Sammy Hagar: One-Dimensional Amoeba
54:59 Share

Art in your home can instantly transform your space and bring you joy. Saatchi Art makes it easy for you to discover and buy one-of-a-kind art that you'll love. Whether you're looking to complement your home decor, fill a blank space on your walls, or start an art collection, you can find the perfect piece for your specific style and budget at Saatchi Art. Go to SaatchiArt.com today to bring the beauty of art into your home. Plus, listeners get 15% off their first order of original art with code ROB.

That's 15% off at SaatchiArt.com. S-A-A-T-C-H-I-Art.com. Ever wish your favorite TV show had twice as many episodes? Everyone knows that feeling, and so does Discover. Everyone wants more of their favorites. That's why Discover doubles another favorite thing, cash back.

That's right. Discover automatically doubles the cash back earned on your credit card at the end of your first year with Cash Back Match. Now that's a real crowd pleaser. Everyone knows how it ends. Double the cash back. See terms at discover.com slash credit card. Oh, I got goosebumps. Oh my God, look at him. I have to go see my dermatologist. I'll be right back. This is so good.

Hey, everybody. Welcome to Literally, the great Sammy Hagar, Cabo Wabo himself, Mr. Van Hagar, great solo artist, took over in Van Halen in the 80s. Why can't this be love? Probably my favorite Van Halen song. And he's announcing a insane new tour, which I will let him talk about.

And then we're going to go down a wormhole. I'm just saying there's a wormhole coming. It may not be for everybody, but it's very much for me. Get ready. Do you remember the last time we saw each other? I was racking my brain. Yes, sir, I do, Rob. Now, see, you should have a better memory than me, young man. But okay.

We were on an airplane going to Maui, my wife and I, and you were on the same plane. And we had about probably took about an hour before we both had enough nerve to approach the other person. I don't know who approached too, but I think you were coming out of the bathroom. I was going in or something. We had no choice but to have a conversation. Oh, hi, Rob. You know, anyway, we talked for a long time. It seemed like very friendly. I really enjoyed you. I remember going back to my seat saying, wow, he's really a nice guy, you know.

But did we ever meet out in Malibu in the old days? Well, that's one. I have so many questions to talk to you. One of them is we did not. Where did you live in Malibu? On Broad Beach Road.

Eddie and Valerie live here, and there was a house between us, a library right here. We were right there towards the end, right before it comes back on PCH. So, I mean, listen, you know how everybody has a novel in them with a great song they're chasing? My thing, if I can ever do it, is to do a story of what it was like to grow up in Malibu during the time I grew up there because...

Neil Young was recording Zuma at a house on Point Doom. Oh, yeah. Bob Dylan was secretly buying up land to build his house.

Mick Fleetwood, you would see mostly passed out. I hate to say it. Yeah, those days. But I feel like that era was a little bit earlier than you and Eddie were living on Broad Beach. Yeah, I don't know when Eddie and Valerie bought their house, but it was Valerie's house, you know, and Eddie. So...

I don't know how long she had it, but I came in when I joined the band. So that was like 85, end of 85, 86, you know, 80s.

I bought it as soon as I joined the band. We just said, man, we're gonna do this for a while and I don't wanna travel back and forth and don't wanna stay in a hotel. So he goes, there's a house right next door to me that came up for sale and I bought it. It was like very spontaneous stuff. But Malibu was really cool, you're right. I mean, all the Brat Pack lived right down below me. There was a couple of houses right below us, if I remember right. The Sheens, that was the Sheens, I think.

Emilio lived there, right on that beach. And that's right. And Allie Sheedy was renting right next to, would have been you guys for a while. Yeah, I pity the poor guy that lived between Eddie and I.

Oh, man. Because on my deck, in my bedroom upstairs, and in Valerie's bedroom, he could lift up the window, I could walk out of my deck, and we could literally just yell back and forth to each other, hey, come on over. Hey, what time are we supposed to? And we were always having conversations across that deck. It was before the old cell phone. So we were yelling and screaming. And the poor guy in the middle, I don't know what they thought about all that. What are you going to say? Hey, shut up, Eddie. Yeah.

