too much money. Look at this guy. He's walking around in a bathing suit, you know, he's living on a beach. He's a bum. You know what I mean? He's like, I'm gonna run this company, right? I don't know if that what he was thinking, but in my head, I knew he didn't really relate to me like the other guys.

Luca Gariboglio is one of the greatest men I've ever met in my life, the owner of Campari, and he is brilliant. And I'm still dear friends with him. And I always will be the most, I always sign my emails forever grateful, Sammy, you know, for what he did for me. But anyway, so I said no, you know guys I got cold feet I don't want to do it and they said they thought I'm sure they thought I was negotiating but I wasn't and You know my friends around me Shep Gordon and people that I'd been talking to about all this They're going have you lost your mind? I said no, I'm making seven million bucks a year I'm making three or four as a as a You know a rock as a rock star in my music.

Why would I do that? What am I gonna do with that money? I said, give me 60 million bucks, I'm gonna go stick it in a bank? I said, that scares me to death. You know what I mean? And so when I said, no, I don't think, it just doesn't change my life for the right way. And they said, well, what would change your life? I said, no, I don't think it just doesn't change my life. And for the, you know, the right way.

And they said, well, what would change your life? I said, what do you mean? What amount? And they said, yeah, that's the Campari guys sitting at my table right in my house. And I'm going, I don't know, like, you know, like a hundred million dollars or something like that. And they looked at each other. Yeah, okay.

And I fucking fell on the ground rolling on the ground laughing. I couldn't control myself. Everybody's getting worried about me. They thought he's going to have an aneurysm or something. He's going to have a heart attack. He's going crazy. Look at him. I couldn't stop laughing.

It was the funniest thing I've ever heard in my life. It was just funny, peculiar, funny, haha, every kind of funny. And these guys, you know, Italians, they're fun loving guys. They start laughing, aha, he's a little very happy. Look at Sammy, he's a very happy. And I did it and it took a year to do the deal. Very interesting what happened to the brand after that, but it's still doing well, but it went way down

because for a year, my distributors knew I was going to sell it. My partners, if you're going to sell it, what the hell are we going to put any money into? We're not going to pay attention to it. And they're new distributors, the enemy, the guys that have been saying, hey, what does he know about tequila? Sammy, he go, ah, Cabo Wabo's garbage. You should buy ours. Those guys are now going to sell it. They're going in trying to sell it. I thought you said it was garbage. Now you're trying to sell me. It really went down. It got cut in half by the time the deal was made, but the deal was still the deal. I tried to keep 20% of the product, so I sold 80. I got 80. And then there was

a $4 million in the pipeline that came through after sales that were money that was owed and This and that that came back to me. So when you say it was 94 93 million dollars It was really a hundred million dollar deal and I am such a stupid fuck that I said no I want to keep 20% and and Sell it. Yeah, I thought oh, they're gonna they're gonna build it up on my 20% would worth more than 100 billion, you know? And the truth of the matter is it went way down. And after five years, I wanted to get rid of the non-cabee. So I sold the 20% back for 13 million. So I didn't make what I thought I was going to make. So I lost $7 million on the deal. Okay. People don't know that. Yeah. Yeah. But Santo is coming soon, but let's,

let's, let's talk about, I mean, Santo is right here and right now. It's doing phenomenally well. So congratulations on that. But I, I want to talk about some of the marketing things you did. You talked about the song Cabo Wabo. You wrote when you were in Van Halen, there's a fourth single on the OUA 12 albums. And as you said, the Cabo Wabo is really the Cabo Wabo. The guy is drinking too much, walking home from the bar. But it was just a song, 11 years later,

before he sold the company, he wrote the song Mas Tequila, which was in a medium hit. And when you played it, you'd bring people on stage, you'd bash a tequila bottle pinata full of confetti. You would beat a 20 foot tall replica of the blue glass Cabo Alba bottle with your guitar. You would play a trumpet that shot fireworks out at the end of the song. And then you've got those swim trunks.

