Available at Amazon.com for $14.00 in hardcover
Buy it if: Your ideal night is listening to 5150 with a glass of Cabo Wabo after speeding home in a red Corvette.
Don’t buy it if: You’re expecting 250 pages of revelations along the lines of the Rolling Stone excerpt. The good stuff is already out there.
One of the greatest guilty pleasures in literature has to be the ‘tell-all.’ Any vicarious look at the inherent craziness, hedonism or outright wackiness of someone else’s life is a fairly easy sell to most readers. Whether it’s Howard Stern’s Private Parts, a Kitty Kelley political bombshell or even an altruistic whistleblower’s take on corporate misdoings, we love to read about what goes on behind closed doors. Just about everyone likes when as secret comes out, provided it’s not their own.
Sammy Hagar’s recent effort, Red (of course….), unfortunately doesn’t quite live up to the hype that surrounded it’s ungrounded billing as the Van Halen tell-all everyone’s been wanting (“I want some, too!”) since David Lee Roth scissor-kicked his way out of the band in the mid-eighties. That’s not to say that it’s a failure as a book, but if you’re expecting a binding filled with lewd tales of drugs, groupies and oddities, you’d be better off re-reading your well worn copy of Hammer of the Gods and picking up the recent issue of Rolling Stone that excerpted the most dazzling pieces of the Van Hagar drug, alcohol and oddity drama. Just like a movie trailer, if you’re buying the book based on that, you’ve already seen the good parts.
BUT, if you approach the book on its own merits and ignore the effective – if misleading - PR push to premiere Red as a ‘Sammy finally speaks out’ piece, the Hagar/Halen/Montrose/tequila fans among you may find it a worthwhile read. I think the key to appreciating the Hagar narrative can be found in the reader’s own desire. If you’ve been a follower of the man, the book will offer an entertaining and approachable perspective on his life and career. The plainspoken text belies only a light touch from the co-author, which gives the read a genuine feel. It would have been easy to give the words a quick polish, but leaving the shine off gives it a voice akin to sitting with Red Rocker himself, listening to him tell war stories while kicked back on the beach, toes in the sand, tequila in hand.
For an autobiography, this relaxed telling is effective for the objectivity it imposes. Sammy doesn’t deny his mistakes, and by his account, he’s made quite a few. His failings as a father, husband, artist and businessman are embraced as the human errors that plague us all. He’s less apologetic than introspective, a surprisingly endearing trait for an author. Though it’s easy to find yourself sitting in judgment, Hagar’s own perspective makes it tough to cast a stone from your own glass house.
As far as rock bios go, this one is straight down the middle… Not a terrible effort dashed off for a quick buck, but also not fascinating in its own right. This one is crafted for fans and it’s unlikely to capture the interest of someone without a few of Sammy’s records already on their shelves. Recommended, but only if you’re type who just can’t drive 55…
