Sammy Hagar’s new song, “Encore, Thank You,” Goodnight” has a title that suggests he might be thinking about a farewell tour. But think again, because it’s not about that.
“Well, there ain’t going to be a tour. I’m doing a residency, and it’s not a farewell residency,” he laughs in a new interview on the UCR Podcast, which you can listen to below. “But I must tell you, I’ve been hinting at this. I would never say I’m retiring, because I don’t know how to do that, number one, and I don’t want to do that, number two. I’d probably be lying if I said I was and did — and then I’d come back like everybody else. I don’t want to do all that. But I took the residency, which I’d been hesitant about playing the same place, same building, that many nights in a row, early on in my career. But now I love it.”
“I used to hate it when Van Halen played four nights at Madison Square Garden. I’m going, ‘Fuck, I gotta worry about what I said last night.’ You know, I don’t want to play the same songs and we don’t have time to rehearse. I’m one of those kind of guys. I’m very nervous about repeating myself. So a residency sounded like a nightmare for that. I said, ‘Man, we’ve got to play different songs every night,’ but now I’m going, well, if I don’t have to travel, I’ll be fresher, I’ll be able to eat better, I’ll be able to sleep better and I’ll be fresher for the shows. I think maybe it’s time for me to do that and see if that works. If that works, I can continue on.”
Hagar is Open to Further Residencies in Las Vegas
The Red Rocker’s Best of All Worlds Vegas residency kicks off April 30 and runs through May 17 and he says if all goes as planned, he’d love to do it again. He likes the idea of doing “two or three residencies a year,” but says the idea of a full tour is off the table, most likely. “I don’t want to do that to myself, my body and my voice,” he explains. “I’m too emotional. If I get sick and I have to cancel shows, fuck, I lay in bed and cry like a baby. I hate it. I feel so sorry for my fans. I care so much about my fans that I just don’t want to go on tour. Well, [people will say] if you care for your fans, you gotta go and play for me. Yeah, I know, but I care too much to go out there and maybe do a bad show or have to cancel. So the residency, fingers crossed, prayers that everything will be great and I’ll be happy and fresh when it’s over. I’ll feel like, ‘Man, I could do a couple more shows,’ not like when I come off tour and go, ‘I’m never going to do that again.’ So I’m telling you the truth that it’s not a farewell tour, and that’s the last thing [I’d ever want to do]. I would also say a farewell tour, those sound like a money grab to me. I would just do [a tour[ and then I would say bye after I did it.”
What’s Sammy’s New Song About?
Hagar first shared details regarding his latest single with UCR back in 2022, which at the time, had a working title of “Thank You.” Nearly three years later, he finished the track, now known as “Encore, Thank You, Goodnight.” Longtime collaborator Joe Satriani helped him to complete the song, which also features his former Van Halen bandmate Michael Anthony and drummer Kenny Aronoff. Satriani’s involvement was specific, because the song has its origins in a dream where Hagar says the late Eddie Van Halen appeared and showed him the lick that he ended up using as the basis for “Encore, Thank You, Goodnight.”
“I’ve been living with this song for two years. I sing it constantly. I wake up in the morning. I sing it. My wife sees me sitting on the couch, you know, with the guitar, singing the verses and the choruses,” he says. That’s all I had. I had verse/chorus/verse, but I didn’t have all of the lyrics. So after Joe wrote this unbelievable musical piece from it, the intro and the bridges, the exit and the solo section, oh my God. I mean, it’s so channeling Eddie. I can’t believe it. He and I decided to write it about the whole experience.”
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Gallery Credit: Matthew Wilkening