You got the shirt, the flip flops. But you talked about this. I mean, you hadn't spoken with Van Halen in 10 years. They told you you couldn't wear the Cabo Alba t-shirt on stage. So you get the Cabo Alba tattoo on your arm and you're wearing short sleeve shirts and the Van Halen guys hate you for that. You drink tequila on the Jay Leno show to promote what you were doing and you were criticizing it. So who cares if you hadn't done all those things, it probably wouldn't have been as successful. But what you

did do is you became the OG. You became a model for other celebrities to follow. There's actually an iPhone app called Grape Stars that tracks celebrity spirits and wines. And it's really a thing. There's 86 right now. And you've got George Clooney and Randy Gerber started in 2013. Costa Migos five years later, it's a billion dollar sale. Michael Jordan, Sincoro Tequila, $1,600 a bottle. The Rock Dwight Johnson launched a Tequila last year. It's one of the fastest growing spirits brand everywhere. And then of course, there's Kendall Jenner,

who in February of this year announced to her 200 million Instagram followers, she was launching 818 tequila, which sold out in four hours. People from 80 countries. And it's, it's just crazy how you did this. And I want to move that into passion, because I think you've got a real brand. And then I think you've got something else going on with these other celebrities. In terms of passion, let's expand on it a bit. Can you achieve excellence if you don't have a passion for what you're doing? And as part of this, what are the three or five most ingredients to our path to excellence? Well, passion, a great product, and hard work and determination. If it don't happen overnight, if you've got a great product and you really believe in

it, then eventually you're going to make it happen. It's going to happen. It's just got to be good. If it's not good, it'll come short on you. If you don't have enough passion, you'll quit or people won't believe you. And if you don't work hard enough, it ain't going to happen. So those three things, hard work, passion, and a great product. You've got to have a great product if you're going to stand behind it.

So that's why I don't endorse. I make sure that the product is up to my standards. But you know, the way I promoted was so unique that I saved myself $40 million. Most people building a brand who spend about $40 million nowadays, it's pretty much the ... it used to be 10 when I first started, 10 was the Patron model. And then you keep spending as you go, but I mean the big number to get in the game is about 10. It's 40 now.

There's no question about it. The Cost of Eagle guys, I have no idea what they spent, but George and Randy, mainly George, did a ton of work like I did by going and meeting people, throwing parties, you know, getting written a big suite in Vegas and inviting all the influential people to drink their tequila and they got all the...sending it to, you know, Christmas time everybody got a bottle, you know, and, and people talking about it. Went to all the favors he could get in the movie industry, you know, for the Grammy Awards or bottle on every table or certainly at the back bar when you went to get a drink, you

know, that's all came this way. I did it, you know, I started out by went on tour, built the Cabo Wabo stage, had the big bottle, like you said, had the waitresses coming out, bring me to the drinks. It was Cabo Wabo, Cabo Wabo, Cabo Wabo, everything I did, tattoo on my arm, Van Halen. Eventually I start promoting getting that in the venues, which was really tough. Now it's a piece of cake. If I say, if I'm going to play, if I'm going to play your venue, you got to put my booze in there. You got to put my Santo in there, put my Beach Bar Rum or my cocktails, something, or else I'm not going to play. You know, I don't play just for money anymore.

You know, I play to promote my brands and have my fans to be able to experience it. Then they go out and they're like, you have this little army of people, they walk into liquor stores and bars, hey, I want a shot of Santo tequila, you know, or hey, I want this or I want that. And that's how I promote it. And it saved me $40 million, you might say. And everybody's doing it now. I don't think everyone is passionate about it. I don't think everyone. I think 90% of these people are doing it for money because they saw how

much money I made and how much money Clooney made. They're probably looking at Clooney now. Half the people that I run into say, oh, you make tequila well. You're like George Clooney. And I'm going, well, yeah, okay make tequila well, you're like George Clooney, or like, you're like, you know, and I'm going, well, yeah, okay, I guess you could put it like that, but yeah, it's a trip. Let's talk about the importance of being prepared and its huge role that it plays in our success. One of the hallmarks of my own career has been to be

the most prepared person in the room. It started in college, I'd go to the library at least three hours a day when I had nothing going on. I'd study for finals more than a month before I had any way ahead of time for at least eight hours a day starting two weeks before finals. And with very limited exceptions, there wasn't a test in college I took where I didn't know I was going to get an A. I got one B plus in all of college. I graduated top 1% of my class. Then I went for a job interview with Eli Broad, who at the time was one of only two people in the world

