Red - My Uncensored Life In Rock Part 4

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At the reception for my wedding to Betsy with my two nieces looking on. The reception was at my mother's house.

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Betsy and me with our first son, Aaron, in 1970.

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The Justice Brothers in 1970.

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The Hagar family (from left to right): me; my brother, Bobby Jr.; my mom; my sister Velma; and my sister Bobbi.

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Montrose's first publicity photo. (Photograph courtesy of Getty Images)

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Montrose at Wembley Stadium, London, opening for the Who in 1974.

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At the Record Plant in Sausalito where I recorded my first alb.u.m.

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Behind the wheel of my first Ferrari 330GT 2+2 outside Abbey Road Studios in London. Aaron is with his stuffed bear, Theodore.

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The Red Rocker opening for Boston, 1977.

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With my Trans Am in Mill Valley, 1979.

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Onstage and working hard.

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No singles, no radio airplay. All it took was twenty-one months of nonstop touring.

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At the top of the Marin Headlands with my mountain bike.

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Day on the Green concert, Oakland Coliseum, July 4, 1980.

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Governors' Camp, Kenya, 1983.

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Egypt with Betsy and Aaron, 1983.

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Hagar, Schon, Aaronson, and Shrieve (HSAS) at the Warfield Theater, 1983.

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Full '80s-VOA time, 1984. time, 1984.

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Bringing Andrew out for the encore at the Cow Palace, San Francisco, which was toward the end of Van Halen's 5150 Tour.

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Aaron and Andrew in the back of the limo on the way to a Van Halen concert in Los Angeles, during a leg of the 5150 Tour.

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A portrait by Annie Leibovitz, 1986. portrait by Annie Leibovitz, 1986.

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With director Gil Bettman (left), at a video shoot for "Give to Live" on Mt. Baldy, 1987.

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With Eddie on the OU812 Tour, 1988.

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My first acoustic performance at the Bridge School Benefit, Mountain View, 1989.

I started Red Rocker Clothing, which was a disaster, because the rag trade is the craziest business in the world. I had this great idea to make these upscale flannel shorts. I bought the flannel from Ralph Lauren. He had this line of flannel shirts and stuff, and it was the baddest flannel. I lost probably $300,000, because I got a huge order I couldn't fill from JC Penney's. I was late. I ended up with $65,000 worth of these flannel shorts in my warehouse, because they wouldn't take them. Some of them didn't have b.u.t.tons, I was trying to rush them out so fast. The next year, everybody had flannel shorts. Very tough business. You come up with an idea and the next year everybody flat rips you off and you have to come up with something fresh. I bowed out.

While I lost some money on the clothes, I ended up starting something else that made money: bike stores. It was Bucky who got me into the bikes. Bucky, my old pal who I used to help steal alb.u.ms from the ABC Store and who turned me on to Fresh Cream, Fresh Cream, was living in an apartment on B Street in San Rafael with his wife, Joelle, and their son, Benny. He'd married her in Rochester, but she ran away with some other guy and they split up for a while. Bucky took her back after he moved to California, which is when they had their kid. Bucky was always around. I took him to England with me as my roadie and truck driver when we did was living in an apartment on B Street in San Rafael with his wife, Joelle, and their son, Benny. He'd married her in Rochester, but she ran away with some other guy and they split up for a while. Bucky took her back after he moved to California, which is when they had their kid. Bucky was always around. I took him to England with me as my roadie and truck driver when we did Red. Red. Ed Leffler loved him, but he was tough on the other guys. He was hard-core and always looking out for me. Plus he was into drugs and drinking and could be an a.s.shole. We had to cool him out from time to time. Ed Leffler loved him, but he was tough on the other guys. He was hard-core and always looking out for me. Plus he was into drugs and drinking and could be an a.s.shole. We had to cool him out from time to time.

