Sammy Hagar: How Rock 'n' Roll Changed My Life | E162
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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 I 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 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 the 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 of 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...

It's 1985 and your Ferrari BB512i is in the shop for a tune-up. And as 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 my the cosmic thing that happened to me, you know, back with the UFO, the little flying saucer dudes, you

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 call him, get him in your band. And Eddie goes, you got his phone number? 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, 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,

I said, now, you know, give me a couple of days. And he said, no, I like come down like tomorrow. No, I said, when do you want to do this? And they'll come down tomorrow and go, oh, no, no, you got to give me a couple of days. Man, I said, man, I just got my hair. I just shaved my head, cut all my hair off because my hair was trash and sweating 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 ideas, you know, blah, blah, blah. So he talks me into it. I call my manager. I left her. 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 and the rest is history, Van Halen. Eddie and I hit it off like just fantastic.

on a creative level, he's going, whoa, you can hit that note? I said, sure, I can hit that. No, I can hit higher now. You can't? It goes onto the piano. What would you sing to this? He starts going, why can't this be the... Then I'm going... He's going, holy shit, man. And Al's going, whoa, whoa, man, try this, try that. They were using me like I was... Like they'd never heard anybody that could sing. Yeah.

It's pretty funny. So you joined 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, OUA12, 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 fronting 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 times. So let's start with the good times. Yeah. That band, when I joined them, 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 that's,

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 it was what that being in Van Halen and having that kind of success that even though I had success, uh,

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'm going to 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 premium. I'd been singing for years and really singing at the top of my game. I was on this diet where it was a Haas diet where I didn't eat fat and I didn't eat –

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, and I got my manager at left front there. So long story short, we had, we took off on a carnival ride that got me back by

motivated as a rock star. I said, Oh no, this is real. This is superstardom. I saw the difference. Remember I told you, I was kind of saying, I don't know why I'm, 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 didn't dare anybody to follow Van Halen in those days, in that first seven, eight years. Then that just started getting old. You know, 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, you know, girls, poof.

you know, lead singer in Van Halen, the biggest rock band in the world's 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 of 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, you know, she couldn't, she had a nervous breakdown. Um,

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 to break, it kind of broke the band up. Kind of, you know, 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'd gone through a couple of divorces in that band. And, uh, Ed and Val got divorced and things went sideways, you know, absolutely. And, uh,

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, I need a change. And I met my now present wife. We've 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, 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

You know, I was watching the Beatles thing, the whole Yoko Ono thing. That's where Johnny fell in love, you know. But unfortunately, Yoko was, she jumped in 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, 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. Cause we just argue. We started arguing about stuff. Cause 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. Um, he didn't want to go home. So he expect everybody just to sit in the studio with him all day, smoke cigarettes and drink. And, and I'm going, well, I can't do that. I want to be with my, my new love. I'm in love. I want to go home. I want to go dinner with her. And so we kind of fell apart and, uh,

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, Kari 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 Kari kept saying, hey,

you wanted this, you know, 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, uh, only thing that drove me then was my ego and my pride. I'm saying, no, I can't, I can't get thrown out of a band and disappear. So I rolled up my sleeves and went 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 that. So I put together a new band, made a record and went out with, started a whole new, 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 some want to focus on two of them.

And I want to 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 worshiped 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 the next 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 100, including GoogleLift 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. 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. All right, now let's get back to the video. I told my wife, let's go...

see that place she looked it up it's twin dolphins a hotel that's no longer there there's a montage resort there now on same property in cabo and um i say yeah you know about that and i said i said 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 um for my birthday in october and i decided making an annual thing so every october i went down 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 was before Van Halen. This was in 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. You know, 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, okay. So I had a little airplane. So we went to Guadalajara and I, while we were there, I said, let's, 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, 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. A hundred percent agave tequila had not come to America yet. It was, you know, people were drinking tequila with a worm in it back then, 80, you know, 82, 83, you know, uh,

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, uh, tequilas from this, uh, from the town of tequila, uh, 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, uh,

Make my own tequila, bring my own tequila. You know, they have a cobble wobble to get, you know, the name cobble wobble came from the guy walking down the street. And I was telling people have all heard this before, I think. But the Van Halen guys, when we wrote the song cobble wobble, they had no idea what I was thinking. I'm going, I'm going to build it. I'm going to build the cobble. We're going to put that song out. I'm going to build the cobble wall and I'm going to have my own tequila called cobble wobble 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, they said, Hey,

Yeah, we have to bring us bottles. We make our tequila. We sell our tequila to and 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? I said, well, no, you got to bring your own bottles. So I said, OK, so because I thought it was best tequila ever tasted in my life. And we, you know, we 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 him in and I go in and say, OK, we want to order, you know, 100 bottles.