who had started two Fortune 500 companies from scratch. I went into that interview with the goal that I'd be the most prepared person ever to meet with them. I knew if I landed that job, it would change my career and my life forever. I spent 40 hours, 40, preparing for that job interview. And I achieved my goal, despite a horribly unsuccessful legal career who had three jobs in 18, in seven months after I graduated from law school, as completely unqualified for the position and they hired me at age 27 to be the

assistant to the chairman. So now when I coach people looking for a job or whatever they do, I tell them that preparing doesn't mean spending five minutes on a couple of Google searches. It means studying and preparing for whatever you do, like it's a final exam or like your future depends on it, which is often does no matter what you're doing. Being the most prepared person in the room has served me incredibly well. It's allowed me not only to achieve these results in a much, much faster way, but it's also allowed me to achieve results I never would have been able to do without it. How important was preparation to you for your own success?

And can you give us a couple examples? Well, so much different from yours, but same. Prep is the most important thing. Like if you're not prepared, you're just not going to succeed, you know, unless you're some kind of a magician, you know. I prepped so much different as a musician. I picked up my guitar and I sat in my room every second of my waking hours when I wasn't eating or doing something driving a car or something I had to do. I had that guitar in my hand and I was prepping for, you know, learn how to play them licks, learn how to

understand what I'm doing, write a song, you know, writing songs. Prepping for an album to me would be writing 28 songs for a 10 song album. You know, I'd spend three months in the studio writing and writing and writing and writing. And that was my style of prep. But you know, it's so much different than what you had to do. I mean, what you have to do on a tour business thing. The thing I didn't prep for was my tequila business. I didn't prep for that, but I did spend a lot of time

there drinking tequila. I don't mean getting drunk. I just mean tasting and tasting and tasting until I had one that I said, this is it. Don't distill it three times. I like it better to still twice. I like it when you cut the agave a little closer, lose product. It's going to be more expensive, but you're losing 30%. Like what we do with santo, what I did with cobble wobble towards the end. I said, how are we going to make this better? How are we going to make this better? That's the same thing. It's really just learning your craft and being, finding out what makes it the best, which is once again a great product, you know, and then my heart is in it.

When I tasted Santo Blanco, when we got it right, when we could trim that agave more and more and more and said, I don't care. They said, what's going to be expensive? I don't care. You know, I don't need to make the same margin as somebody like Casamigo. They're making mediocre tequila. I'm sorry, they are. And I'm not going to do that. I'd really have the best tequila in the world than the biggest tequila in the world.

I'm not trying to make Jose Cuervo or Salsa. I'm trying to make Sammy's Santo tequila or Sammy's Cabo. Cabo Uno, the last one I made, the best tequila ever made, the best Sanyejo ever on the planet. No one will ever make a better tequila. And it's because I just don't cut corners. And so my prep was tasting and going back and saying, what else can we do? What else can we do? Using other people's knowledge to make the best product so that when I said, when I stand

and talk to you and tell you that this is the best tequila where I can look you right in the eye, I can say, okay, buddy, blind tasting, pour mine in one glass, pour your favorite three over here and mix them up and I'll tell you which one's mine. And I can do that. And I can still do it right now with confidence because I know what it tastes like because that's the prep. That's the thing.

And I'm a big believer. You got to do the homework. You don't just go down to there and find some guy that'll put your name on it, let you put your name on his shit. Like every one of these people are doing. I'm sorry. Some of it's good. Some of it's better than others. Some of it's mediocre. Some of it's crap. They probably don't even know what good tequila is. But you know, if you just go put your name on it, you ain't taking the ride going down there and finding it and working with the guy, how come you make it better and you learn and you learn? And then you eat the food that they're feeding the pigs, they're feeding them the pulp the pigs are eating at,

and then you roast one of them pigs and you're drinking tequila and making tacos. I mean, come on, brother, if you miss all that by just go slapping your name on it at the, down at the lawyer's office, you can make all the money you want. Ain't gonna make you happy like this. This makes me happy. The tequila is awesome, by the way. Your partner, Miles Scully, is passing it out like nobody's business. He sent me some bottles here. I have it behind me.