Eventually, Bucky took a job at this bike shop, the Corte Madera Cyclery, an old-time Schwinn dealership. This was right around the time that two guys named Steve Potts and Gary Fisher were inventing the mountain bike in Marin County. They took a fat-tire, cruiser bike and put gears on it from a ten-speed. They rode these bikes up and down Mount Tam. One day, Bucky took me in the back of Corte Madera Cyclery and made me a mountain bike. Right away, Bucky and I were riding our bikes everywhere. He biked to work every day, rain or shine. Between his biking and mine, I saw the mountain bike business coming and it really appealed to me. He told me I could buy the store for around $75,000, pretty cheap. All I had to do was buy the inventory, and it was a small store. I bought the store and he started making mountain bikes. We were the mountain bike kings. All these guys were bringing their cruisers to Bucky and he converted them to mountain bikes. At the store, Bucky couldn't put mountain bikes together fast enough. We had to hire mechanics.

Seeing the success of that store, I had an idea to open an even bigger bike store, a superstore that would carry bike clothing and accessories. I built the Sausalito Cyclery. We were the number-one independent bike store in California, one of the top ten in the country. We were doing $4 million a year in sales out of that place, with a million dollars in inventory on the floor. I bought the top s.h.i.t. You couldn't even get into the store half the time. We were blasting twenty to thirty high-end bikes a day out of there. When the first commercial models from Specialized came out, mountain bikes started taking off. We bought them. We started seeing the trend. People started buying these things. They were trading in their road bikes. Pretty soon we couldn't even take trade-ins, because n.o.body wanted road bikes anymore.

We put mannequins in the store with the bike clothing and we got a review in a bike magazine saying we were the only bike store in America that displays clothing on mannequins. I made my own mountain bike-the Red Rocker. I landed the cover of Mountain Bike Magazine Mountain Bike Magazine with this thing. I had two lights on it and I was the first bike builder to use black components. Before the Red Rocker, everything was chrome. You had the bike, whatever color. You had black tires, sometimes white walls. Everything else was chrome. I wanted everything red and black, no chrome. It took me a year and a half. Gary Fisher made my frames. There were different gear people in j.a.pan. They made me enough parts for one hundred Red Rockers, two water bottles, two Maglites, and all-black components-rims, spokes, bolts. It was a really bad-a.s.s machine. We sold out instantly, bang, gone. We had ten thousand back orders from around the country. with this thing. I had two lights on it and I was the first bike builder to use black components. Before the Red Rocker, everything was chrome. You had the bike, whatever color. You had black tires, sometimes white walls. Everything else was chrome. I wanted everything red and black, no chrome. It took me a year and a half. Gary Fisher made my frames. There were different gear people in j.a.pan. They made me enough parts for one hundred Red Rockers, two water bottles, two Maglites, and all-black components-rims, spokes, bolts. It was a really bad-a.s.s machine. We sold out instantly, bang, gone. We had ten thousand back orders from around the country.

We went back to j.a.pan, where our suppliers told us the most they would make was three hundred this year. Meanwhile, here comes Specialized with their red-and-black Rockhopper-Rockhopper? Red Rocker? Pure coincidence, I'm sure-and they stepped on me. They had components for fifty thousand bikes. I got out of the business, but I was p.i.s.sed. I had been totally ready to take over the mountain bike world.

The Sausalito store was a gold mine, but Bucky wasn't running the place. He couldn't. He'd show up late and yell "f.u.c.k you" at someone and walk out. Everybody loved him, but you couldn't put him in charge. Instead he worked the floor. After months of this, I finally had to sell Corte Madera, because Sausalito killed it. Everyone came to Sausalito, because it was built right on the bike path.

With all these different businesses going on outside of my music, I was making some money, and I began buying things. I bought a couple of other houses beyond the one in Marin County. I started getting into Ferraris. I started developing a taste for fine wines. One night, when I was in Montrose, I'd tasted a 1945 Latour and a 1927 Martinez port on the same night and I started to build a collection of fine wines. I made concert promoters provide me with certain vintage bottles backstage as part of my contractual requirements and take them home unopened. Bill Graham was hip to my chisel. He had all five bottles in my dressing room opened, so I couldn't take them home, and, later, gave me a recorking machine as a gift. I just started living the life. Betsy was able to spend a lot of money, too. She was spending money to keep herself happy. She'd go shopping and refurnish the house. I'd come home and go, "What?" but, since I was doing okay financially, I didn't really care.