50 bottles, you know? Okay. I want to put them, 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. Okay. 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, I was, um,

you know, they, 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. Cause they're not going to, you know, they're going to torture you for doing this. Cause they were, 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 and he's writing the lyrics in Mexico. And I'm going, damn right. So I'm inspired to write lyrics. I come to the studio, walk in, blow out my new songs, my lyrics, boom, boom. 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 him in. So they they become partners in Cobble Wobble. And when the thing when 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 Cobble Wobble.

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 Troubadour 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 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 bandmates. No, not Renata. Ed Leffler, my man. Oh, Ed Leffler. Renata took Sarah's job as...

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 he said, if you're going to do this and you want to get MT, I wanted MTV to have a big party in

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 their, and their MTV is probably not going to support it. So anyway, that he, he got them involved. Okay. So you build it. It's on the edge of the Marina in downtown Cabo San 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. No, it's grown up now. You're welcome to still come. By the way, I hope we can meet there 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 at 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 put in. You're an optimistic guy. Okay. Then you leave Van 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 Highlands 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 saw he came to Cabo and he saw me down there, saw me go on stage in a bathing suit, 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 turned me on to 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, he's still around? She goes, oh, man, he's huge. I'm like, get out of here, you know? Because she came from Virginia and in the East Coast and down in Florida and all that. You know, Jimmy was like selling out...

arenas, you know, and amphitheaters and, you know, 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 little underground lifestyle thing. So I go to see him.

I said, he's playing where that place holds 19,000 people packed. Can't get a ticket. I'm calling a 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

Did they? Yes, they did. And so anyway, long story short, Shep Gordon said, yeah, like Jimmy Buffett. And the light went on and I just said, boy, yeah, I can just go out there as myself. You mean? Because I mean, I was living on the beach. I became a, excuse me, born to beach, you know, it's me. I'm all about the beach. And I thought, yeah. And I just started thinking.

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 a hundred percent. I did. I don't think I wore long pants again. And, you know, I go out on stage barefoot T,

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 Cabo Wabo tequila, making margaritas on stage. I'd say, hey, you guys got a minute here? I guess we've been up here an hour and a half. I'm going, 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

I'm going to make myself a cocktail. I'm going to 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. Lifestyle brand, sell your tequila, build your clubs all over the country, and, you know, cabo 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 Chip really enlightened me to all that. And Kari enlightened me to Jimmy Buffett. And I rolled this stuff together and here I am today.

Walking 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'm, I'm, 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 with,

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. Then I put the name on it and said, here, it's mine. It's my taste. It's my bottle. It's my everything. So I'm not endorsing

And when you go out and promote an endorsement, you're doing it for money. When you go out and 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 that 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 is now. It took you a while. Things eventually started to take off in 2002. Yeah.

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 2,000 cases a year. 1999 rolls around, you started to distribute it.

Seven years later, Cabo Wabo was selling 147,000 cases per year. And you'd become the second best selling tequila in the United States behind Jose Cuervo. And at that point, you started against- 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 Wabo was a premium brand. I was number two premium brand in the world. Yeah.

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 is a ton of money. But this is a different kind of money, what people refer to as fuck you money, which

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? Well, I invited the owner and the attorneys and the CEO of Grupo Campari to come to Cabo.

They offer 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, 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,

what? 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, is growing this brand, seeing it grow. It was, it was just unbelievable. Patron by then had taken off and they were, uh, they, uh,

broke their, uh, their deal with their, um, spirits partners, Seagram's and they've hired 40 people and they spent, I heard like $10 million that year and started their, their own really spirits company. I was associated with another company that was partners and they, they were, um,

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 Patrona, but then they took off and they got to like three, 400,000 cases and they really started taking off and everyone saw that. So Grupo Campari 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 Garavoglia, the lawyer at that time was a guy named Stefano, and Bob Kunze, the...

of Campari and he was brand new. He had just come in. Then the old guy was the 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. Pain in the sky. Way too much money. Look at this guy. He's walking around in a bathing suit. You know, he said he's living on a beach. He's a bum. You know what I mean? He's not going to run this company. Right. I don't know if that, what he was thinking, but in my head, I knew he did. He didn't really relate to me like the other guys, uh,