I encourage everyone to go out and buy it. It's phenomenal. It's the to go out and buy it. It's phenomenal. It's the best tequila in the world. Straight up, I just told you why and you can make it yourself too if you want to, but most people are greedy and they would rather make more money per bottle than have better product

per money, but whatever. Let's talk about our fear of. I'm getting arrogant. I'm getting arrogant. Is arrogance got anything to do with fame? No, it'll bite you in the ass eventually. It'll make people hate you, therefore hate your product. You're confident and you have the track record and resume to say that. I don't take it that way at all.

And you may or may not be biased about your product. It's selling very well. People love it and the proof will be in the pudding, but it is really awesome. So congratulations on the launch of that, Brad. Let's switch gears. We have a few more topics to cover. Let's talk about our fear of failure and the insecurity that nearly all of us have.

I've had some success in my career, and I failed a lot too, and I still fear failure. Most people I do, it's one of our great motivators. You've told people that you've never felt secure about your music. Given all of your success, how on earth can that be? And is failure one of your great motivators? Well, I don't know if failure is because I think I told you

in the first part of this interview that I'm fearless and I kind of feel like I never see a downside. If I've got a fault it's I never see the downside. Because if I see the downside I do get scared. If I think something can go wrong I'm one of those guys, oh shit you know it's probably gonna go wrong you know because I'll get in one of those insecure moments at four o'clock in the morning when I wake up in the middle of the night and when I'm worried about something and I start worrying about everything and it's 10 times magnified and I'll ruin my next day

and I'll lose 12 hours of good hard work I could have, good hard positive work I could have done. So I try to stay away from fear. But I'm fear, I fear failing, yes. I fear rejection. I hate to say it, but it's probably from my poor childhood. I don't want to be rejected. I don't want somebody to say, oh that guy he's he ain't any good. Don't go see that guy or his booze isn't any good. Man, he's

a phony. Oh, I don't necessarily fear that. I hate that, but I don't like it. So I guess I'm fearful of it. It's hard to know and no one's saying any of those things about you. But I promise you that I'm a I'm a fairly well liked guy. I must admit, because I make friends, not enemies. I tried to anyway. I hope you're enjoying this video so far. But before we jump back in, I want to know if you've ever thought about what you need to do to reach a nice level of success in your life. Over the last 25 years, I've been an advisor to more than 50 companies. I've invested nearly a hundred, including Google lift and Seagate. And I also co-founded a company that today is worth more than $15 billion.

I've been incredibly blessed in my journey. And at this stage in my life, I want to give back. I want to share the lessons I've learned so you can reach incredible success way faster than I did in my own journey. I've learned that having the right mentor is a massive advantage to achieving our goals. I'm hugely passionate about mentoring others and I'm looking for a few hungry entrepreneurs who are excited to take action on their journey to incredible future success.

So that's you, I've got an opportunity. In the description of this video, there's a link where you can apply to work with me. All you need to do is answer a few simple questions and if you're a good fit, my team will reach out so we can build a game plan together. All you need to do is answer a few simple questions and if you're a good fit, my team will reach out so we can build a game plan together. All right, now let's get back to the video. You've worked so hard to get where you are today and your immense success, it affords you a lot of freedom

and to do things that you love to do. I think it's very important for us to reap the rewards of our hard work and have fun. You love your Ferraris, you love your birthday bash in October, what else are you doing for fun? Wow, you know, at my age now, I'm really running out of things that really interest me. I've done, I've got everything. I've had it.

I'm able to have anything I want. And that's a very interesting position to be in. I'm a little bit afraid of that, of where this is going for the rest of my life. I'm not excited about a lot of things anymore and it bothers me. And I don't know if it's my age, it's something I'm dealing with. And I've never said this to anyone but I've been thinking about it a lot. I wrote a new song, I made a new record with my band The Circle, working with David Cobb, one of the greatest producers I've ever worked in my life, probably the greatest, and I've worked with the greatest