Things still weren't great between us though, and around then, I finally had an affair. I'd been s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g around on the road here and there for years, but this was different. This was a real affair, where I fell in love with another person. She was in the record business. I'd met her when I was recording my first alb.u.m with Geffen in 1981. She represented a music publisher and maybe had a song for me. She was so independent. She lived by herself, owned her own house, drove a new car, worked hard at a good job-the opposite of Betsy. I fell in love with her and I began a long-running affair. I'd fly her out on tour. Betsy would leave, and she would come in. I used to fake trips to Los Angeles to see her. I'd fly down for the day. She'd pick me up at the airport. We'd go to her house and have insane s.e.x. She was so liberated-I loved that about her. It was like, my G.o.d, this woman can take care of me.

After the affair had been going on for two years, I was ready to leave Betsy, but then I decided that, first, we needed to take a family vacation, this big trip to Africa. Betsy, Aaron, and I went to Italy, Sardinia, Egypt, and Kenya, where we spent six weeks on safari. We were gone the whole summer of 1983. I was looking to figure out what I was going to do with my girlfriend. I needed to figure myself out. I was planning on leaving Betsy. I was in love.

We were in Sardinia. Aaron was out at the pool and Betsy and I had a quick daytime throw-down. It was a beautiful day and everything was right. I knew immediately she was pregnant. That had happened the first time with Aaron, too. That time, we did it while we were listening to Procol Harum's Salty Dog Salty Dog alb.u.m on a tiny record player in a hotel room, and afterward I just knew. In Sardinia, it wasn't like it was amazing s.e.x or something-it was actually a kind of a quickie deal-but you could tell something happened. alb.u.m on a tiny record player in a hotel room, and afterward I just knew. In Sardinia, it wasn't like it was amazing s.e.x or something-it was actually a kind of a quickie deal-but you could tell something happened.

Sure enough, we get to Africa and Betsy's kind of sick all the time in the morning. We arrived at the Mount Kenya Safari Club just in time to see Robert De Niro leaving. He was with this little kid and a white-haired guide in a Land Rover, pulling out as we pulled up. It was British-style Old Colonial. I hated the place. After five o'clock, men were required to wear a coat and tie. Women had to be in evening gowns. Children weren't even allowed out of their rooms after five o'clock. Betsy was sick. She couldn't leave the room anyway. They treated you real well and the place was gorgeous, but it was stupid fancy. It was a bird sanctuary. They had these black guys with white gloves in tuxedoes going around with little brooms and buckets, sweeping up bird p.o.o.p. But best coffee I ever had in my life? Mount Kenya Safari Club, no question.

Anyway, we went all over Kenya and Tanzania on these safaris, like the Governors' Camp, which is camping, but very elegant. De Niro was there. He was on the same safari I was, either coming or going. A couple times we'd see each other in the bar, had a couple of words. "Hi, I'm a big fan, yeah." He didn't know who I was, but he knew I was somebody. Long-hair f.u.c.king hippie-looking dude in this this place. place.

Going home, we flew from Kenya to London, fourteen hours, and changed to the Concorde. I was really splurging. First cla.s.s all the way. Flew the Concorde to New York, changed planes for Albany, where I picked up a rent-a-car and started driving to our log cabin in Lake Placid, where Aaron went to school. We were taking him back to North Country School to start in September.

It was two o'clock in the morning when the cop pulled me over. We'd been traveling for twenty-four hours. I was burnt. While I was out of the country, they had changed the speed limits. The cop starts writing me the ticket. "Officer," I said, "I was only going sixty-two."

"Around here," he said, "we give tickets for sixty-two."