I don't think so. Stop playing that damn guitar. Oh, we did a lot of that. You just announced on Howard Stern the big tour. It's on, like Donkey Kong. Yeah, you know,

I haven't really done a real tour in probably 10 years. I go out and I play a couple shows a month with my band. I don't go out and not come home like I used to. I just go out, play two shows, Friday and Saturday, come back, just to keep my band together because Jason Bonham, Michael Anthony, and Vic Johnson, my guitar player, who...

they're just too good. We don't have to rehearse. So I'd rather just pay them really good so I don't have to start a new band for when I want to play. Because I would like to play, but I don't like to go on tour. But lately, I'm looking at all these guys checking out, Rob, and I'm going, you know, I just turned 76 a couple weeks ago, and I'm going, man, I...

I can still sing. I can still play guitar. I can still perform. I still got a great band. And I have the best catalog of songs with Van Halen, solo, Montrose, chicken foot in the world. I don't care. Paul McCartney is running a close second. I'm telling you. You got the songs, man. You do. Yeah. So I want to go play. I want to go do it. Well, I still can. Well, I can still sing. I don't want to wake up one morning a couple of years from now and go,

Wow, I should have done it. I can't hit those notes anymore. So I'm gonna do it. I booked a tour and I'm taking Joe Santriani

out there with me. I think he's right. Legend. Now he's the best guitar player in the world. He was number two there for a long time. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, exactly. He's the only guy that really understood what Eddie was doing. He understands it. He's a scholar. He taught Steve Vai how to play guitar. He taught Kirk Hammett from Metallica how to play. I mean, he taught them how to play guitar. He's a teacher. He's a scholar. And so, because he knows what he's doing...

I'm gonna play a lot of Van Halen because there's nobody to play it, right? So I'm gonna dig deep into the Van Halen catalog and play a little Montrose, a couple of Montrose songs, a couple of Chickabit songs, five or six, eight of my classic Sammy Hagar, 55, Mas Tequila, One Way to Rock, Heavy Metal, I'm Falling in Love Again, Let's Drive Me Crazy, all that. And then I'm gonna play a shitload of Van Halen. And I need a guitar player

that plays it right. If I'm gonna go serve those people and say, hey, come and see this, you'll be happy. Because they got Van Halen, man, it's what a shame that it's not anymore. The music will live on forever. So we're gonna go serve it up. And Joe, he keeps saying, give me a set list. You gotta give me all the songs, all the Van Halen stuff. And I'm going,

Joe, I change my mind every day. You know, you want it today? I'll give you another set tomorrow. And he's going, you're going to kill me over here. And I just sent him five more songs. Then I said, oh, you probably should learn these too. I mean, this guy's learning like 40 Eddie Van Halen. Wow.

Oh, no. Guitar solos. I love him to death, though, but he can read and write. You know, he can figure it out. And then he then he plays it with soul. So, yeah, I'm hard on I'm hard on musicians because I don't like to play the same thing twice. You know, first of all, how how can you still sing? How did you you know, so many people you start trans transposing things down into lower keys and doing all of that. I mean, what do you attribute your vocal abilities to at this point?

I never did that many drugs and I never smoked and all that kind of stuff. And I take my voice so serious that I just can't tell you. I watch what I eat the night before. The day before I have to sing, I don't eat certain things. I don't, you know, eat shellfish. I don't...

I don't eat spicy food, you know, things that, peanuts are something that I could possibly be allergic to. You know, and I don't know. I've taken really good care of my voice. I don't sing proper. You know, I don't have to tell you, bro. You know, the way I sing, I'm out there screaming. But

I've never stopped and retired long enough to, I've been retired my whole life, but yeah. That's the, that's. Yeah, I never stopped. That's what Kenny Loggins told me. He's a great singer too. Kenny's another guy that still can sing. He can still sing. And he just said, I never went off the road really. Yeah. Well, I don't go on the road that much, but like I said, I'll play two or three times a month.

And that's enough. And I warm up before every time before I sing, I sing for three or four days around the house, which my family's not really happy about that. Yeah. Yeah, because I have a screamer like I said. We have to. I'm not one of those. I'm not one of those guys.