producers of all time. David Cobb is just, he brought things out of me that I can't tell you. I asked him to do, I said, push me, get me back, you know, make me do what would be as great as I was when I wanted it so bad I would kill myself to do it. And so he pushed me hard. And I wrote this line called, when is the last time you did something for the first time? It's just a line in a song. And I'm starting to try to live that way. Now I'm trying to say that maybe will make me happy if I do some go, wow, I was so afraid to do that. Or I never thought about doing that and I did it. And wow, that was a blast. It puts a smile on your face to

do something new at my age. And even with your wife, we've been together 30 years and it's like, yeah, let's try something new. It's like in the bedroom wherever, the kitchen. try something new, you know what I mean? It's like in the bedroom, wherever, you know, the kitchen, you know. I really think it's important to push yourself like that because when you start losing as you get older and you're in my position, I don't think everyone's in my position, but anyone that's got enough money to do anything and enough, not just money, it's, you know, the ability to do anything I want practically. And you're not excited by doing some of those things. It's, you know, the ability to do anything I want, practically. And you're not excited by doing some of those things. It's kind of a bummer, man.

So I'm sitting there going, what makes me happy? And I'll tell you, one of the silliest things, I love planting a garden. My wife and I, she's really got a green thumb. She can, shit grows, man. She puts it in the ground, it grows. And we put in a garden, all of our homes, everywhere has a garden. And if I could, I would have chickens too, because I love chickens and I love fresh eggs. And I like to get up in the morning and go get those fresh eggs and make breakfast, make pancakes, whatever.

I like doing creative things in the yard. Simple thing like walking out and seeing my tomato garden and picking those tomatoes and going and making a fresh pasta, fresh tomato sauce, and the basil from the garden and everything. Oh, honey, I need another onion. Go out and get me an onion. That makes me happy as fuck. Okay? I mean, that really makes me happy. And I've found that simple things in life sometimes are really what it's all about. Jumping on my airplane and flying to New York to have dinner with somebody don't make me happy You know, it's like fuck I got it. I don't feel like going to New York, you know You know, it's like well, you got your own plane. So what I don't feel like sitting on it You know, I mean, I'd rather be in my on the beach here eating my tomatoes out of my garden, you know

So that's kind of where Sammy's at today. Well, thank you for sharing that I'm honored I'm glad that we're unique here and I'm happy that you told it here first. I also have a garden at my house. I love gardening. We grow apples, oranges, figs, tangerine, tomatoes, avocados, herb garden, rose garden, tomatoes. We have three different kinds of peppers that we grow. We grow our own pumpkins for Halloween. We have squash, watermelon, and I love it.

I'm not doing all the gardening myself. We have someone to help with that, but I love going out there picking the fruit of the trees. I have two very young kids, five and one and a half. We just love it. We absolutely love it. You get out there and we produce too much of it. You know, when they all bloom at once, you know, you can't eat it.

So I'll give it away to friends who love it. What your neighbors are for. It's organic. It's organic. We're not spraying anything on them. Let's talk about your incredible generosity and philanthropy. Since 2008, you and Kari have donated more than

$4 million to local communities with a special focus on funding food relief and children's causes including helping terminally ill children where their families run out of money. Can you tell us more about that? How important is giving back on our path to excellence? And what's your ultimate goal with your philanthropy? Well, my ultimate goal is to have more businesses that I will give 100% of the proceeds and I received like my Sammy's Beach Bar and Grills in the airports. That's where I started it. A guy came up to me and said, before I had a foundation, I finally found it, got a foundation. Makes it easier because you give a dollar, it goes there, you don't have to give 50% to the government.

If the government's not going to take care of these people and feed these people, then I'm going to. And that's my philosophy is that you do what you can and you do it in your community first. If you can afford to send money to Africa, God bless you, you know what I mean? But take care of, I believe in where you can see it. Guy across the street ran into some hard times, you know, help him out, you know what I mean? But take care of I believe in where you can see it guy across the street ran him into some hard times You know help him out You know I mean like you help help your your neighbors and community out in your family first