He was parked behind some trees on a four-lane highway, n.o.body on the road, the middle of the night. I looked at Betsy. "I can't drive fifty-five," I said.

As soon as I heard myself say it, I went, "Whoa!" Grabbed some paper and a pen. I started writing the lyrics. As he's writing the ticket, I'm writing the lyrics. The cop came back. He handed me the ticket, and I said, "Thank you, sir."

I went straight to my house in Lake Placid, a three-hour drive from Albany. By the time we got there, it was about five o'clock in the morning. I had a guitar and an amp in my bas.e.m.e.nt. I went downstairs, picked up my guitar, turned on the little tape recorder, and wrote the d.a.m.n song, right there on the spot.

The whole time we were in Africa, I'd been writing songs, because I knew I was coming back to do this thing with Neal Schon of Journey, my first idea for a super-group, HSAS-Hagar, Schon, Aaronson, Shrieve. Neal and I had it all planned. When I got back and found out Betsy was pregnant, I kind of decided to end my affair or, at least, started slowing down. I had a pregnant wife on my hands and I thought this wasn't the time to leave anybody. It ripped me up, because I really was in love with this woman, too. But the day Betsy went into the hospital to have Andrew, on June 4, 1984, I called the girl from the music publisher from the hospital and cut it off.

"I've got a new baby boy," I told her. "I'll never see you again." I never did.

When a baby's born, it is a miracle. You can read the Bible or other books, and you hear about miracles. You want something to affect you and change your life like that. You want to see Jesus walk on water. You want to see someone heal, take a cripple and make him walk. You want to see those things. We all want that. When you see a baby born, you see that.

It shipped me right into shape. I had the whole world in my hands and I watched this baby being born. I was ready to give up anything for that, for my kids and my wife, so that we could continue to be that family together. There's just something about seeing a child being born. Creation. Isn't that as close to G.o.d as you're ever going to get?

When I turned my focus back to HSAS, I had all these songs like "Giza" and "Valley of the Kings" that I had written in Africa and Egypt, these vibey kind of lyrics, and I had "I Can't Drive 55," because I'd written it on the way home. But I didn't give it to the band. I didn't even tell Neal. I just kept it in my pocket. I wrote the whole song anyway, and Neal and I were supposed to be cowriting everything on the new project. I don't think I was being cheesy or cagey, just that was my song and I saved it for myself.

Good thinking, it turned out. The HSAS thing didn't really work. Neal and I had wanted to do something together, but I don't know why we got ba.s.sist Kenny Aronson and drummer Michael Shrieve. They were good and everything, but it was more a matter of who was available. Aaronson had played with Billy Squier and Neal knew Shrieve from when they played in Santana together. Shrieve, who's a great rhythmical guy, wasn't a rock drummer at all, and we were a rock band. But he made the band kind of cool and fusion-y.

We did twelve shows in November 1983 around the Bay Area, all sold out for a band n.o.body ever heard before, and gave all the money to arts and music programs in public schools. We cut the alb.u.m live, which I thought was sort of adventurous, but it never sold more than 150,000, even though I was selling more than a million as a solo artist and Journey was selling more than a million with Neal. It never caught on. "A Whiter Shade of Pale," which was the single, didn't really work, never hit. We played an MTV show called The Concert The Concert. Neal and I went to New York and did press for days. But it just never took off. It might have been better if we'd gone in the recording studio, made the record, and then done the shows, but the way we did it was unique. We never toured again.

I went right back to record "I Can't Drive 55," which ended up on my alb.u.m VOA VOA. That alb.u.m was produced by Ted Templeman, Montrose's old record producer who'd fronted me the budget for my first solo demos, and I recorded it at Fantasy Studios in Berkeley, this large orchestral room where Journey just finished recording their alb.u.m Escape Escape. I did all the demos at my little studio in my house in Mill Valley. David Lauser came over and laid down drumbeats, and the two of us would spend ten or twelve hours every day in my bas.e.m.e.nt, working up a bunch of ideas.