I yell and scream. And the way I warm up backstage is I yell at everybody as a joke. That's amazing. I like that. This is cool. It's the best warm up on the planet for me because that's the way I sing. So I go, hey, somebody get me a coke.

without ice you know i just don't know my my vocal cord i just think any normal person's vocal cords would just explode out of their neck well if you listen to stephen tyler myself a couple other guys that sing this way yeah when we talk you know we sound a little crusty you know what i mean i sound like and in the morning you'd be going

You sure you can sing tonight? Yeah, don't worry. Tonight I'll be fine. Early in the morning, get stuff. That Howard Stern stuff. Oh, boy. Hey, you know, come on at six o'clock in the morning. Do a couple songs, you know? Six o'clock in the morning, brother. I've been on the other side of the clock my whole life. You know that, right? Rock and roll hours. Yeah. Not so much anymore, but I still rock it. And then Maui hours on top of that. Well, yeah. Do you live in Maui part time?

I have a little place on the Big Island. I love Hawaii. I mean, I love Kauai. I mean, it's funny. When you really spend a lot of time there, it's...

All those islands are both the same and could not be more different all at the same time. Yeah, I like the Big Island too. It feels lonely to me, which I like. You know, you feel like you're really, it's chill and you feel a real heaviness there. You know, Maui has kind of become kind of fun, fun, fun. You know, Kauai is, of course, deep and it just feels like,

so tropical. It just really feels like Hawaii. I mean, it feels like what you'd expect. But yeah, I love the islands. God, I love it over there. The second I get off the plane, you go, and you smell that air. You just get goosebumps. I got goosebumps just talking about it. How can you lie about that? No. And it just, yeah, it's really special. It's very healing. There's a good group of guys over on Maui. Shep Gordon, you must know.

the mayor. Mike, my buddy, Mike Myers from Wayne's World and Austin Powers made an amazing documentary if you're listening and you haven't seen Super Minch. I'm in it. You're in it. That's right, you are in it. I mean, you know, I don't think anybody from show business can live in Maui without Shep's approval at this point, I mean, I think. Shep's helped me start

Cabo Wabo tequila. I built the Cabo Wabo with Van Halen. I built it, they came in and then they got out after we lost money for a couple of years. And I started making tequila and Shep Gordon, I called Shep, who's been a friend since Montrose, 73, he was gonna manage Montrose. Wow. Ronnie didn't like him because he smoked weed and he wore a sarong.

Back in '72, '72. - A sarong. - Shep was smoking a joint in Warner Brothers office in '72, right there in front of God and everybody, wearing a sarong, an old funky t-shirt stoned on his ass.

and asking us, what do you guys want to be, rich or famous? And I went, why not both? Yeah, why not both is the answer. He's got a big brain on him. He's going, well, Alice Cooper, who he managed and still does, he said, you know, we spend a lot of money on being famous. You know, we spend a lot of money on big production things and

pulling stunts in towns and dropping thousands of pairs of panties from a helicopter over the audience, playing an outdoor festival. And he goes, that stuff's expensive, and so we don't make as much money as you think. I said, well, I wanna be rich and famous, that's all I can tell you right now. But anyway, so Ronnie didn't like him, but I became friends with Shep way back then. And yeah, anyway, he helped me start the tequila. I said, Shep, I got this great tequila, I've never had tequila in my life, it tastes this good.

What do I do? And he goes, well, let me make some coffee. No, he said, send me some. So I sent him a bottle. He said, I don't know nothing about tequila. He said, but Willie likes it.

So Willie Nelson. Oh, boy. Willie said it was good. I said, OK, well, Willie knows his stuff. He does. Yeah. So Shep made a call and a couple of calls and somebody called back. And next thing I know, I was in the tequila business. And boy, do I like that business. It's been very nice. Very good to you. Right. Everybody's in it now. So it's kind of diluted. But but boy, back when I started in 88, you know, 88.