That's my philosophy because I don't have enough even Warren Buffett can't take care of everybody in here Yeah, you know he's given half of it away, and he still can't take care of everybody so anyway So I focus on feeding people first, but when I started the Beach Bar and Grill, a guy came up and said, hey, you know, you'd have been successful at Cabo Wabo. Do you have any other ideas? I run HMS Host, which is concessions in airports, and we're wanting to put nicer restaurants and better food products. And now this is a long time ago. And I said, oh, that's awesome. Yeah. And I said, yeah, what about Sammy's beach bar, beach sand, no, beach sand and grill or something. I said, no, I don't want to put sand in the food. How about Sammy's beach bar and grill? Yeah. He said, sounds great. What kind

of food would you have? Here I'm sitting here looking at my window and Cabo on the phone and I'm looking at the ocean saying, I got to get down on the beach, man. I got to get off this phone call. And the guy said, what kind of food? I said, oh, you know, like anything but pizza or pasta. You have to do that right. So, you know, like really good burgers and good salads. And let's say a mom and dad and their two kids come in and the dad says, man, I just want to have a hamburger and a beer.

And the mom says, oh, I just want to have a salad. And then the kids are, oh, I want some nachos and some French fries. And okay, we're going to have all that and we're going to do it good, do a good job. He said, oh, I want some nachos and some French fries and okay, we're going to have all that and we're going to do it good, do a good job. He said, hey, it sounds great. I said, okay. He said, can you write up a menu? I said, grilled cheese.

And I wrote up this menu, sent it to him. They opened in Maui and it exploded. They did triple their business than the previous thing. And I give all that money to Maui. So then I thought, well, let's do more of these. Okay, let's do one in Cleveland. Okay, boom. Oh, let's do one in Vegas. Okay, boom. And I give the that money to Maui. So then I thought, well, let's do more of these. OK, let's do one in Cleveland. OK, boom. Oh, let's do one in Vegas.

OK, boom. And I give the money to those communities. I think it's important that you stay in the community. Like I said, these things spit out a couple hundred thousand dollars a year for the community, and to me, and I give it to the community. But I can't spread that out too far, especially when you're dealing with children that are

my biggest… it's hard for me to even talk about, I may stop, but terminally ill children. Can you imagine? You have children? Just imagine when one of them are terminally ill, and then imagine if you couldn't… I mean, you can't help them to begin with their… if it's terminal, you know? And then what if you couldn't afford to even make your life as good as you could until it's over? That I can't deal with. So, and it's the most expensive one because, you know, it's the medical system is so expensive and the government won't allow you to buy them a car to drive from for the treatments for a kid that maybe has to be on dialysis. So you can't buy them a car because then the government's, oh, they have

income, you can't, you know, got to cut this off here. I don't know what it is. There's some weird laws that I don't want to change the law and I'm not against the government. I'm not anti-government. I'm all for it. But for me, so I try to make transportation for them. And then I find hospitals that will tell me in Maui, the Maui hospital general, they give me their top 15 worst scenarios. And I can only do about one or two a year. And I do them. And I give them transportation. I fly the parents to the Honolulu with them to get better treatment sometimes where they can... Anyway, it's something you don't brag about and it's something you just do out of the goodness of your heart.

I just believe the simplest one is feeding people. If you can only afford $10 a year, give it to a food bank, your local food bank. That's amazing. My two main things that I give to is foster care. My grandmother is 103. She was raised in foster care and My grandmother's 103. She was raising foster care and then, you know, sick children, kids with cancer. So we share that DNA. Before we finish today, I want to go ahead and ask a couple of open-ended questions.

I call this part of my podcast, fill in the blank to excellence. Are you ready to play? Man, you got my brain is scrambled right now Playing sounds fun. Yeah. Yeah, let's play something. Let's have some you've been having fun so far. Have you? Oh, absolutely, but you you've really dug me in deep I had no idea when I told you and when you asked when I asked your producer when I was talking to him earlier before you came on I said What is this about and he said oh, it's going to take you through your life. I'm going like from starting with your childhood, I'm going, holy shit, I should

go back and read my book real quick and brush up. Cause you know, it's, it's a going back and remembering things properly, getting dates right now. That's it's, it gets tough. You know, I'm, I've done a lot. Okay. But let's play. Okay, let's play. Here we go. When I started my career, I wish I had known. I was going to do it this long. What would you have done differently if you had known it was going to be this long? I don't know, but I wish I had known.