Luca Garavoglio 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 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, you know, a rock star, you know, in my music business.

why would I do that? What am I going to do with that money? I said, give me 60 million bucks. I'm going to go stick it in a bank. I'm saying that makes me, that scares me to death. You know what I mean? Like, and so, but 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, it's the, it's Campari guys sitting, sitting at my table, right in my house. And I'm going,

I don't know, like, you know, like $100 million or something like that. And they looked at each other. 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, ha ha. Every kind of, every kind of funny. And these guys, you know, Italians, they're, they're, they're fun loving guys. You know, they start laughing. You know, he's a very happy, you know, look at Sammy. He's a very happy, you know, and I, 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 their new distributors, the enemy, the guys that have been saying, hey, what does he know about Tequila Sammy? Ah, Cobble Wobble'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, you know. It really went down. It got cut in half by the time the deal was made. But the deal was still the deal. And it was...

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 in this and that, cause it came back to me. So when you say it was 94, $93 million, 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 so,

sell it. I thought, oh, they're going to build it up. My 20% would be worth more than $100 billion. And the truth of the matter is it went way down. And after five years, I wanted to get rid of the non-competes. 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, but Santo is coming soon. But let's talk about, I mean, Santo is right here and right now. It's doing phenomenally well. So congratulations on that. But I want to talk about

some of the marketing things you did. You talked about the song Cabo Wabo. You wrote when you were at Van Halen. It was the fourth single on the OUA 12 albums. And as you said, the Cabo Wabo is really the Cabo Wobble. The guy's drinking too much, walking home from the bar. But it was just a song. 11 years later...

And before you sold the company, you 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 Wabo 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 Albo t-shirt on stage. So you get the Cabo Albo 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

is you became the OG. You became a model for other celebrities to follow. There's actually an iPhone app called GrapeStars 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 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 passion.

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 products is up to my standards. But, you know, the way I promoted was so unique that I saved myself $40 million. You know, most people building a brand has spent 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 know, you keep spending as you go. But I mean, you know, the big the big number to get in the game is about 10. It's 40 now. There's no question about it. The Costa Migo 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 a big suite in Vegas and inviting all the influential people.

influential people to drink their tequila. And they got all the Senate 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 are 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, I went on tour, built the cobble wobble stage, had the big bottle. Like you said, had the waitresses coming out, bring me to drinks. It was cobble, wobble, cobble, wobble, cobble, wobble. 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. You know, if I say if I'm going to play, 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 or bars. Hey, I want a shot of Santo tequila, you know, or hey, I want this or I want that. And yeah.

That's how I promote it. And it saved me $40 million, you know, 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 is, oh, you make tequila? Well, you're like George Clooney. 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 gonna get an A. I got one B plus in all the 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 and 18...

seven months after I graduated from law school, I was 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 and

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 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 uh 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

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. And 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 distill 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 Santon, what I did with Cabo Wabo 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 finding out what makes it

the best, which is once again, great product, you know, and then, 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, as somebody like Casamigo, you know, they're doing, they're making mediocre tequila. I'm sorry. They are, you know, and, and, 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 Huavo, Cabo Uno, the last one I made, the best tequila ever made, the best Añejo 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 there, 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. Cause that's the prep. You

You know, 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 that. 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 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 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 it. 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. It's if I've got a fault, it's I never see the downside. Cause 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 going to go wrong, you know, cause I'll get in one of those insecure moments at four o'clock in the morning when I'll wake up in the middle of the night. And when I'm worried about something and I start worrying about everything and it's in 10 times magnified and I'll ruin my, my next day and I'll, I'll lose everything.

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 um i'm fear i fear failing yes i fear rejection i hate to say it but it's probably from my poor childhood i i don't want to be rejected i don't want somebody to say oh that guy uh he ain't any good don't go see that guy or his booze isn't any good man he's a phony

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- - No one's saying any of those things about you, but I promise you that. - I'm a fairly well liked guy, I must admit. I make friends, not enemies. I try 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 the next 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 100, including GoogleLift 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. 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.

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. Uh, it, I'm a little bit afraid of that, of, 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. I'm, I'm, 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 with 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. Make me do what, be as great as I was when I wanted it so bad I would kill.

myself to do it. And so he pushed me real 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, um,

That maybe will make me happy if I do something. 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 that new at my age. And even with your wife, we've been together 30 years and it's like, wow.

yeah, you know, let's try something new. You know what I mean? It's like in the bedroom, wherever, you know, the kitchen, you know, uh, I, I really think, I really think it's important to push yourself like that because when you start losing, as you get older and you've 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. Uh,

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. You know, 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. You know, 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, I mean, it's like, well, you got your own plane. So what? I don't feel like sitting on it. You know what I mean? I'd rather be 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 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, and I mean, we...