Yeah, around 88. It was like, there was nobody but me. That's right. I remember when you opened Cabo Wabo, every girlfriend, and this is the 80s, every girlfriend I was trying to date that weekend was like, I'm going to Cabo Wabo opening. I was like, what the hell's going on down there? I got to get in on this. I just got back. We do it every year for my birthday in October. You know, for my birthday, I play a bunch of nights in

People come from all over the world, the fans. It's like the Super Bowl of Cabo, you know, of birthdays. And it's like, it's the most fun I ever have in my life. Every year, it's like, okay, what was your favorite moment? Oh, my birthday. It's like, you're selfish, you know. Boop. No, it's not selfish. Well, what is, what was your, what's your, I mean, listen, Chickenfoot, Montrose, your solo career, things.

Van Halen, post Van Halen, you've played all over the world. First of all, let me ask you this. What was your favorite big festival you ever played? Whoa. I don't like big festivals. So... Tell me why. The least terrible experience I had. What was the least terrible festival? Yeah.

I'd have to say my favorite person was Texas Jam back in the 70s and 80s. I played Texas Jam from the beat. I opened in 76, 77. I opened the Texas Jam and I headlined one in 83 and I headlined three with Van Halen. And it was just those were fantastic. I don't know what it was, but fantastic.

Texans, it's a great rock and roll state. It's a Texas jam, man. The title says it all. Yeah, and that was before all these big festivals, but that happened every year. And I remember one year, the last time I wasn't the headliner, I was second on the bill and Ted Nugent was under me. And it was Styx was headlining and they had an album out called Mr. Roboto. If you ever talked to Tommy or- Okay. Have you heard the story? I wasn't-

No, but Mr. Roboto is a very... I've spent a lot of time on this podcast talking about Mr. Roboto. Oh, there you go. So tell me your story and then we have to talk about Mr. Roboto. Well, we did Houston and Dallas. It was like triumph...

Ted Nugent, Sammy Hagar, and Styx. And, you know, the sold out, the stadiums, both of them sold out. Yeah. And so Styx was promoting Mr. Roboto Tour and they had

you know, Mr. Roboto. And it was, you know, he was out there with him. A little cartoon character. Mr. Roboto. Yeah. You do know this stuff, Rob. So I was really getting big in Texas at that time. I mean, I was ready to headline the show. I never opened it again, by the way, but it was like, so,

Ted Nugent came out with me, I had these cars on stage that I had a Trans Am and it blew up and I jumped off it and I went up in the balcony, up in the stairs, upstairs, ran around the lights. I had all this production and so we went out and just killed it. And for the encore, I came back with Ted Nugent, played whole lot of love and he jumped off of a double stack of Marshalls. I mean, I'm talking about damn near 30 feet. He jumped down to made his entrance and

Came down, hit, we played "Whole Lotta Love." We smashed, lit a guitar on fire, smashed it. We had blow up amplifiers, fake ones, threw my guitar in an amplifier, it blew up.

And I mean, Mr. Roboto was exit music. It was like everybody, that show was over. So the next night, Tommy comes into my dressing room in Houston. That was in Dallas. The next night, we were going to do the whole thing again. He knew it. He comes in my dressing room and said, dude, I just want to tell you, you just did me the biggest favor in the world. He said, I just quit the band. This is my last show with this band. He goes...

I just want to do what you do. Ask Tommy about that. And he gave me a guitar, was signed, and he quit the band. That was it? That was it. And Mr. Roboto, they came out and started the show. And what's his name? The keyboard dude that writes that nice, I mean, great songwriter, but I forget his name. He comes and he sits down and he said to the audience, hi, kids.

That was a rough one. Oh, no. Hi, kids. He sat down with Mr. Roboto and he said, hi, kids. I want to introduce you to Mr. Roboto or something like that. And we're like going after what we just did. It's like, oh, boy. So, Tommy, I helped him out, man. I helped the brother out.

All set for your flight? Yep. I've got everything I need. Eye mask, neck pillow, T-Mobile, headphones. Wait, T-Mobile? You bet. Free in-flight Wi-Fi. 15% off all Hilton brands. I never go anywhere without T-Mobile. Same goes for my water bottle, chewing gum, nail clippers. Okay, I'm going to leave you to it. Find out how you can experience travel better at T-Mobile.com slash travel.