I don't know why, but I, I, I thought I would be done at 40. I might not have been in such a hurry. I may have taken more time on things. I don't know. I'd say, hey, I got the rest of my life to work this out. I got the rest of my life to finish this record or whatever. I always felt like I was desperate. I always felt like, oh, I got to get this done. Oh man, oh man, next year, you know, I could be over next year. Oh my God, I'm going to be 45 next year. If I'd have known I was going to still be doing this at 74, I wouldn't have stressed. There you go. That's what I would have done different. I would have been having, I would have had even more fun. How about that?

The biggest lesson I've learned in my life is you never know what's going to happen. Good or bad. You never know things. Shit, shit happens, COVID, you know? You have four kids. The biggest lesson I've taught my kids is... Don't lie. There's no reason to lie. It will bite you in the ass.

You tell the truth at all times. The whole truth, you tell it. You don't have to say, if you're not asked something, you don't have to say it. You know what I mean? You don't have to, that'll help you because it's hard not to lie sometimes. You go, man, I'm gonna, but if somebody doesn't ask you,

you don't have to tell them. But if you're asked, tell the truth, especially to me. Going forward, my professional goal is? Try to be better than ever at anything I do. Try to elevate my expertise. My biggest personal goal is? Stay healthy, live to be 100, stay out of a wheelchair and bedridden and just live right right to the end like I am right now. You would love my grandmother, 103. I was in Detroit last week where I grew up. Oh, you still lives alone raising foster care. What a life. She was telling me stories last week about buying her first car and I don't know, it was $150, something like that,

and all the cars she had. It was just, it was so cool for me to see and for her to have the perspective. I mean, the radio came out, the TV came out, the phone was something crazy, the computer was crazy, Ted. Talk to someone on your phone is crazy. Airplanes, man, airplanes. Air. Airplanes. The first airplane ride. Filled with cigarette

smoke everywhere. Causing everybody cancer on that plane. I mean, just crazy stuff. What's your biggest regret? Oh, geez. Oh, my goodness. Oh, God. I'm not sure I have one, but maybe, maybe not. I can't regret it but I wish I would have been able to help my father. But it's not my fault. He died before I made it, you know. But if I would have made it and had the funds and the means, I could have helped him. He died in the street, you know, he's not a pretty thing. So it's not a regret, but it's something I wish I could have done. It's kind of like a regret. How proud was your mom of you? Is your mom? Almost too proud because I hear all the time, my mother's past, too, but I hear all

the time from people say, Oh, I met your mom one time. She was like, like in Los, Oh, where, where'd you meet my mom? Oh, I met her in Las Vegas. Oh, really? Like what was going on? Well, she was gambling or something and I was gambling next to her and she said, Hey, I'm Sammy Hagar's mother. And they're going, and like, you know, I hear those kinds of stories all the time, like she would just tell anybody and everybody just going around saying, I'm Sammy Hagar's mom. And she's digging

through a dumpster in the back of a grocery store because my mom and my stepfather, they had a farm and I love it now. but at the time when I was first kind of big old rock star and I bought them their first house, I bought them this really nice little farm and they had goats and pigs and a cow and nothing. They just had one or two of everything and chickens, you know, not like a big place. But long story short, they would go to the dumpsters in the back of grocery stores and pull out all the produce that they would throw away that was half rotten and they'd be piling and stuff and putting it in the trunk of their car and taking it back to their animals. They'd do it every night and they loved it. My mom is

a rummaging, she'd go to the dump and she'll find stuff and bring it home. Still, you know, when she went after she had everything after I was able to spend millions of dollars on my mother and she and but she would go around and say, oh, I'm Sammy Yeager's mother. What an asshole that guy is, man. Just take better care of your mom. I saw her rummaging in a dumpster for food. Oh, man. My mom was something else, man. I would say to my mom, what do you want, mom? I don't know. Anything, mom. What do you want? Anything. Oh, I've got everything, I don't know. I'd like to go to Vegas and have like $5,000 that I wouldn't have to worry about losing.

I'd go, gosh, my mom was too simple, she was wonderful. My grandmother, after our company had gone public, I said, you know, Nana, I'm gonna buy you a car. And you can buy any car you want. So you go to the dealership, you just, Nana, I could buy you a car and you can buy any car you want. So you go to the dealership, you just tell me where you are and I'll wire them the money that day. You just have to go before noon because I'm in Los Angeles.