We just love it. We absolutely love it. You get out there and we produce too much of it. When they all bloom at once, you can't eat it. So I'll give it away to friends who love it. It's 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

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 that I receive, 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. It 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 them out. You know what I mean? Like you, you help, help your, your neighbors and community out in your family. First, that's my philosophy. Cause I don't have enough. Even Warren Buffett can't take care of everybody. And he, you know, he's given it,

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 grills, a guy came up and said, Hey, you know, you've been successful at Cabo Wabo. Do you have any other ideas? Uh, I run, uh, HMS host, uh,

which is concessions in airports, and we're wanting to put nicer restaurants and better food products in. Now, this is a long time ago. And I said, oh, that's awesome. Yeah. And I said, yeah. What about Sammy's 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? I'm sitting here looking out my window in Cabo on the phone, and I'm looking at the ocean saying, I got to get down to 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, hey, it sounds great. I said, okay. He said, can you write up a menu? I said, yeah, 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 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, you know, I can't spread that out too far, especially when you're dealing with children that are my biggest concern.

It's hard for me to even talk about. I may stop. But terminally ill children. Can you imagine? You have children? Just imagine if one of them were terminally ill. And then imagine if you couldn't, I mean, you can't help them to begin with if it's terminal, you know. And then what if you couldn't afford to even make their 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 him a car to drive 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 says, oh, they have income. We've got to cut this off here. I don't know what it is. There's some weird laws. 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 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 ten dollars 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's 103. She was raised in foster care and then 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. You've been having fun so far, haven't 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 because, you know, it's going back and remembering things properly, getting dates right now. That's it gets tough. You know, I've done a lot. OK, but let's play. OK, 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'd have known. I don't know why, but I thought I would be done at 40. I might not have been in such a hurry. I may have taken more time.

uh, 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, 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 got to going to be 45 next year. You know, 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 a lot. 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? That'll help you because it's hard not to lie sometimes. You go, man, I'm going to, 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 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. Raised in 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 of,

I mean, the radio came out, the TV came out, the phone was something crazy. A computer was crazy to talk to someone on your phone. It's airplanes, man, airplanes, airplanes, your first airplane ride filled with cigarette smoke everywhere. You're causing everybody cancer on that plane. I mean, just, just crazy, just crazy stuff. What's your biggest regret? Oh, geez. Oh my goodness. Oh God. Oh,

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, how proud are you?

What's your mom of you? Is your mom of you? 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 in Las Vegas. Oh, 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. Yeah.

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 go around saying, I'm Sammy Hagar's mom. As she's digging through a dumpster in the back of a, of a garbage, of a grocery store. Cause my mom and my stepfather, they, 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 plate, but long story short, they would go to the dumpsters and 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 put in the trunk of their car and taking it back to their animals. They 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 wouldn't,

After she had everything, after I was able to spend millions of dollars on my mother, but she would go around and say, oh, I'm Sammy Hagar'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, God, my mom was too simple. She was wonderful. My grandmother, after our company had gone public, I said, you know, Nana, I'm going to 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 want to get the, 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, I've got the car super excited. I'm like,

I'm thinking like Mercedes. I said, Nana, where are you? I'm at the Toyota dealership. I said, great. And I said, well, what are we talking about? I said, a Camry. I said, Nana, Camry is a great car. I think it's one of the most popular cars in the country. But I said, you know, 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 it's it's such a hot day. I mean, 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.

And I see the roller. I said, Nana, what is up with this? She said, well, the power windows was $600 more. So I didn't get it. I said, all right, you know, 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, you know, I'm a big fan of Camrys.

We have a vacation home, and I like art a 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 period. Oh, man, you bet. I love your grandmother. You realize this now. See, I want to meet her. What's her name?

Judy Eater. Come to Detroit. We'll find you in Detroit. 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, it's the best. Send her that. Send her that. I will. 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. A 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, yeah.

Well, I mean, it would have to be dead or alive. Uh, it would have to be Elvis. So, you know, if that helps, uh, 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 would be Elvis Presley, man. That 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. Okay. And, uh,

Yeah, 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. I'd tell him we need a new president. I'm sorry, sir. I love it. I love it. 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... Oh, that end violence,

and greed on this planet. Probably end greed and everything else that 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. We're 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.