That's my favorite story ever because a lot of people say,

That was the worst songs ever written. People talk about it all the time. Hey, are mine on that list before you go? You are not on the list. No, you're not on the list. But they will. A lot of people think we built this city is the worst song ever written. I don't agree. And I posit that it gets a bad rap. I had Bernie Taupin on the podcast last week who wrote, partially wrote, We Built This City. Oh, I didn't know that.

Yes. And I'm saying, are you fucking kidding me? Mr. Roboto is the worst song ever, ever, ever, ever written. For sure.

But I had no idea that it also bombed on stage. Oh, yeah. Well, I don't know about on their own shows, but on Texas Jam with Ted Nugent and Sammy Hagar on the same bill and Triumph, which is another rock band, it bombed. It literally, it ruined them. It ruined their career. I mean, they're great again. Tommy's back in the band. I bet you they don't have Mr. Roboto in their set. What do you want to vet? There's a lot of bad songs out there.

from that era. Yeah, I must admit. Some of them rock tracks are, you know, when they're talking about something really stupid and you're singing like it's really serious. That's the stuff that bothers me when I hear some of the 80s, you know, the atypical stuff, you know, where you're singing about

something really stupid and acting like it's life and death, that's a hard one for me. You know, at my age, I wrote a couple of them, by the way. Well, everybody has to have their cherry pie or whatever the hell's on. Are you, by chance, a Neil Young fan? I love Neil Young. I think Neil Young's one of the greatest songwriters on this planet. And my great thing that I like about him the most, well, the great thing I like about him, what kind of language?

Well, you know what I'm saying. It's songwriter language, man. It sounded good. It doesn't matter what it is. Yeah, there you go. You know what I was talking about. I love the fact that he can do something like, you know, Harvest Moon, and then he can do

the heaviest, frickin', you know... Hey, hey, my, my! I mean, he can be as dirty and down and grungy and nasty as anybody on the planet. And he kind of invented grunge, in my opinion. The way he played guitar is very grungy, you know. He started that kind of... He was a Malibu guy. He was out at... He was at Broad Beach. Yeah. You know, I was...

lying in a burned out basement. The burned out basement is- That's one of my favorite songs of his, by the way, after the gold rush. Oh. That burned out basement is next door to Emilio's beach house. Wow. He claims, he claims, I claim that he's talking about seeing a UFO when he's saying, you know, he saw the silver spaceship calling. He is. And this, my friend, I cannot tell you when I was going through my research on you,

Nothing made me happier. Oh, brother, I'm a believer. Nothing made me happier. I want you to tell everybody listening your story. Which one? The one. The one. Because by the way, I am a total believer. I've scoured, I did a TV show based on alien hunting and things like that. But your story is amazing.

Yeah, Rob, the thing that made it so relevant today is because if you look at the time of it, it was like 1966 or 67, somewhere around there. There was no remote controls. I had a TV with antennas. There was no satellite stuff. There was no remote. There was no computers. Everything had a cord on it. I changed my TV with click, click, click, click, click, click. And I'm laying in bed,

not, I didn't even know about astrology at this time in my life. I was 20 years old. So I was born in 47. So 57, 67. So, okay, it was 67 then. I was, I might've been 19, but anyway. So I'm laying there sleeping out of the blue. I feel like, oh, I'm, you know, like something's plugged into me. Like now I would say,

Somebody's got a remote computer on me, they're zapping my brain, they're taking information out of my head or feeding me. At the time, I didn't know anything. I just go, man, I'm connected to some people that are in a spaceship and I saw it. It was just the flying saucer with a little bubble on top, just exactly like you would see in a cartoon. And they were 13 miles away, they were up on Lyle Creek.

And they were parked there. Two guys were in that. And they said, oh, he's waking up. Also, mental telepathy. There was no language. I wasn't even. But they said it. You know, they said, oh, I heard it in my head. I'm starting to wake up and go, oh, what's going on? I opened my eyes and my room, it was a middle, my room was pure white. I mean, infinity. I couldn't move.