She lives in Detroit. So I wanted to wire to get there the same day. Okay, so I'm pushing her a little bit. Nana, what's up with the car? She called me one day. Randy, I've got the car, super excited. I'm thinking like Mercedes. I said, Nana, where are you?

I'm at the Toyota dealership. I said, great. I said, well, what are we talking about? I said, a Camry. I said, Nana, Camry's a great car. I think it's one of the most popular cars in the country. But I said, Nana, I'll buy you whatever car you want. Go to the Mercedes dealership, you go there.

I just want you to have the best car. Nope, Randy, this is what I want. So she sent me a picture of her in front of the car. It's a red Toyota doing this. And that summer I go there, it's such a hot day. I mean, you know, I go there, let's go for a drive, Nana. And I get in the car and it's so hot. Turn on the AC and I'm looking for the window button.

Now we're and I see the roller. The I said, now what's what is up with with this? She said, well, the power windows was $600 more. So I didn't get it. I said, I said, all right, you know, we're not, we're not doing that anymore. But I bought her three more Camrys. And for me, it's been one of my greatest joys to support her for the last 20 years. You know, you work hard, I, you know, buy some nice things. I have a nice house. I, we have a vacation home and I like art a lot, lot, but being able to help my grandmother who grew up in poverty and had five husbands and has been one of the most enjoyable things of my life

that, you know, period. Oh, man, you bet. I love your grandmother. You realize this now, Mike. See, I want to meet her. You should, I'm going to, what's her name? Judy Eater. Come to Detroit. Well, we'll find her in Detroit. Judy. No, I'm going to, what's her name? Judy eater. Come to Detroit. Well, I'm going to send her a message right now. Hey, Judy, my name is Sammy Hagar.

You probably don't know me and you might even like my music. I'm not sure, but I just want to say, I want to live your life. I want to be 103 and healthy and I want to meet you someday. And if you like to drink tequila, I can help. Oh, that's the best. Send her that. Send her that. Okay, I will. I'm joking. I'll give her the biggest hug she's ever had.

I'll let her adopt me. She can adopt me. What the hell? Oh, God, that makes me tearful. Thank you for doing that. Couple more. So, my favorite musician in the world is... Oh, whoa, whoa, you're going back there. Oh, Paul McCartney. Do you know him? No. Well, that's my next question.

The one musician in the world that I haven't met and want to meet is, and don't say Paul McCartney, let's go with somebody else. No, it's not. Let me think who I haven't met that I would like to meet. You know, I've just met everybody. I mean, it's, geez, I just, uh, uh, uh, uh, well, I mean, it would have to be dead or alive. It would have to be Elvis. So, you know, if that helps, if I was one guy would want to spend the afternoon singing and playing and shooting the shit with and eating peanut butter sandwiches deep fried, it would be

Elvis Presley. I think Elvis was the king. No one has ever been bigger than Elvis. I don't care what they say, the king of this, the king of that, he was the king. Crazy as he was, read all the books, I know all that stuff, but man, the big L was the man. If president Biden were standing in front of me, I would tell him, we need a new president. I'm sorry, sir. I love it. I love it.

Sorry. The person in the world that I admire the most is? Oh, I got to say, same thing, old or new. I'd have to say somebody like Mahatma Gandhi. I just think he was just the most genuine. I read his book and just, he just, I don't know, I wish I could be that soulful and committed and un-egotistical or whatever it was. I don't know. If I had one wish, it would be

one wish it would be. Oh, that end violence and greed on this planet. Probably in greed and everything else to go away with it. Sammy, that's a great place to finish. And as we do, I want to give a huge shout out to my great friend, Miles Scully, who introduced us into your new tequila company, Santo, where your partners with Miles and Guy Fieri, if you like tequila, it's awesome. I also want to tell you, you've made a huge difference in the lives of hundreds of thousands of people,

music lovers, beginning and successful musicians, entrepreneurs, and perhaps most importantly, the tens of thousands of people who have been the recipients of your incredible generosity. Sammy, thanks for being here today on In Search of Excellence.