Sammy Hagar Talks Vegas Residency, "Encore, Thank You, Goodnight" Inspo & More

Billboard

9 months ago

Sammy Hagar caught up with Billboard's Tetris Kelly at Stagecoach 2025.

Transcript

00:00So, encore, thank you, good night.

00:02That kind of says it all, don't it?

00:04Doesn't it?

00:05So tell me about that song and the inspiration.

00:07It came out of a dream.

00:09About a year after Eddie Van Halen passed,

00:11I dreamt that he came to me in a dream.

00:14And it wasn't like he had died or anything.

00:16Like we were just seeing each other again.

00:18And it was so joyful and wonderful.

00:20And, you know, he's saying,

00:22let's write a new song, man.

00:23You know, I miss you so much.

00:25And we started writing this song in the dream.

00:27And I mean, I dream about people that pass all the time.

00:30I dream about Elvis Presley.

00:31I'm hanging out with John Lennon, Jimmy, all of them.

00:33All right.

00:34I'm really, I'm a big dreamer.

00:36And so all of a sudden when you,

00:38when I'm having a dream about someone that's passed,

00:40when you acknowledge that,

00:42the second I go, oh, wait a minute, Eddie's dead.

00:45Boom, the dream's over like that.

00:47And we were right.

00:48I was right in the middle of singing.

00:50So when I woke up, I remembered what I was singing.

00:53And this is two years ago.

00:56Wow.

00:57It was a year after he died, you know.

00:58So it's been almost three years since.

00:59But anyway, long story short.

01:01So I started trying to play what he was kind of playing.

01:04And I remembered my melody.

01:05And I just kind of made up some stuff.

01:07And I remember this kind of a riff that he used,

01:09that Eddie showed me one time, but it wasn't,

01:11we never wrote a song with it.

01:12It was just like this harmony goes ching, ching, ching.

01:15It has a nice sound to it.

01:17It rings out.

01:18So I don't know.

01:19I got with Joe Satriani.

01:20I finally, I just said, you know, I got to do this.

01:22And I wrote the lyrics about the dream.

01:24Wow.

01:25I mean, you say, what's it about?

01:26It's about the dream.

01:27It's about the dream.

01:28And then, I mean, you're going to premiere the video, right?

01:30Yeah, after we finished our show tonight,

01:31we're going to play it on the screen.

01:34And that's really cool.

01:35I mean, to get your fans' reaction immediately.

01:37Are you excited for that?

01:38Oh, I'm totally excited about this whole thing.

01:39You know, we're not going to play the song tonight.

01:41We're going to add it to the residency in Vegas,

01:43which starts Wednesday at Park MGM.

01:46But the reason I'm not going to play it,

01:48because all these people have been here all weekend,

01:50and the song just came out.

01:51So they ain't heard it.

01:52You know, they've been listening to the stuff they would come here to see.

01:55Yeah, they're going to come excited to hear the hits.

01:56So, yeah, I want them to, when they hear it,

01:58I want them to have already heard it so that they go,

02:00oh, great, you know.

02:01So, anyway, but that's it.

02:02And we only got an hour, anyway.

02:03You don't want to debut a new song.

02:05Only an hour.

02:06That's a long time to be on the stage rocking it out.

02:08600 songs I've written in my life,

02:10and you try to squeeze only 12 or 13 of them into one night.

02:13Well, you don't have to squeeze a lot of songs into this Vegas residency,

02:15so let's talk about that.

02:16How is it to prepare that?

02:17And what made you want to go to Vegas?

02:19So I don't have to go on the road.

02:21You know, honestly, Rick Nelson from Cheap Trick,

02:29I heard him say one time, he goes,

02:31I play music for free.

02:33I charge to go on the road.

02:35And I'm telling you, that's a good, that's a damn good thing.

02:39That's the way we all feel.

02:40I don't like getting in a hotel room and sitting around

02:43like a prisoner in a town where you're playing,

02:45and you just got to get there, and you hurry up,

02:47eating bad food because you don't have time,

02:49sleeping in a bad bed sometimes,

02:51you're traveling, traveling, trying to go out on stage

02:53to do a great show.

02:54You know, you wake up in Vegas in a beautiful hotel suite

02:56and eating room service of really great food.

02:59Yeah, and then go do a great show.

03:01And then, so that's what I'm hoping I can dig this.

03:04And if I can dig it, I can continue with my career.

03:07Love that.

03:08And then you've had a great career.

03:09You've had a lot of big moments.

03:10Like, I was thinking about Willie Nelson

03:11and performing with him.

03:12What's a bucket list thing that you haven't done yet

03:14that you think you'd want to check off?

03:16Right now?

03:17Yeah.

03:18Play stagecoach and kill him.

03:21There you go.

03:22Kick ass.

03:23That's the bucket list.

03:24That's my bucket list.

03:25You're going to do it tonight, man.

03:26The first time we've played this venue.

03:27So, yeah.

03:28I'm really looking forward to it.

03:29I'm glad to see the show, man.

03:30Thank you so much for hanging out with us.

Sammy Hagar Talks Vegas Residency, "Encore, Thank You, Goodnight" Inspo & More | Stagecoach 2025

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