And they shouted a numerical numbers that was not from our numerical system. It was like, it was a freaking code. Like, you know, they coded out. I had a code. You know, Sammy Hagar had, okay, there he is. Now he's gone, you know? And they went, it was like a cord came out of me. I felt it come up through my spine. It was like, and it just went, it's almost like I could see it, like a retracting cord coming

And it was, boop, that went away and bam, my house was black.

It was the middle of the night and I was shaking. My heart was pounding and it changed my life. I said, what was that? And I never even told a lot of people. I didn't tell hardly anybody. It was so crazy. The next day, I find a book in a trunk in an ugly old shed that was on my property. I had a rental house. It was a dump and it was just an old shed. For some stupid reason, I'd lived there for maybe a year. And I said, I wonder what's out in that shed.

open the damn door. There's a trunk, old beat up trunk. Open it up. There was a book in there on numerology. And I became a nine freak. I read all about the number nine, how three nines are 27, seven and two is nine again. Every time you multiply nine, it comes back in a single digit. Every time you add it, nine and two is 11, it comes back to two.

it disappears. And that intrigued the hell out of me. Well, now I know the ninth dimension is what we see as God. What we think God is comes from the ninth dimension, period. That's where God hangs out, okay? You don't wanna hang out with God? You gotta go to the ninth dimension. We can barely understand the fourth dimensional, the clairvoyant thing where you can kind of think, you just kind of see the future or at least you know, like I know where my other house is right now. I can see it in my head. I know where it is, but it might not be there. But that's kind of like fourth dimensional stuff.

We can handle that. Fifth dimension, that's where Jesus and the boys get to walk through walls and all that kind of stuff. You know, you have a good time in the fifth dimension. You know what I mean? Good name for a band, too, by the way. Yeah, that's right. Okay, that's enough. That's all I know. Up, up, and away. All this stuff has been being revealed now like crazy, though. You know, all these UFO stuff, man, you're seeing guys that have been in the flying saucers and technicians. They put me in the damn thing trying to figure out how to fly it, you know?

And people are going, what? Are you crazy? No, the guys are telling you the truth now. So now I know it was all just computer. They were probably from the sixth dimension, sixth or seventh dimension. So you think they're from dimensions and not actual other planets? Oh, no, both. Both. Yeah. Because in order for them to get travel, they have to go through a dimensional, you know, the wormholes and through black holes or whatever they do, you know, time and space warps. And they have to.

Yeah, they're just six-dimensional capabilities, you know, I think. And you're not asking for this, thinking of this. It's not like you're a science fiction freak. You're just a 20-year-old kid laying in bed. Dude, I didn't know what birth sign I was at that time. I didn't care about it. I became an astronomer, a junior astronomer. I went and got a telescope when I got some money. I read every book. I read Teresa Morganum.

a new model of the fourth way, a new model of the universe by Petey Ospinski. I started reading Gurdjieff out of the blue. I started finding books like that and it just everything came to me. I didn't do anything. I had no control over my life ever since that happened. Everything just happened. Things came to me, you know,

I'm driving down the street and some guy walks out in front of me. I say, hey, what do you think you're doing? He goes, no, nothing. Hey, you ever think about blah, blah, blah? I'm going, no, wait, you got a minute? Yeah, well, let's talk. And I'll suddenly go, whoa, this guy just taught me something. You know what I mean? That's the way my life goes. I'm like a...

I consider myself being like an amoeba. It's like a one-dimensional animal. Like, I just go along and I get hot and so I move towards cold. And I get cold and I just move towards warm. I get hungry and I eat. I get tired and I sleep. I get horny and I have sex. You know what I mean? It's like I don't...

I kind of don't plan nothing anymore, you know? A one-dimensional amoeba. There's the title for this episode. Live your life like an amoeba. But wait, did you ever question what these beings wanted with you?

You must have asked yourself that. I went through a period where I thought they programmed me because I was finding things. I was finding out things and I would have a vision. I would have an understanding about something. I was really good at math my whole life. And then I really became good at math. I could do math in my head like,

Bam, bam, bam, I could figure things out really easy. I figured everything out mathematically. So I thought I got that from them. But now I think what I got from them, it was so out of the universe, of my universe, that it inspired me. It opened my mind. I mean, it's like guys that say they took a bunch of acid and they had this experience and it changed their life. Well, it did that to me. It was cataclysmic.

It opened my mind. I thought about, I just was thinking, wow, wow. And I understood a lot of things. And I started writing songs and I wrote a lot of space songs about that kind of stuff. And when I heard that Neil Young song, I thought, oh man, maybe he had the same experience. Because for a while there, I was becoming what I call a cosmic Christian, where I was actually so deep in it. I was thinking, the return of Jesus is going to be in a spaceship.

And it's like, and all the people that are, you know, the organized Christians thing is gonna be like, what? And they're gonna, you know, almost reject the next Christ, the second coming of Christ. It seems like, you know, I had this whole vision. I was gonna write a movie about it, that the second coming is just some rock star dude like David Bowie, you know, almost- Starman. Yeah, and then it was just gonna be like, okay, we're all leaving, you know,

beam them up. It's going to be on that dimension. But I mean, that's just fantasy stuff. I don't know what's going to happen, all that, but I do know that the world's in trouble right now. And I don't know what we're trying to do to this place. We need some intervention from them fellas. They need to come down here and enlighten everybody instead of just you and I. You know what I mean? I'm jacked up right now. But it's great. I love talking about this stuff because I have

met a number of people who I trust implicitly, who I know very, very well, who have had experiences not like yours. Yours is an actual, like, as they say, close encounter of the third kind. Yeah. I have people who've had close encounters of the first and second. Like, the spaceship came up the street. Everybody saw it. All my neighbors. We all looked at it. It went away. Like, people, I know well. Not insane. What about your experience today?

Because here's what I think. I think more people have stuff like this than they know. Absolutely. I woke up. I woke up. Well, that's what I was going to say. What because what happens, I think, is people go, oh, that was a dream. Oh, that was a weird boy. That was a vivid dream. Right. Like what prevented you from just saying, screw it. That must have been an insane dream. Because I woke up and I caught him and they acknowledged it.

You know, they said, oh, he's waking up. We got a, you know, like I said, a numerical code. And it just went, whoop, whoop. And it would just pop, you know. So your sense of it is that had you not woken up, you might not have even remembered it. Probably not. I probably wouldn't have even remembered. And that's what 90%, I think, of the things that happen are.

But for some reason, every now and then, they want people to know about it. It seems like they contact people and they contact them again. I don't know if you watch that series on one of these Netflix or something that where it's, man, it's crazy. They just interview all these guys that are hanging out with the greys and with the reptilians and all this stuff.

I've heard the most bizarre stuff you could ever hear. I know I'm preaching to the choir, so I can say these things. I love all this stuff. And I want to hear your story too. But the thing is, this one guy said something that just blew my mind. He was an Air Force pilot and he went into Area 51 or whatever it is there. And he said it goes underground and there's a bunch of, there's 30 stories and big warehouses under there. And they got about nine UFOs.

Got them, physical ones, like 30 feet across. Some of them, you know, small ones, like 30 feet is nothing. Some of them are bigger than that. These are just the little pilot crafts, I guess, like when you got a big yacht and you have a dinghy, you know? Yeah, exactly. These are dinghies. So they said he was an Air Force fighter pilot. So he said, you know, they wanted him to go in it.

and see if he could try to figure out how it operates. Because I guess when you, he said, when he went in, well, first thing he said, they have nothing. There's no instruments. There's no nothing. It's like this big piece of like a mold of one piece and seats and stuff. But they do it. I guess sometimes they fly them with their mind. I mean, it's crazy. So he goes, he said it was about 30 feet wide and he went in it and he,

It was like as big as a football stadium. This is my favorite story. That frigging story. Look, I got goosebumps. Here we go again. I can't help it.

How about that story, Rob? That story, there's something about that story. That story. That gives me goosebumps. Why? There's something, maybe because we intuitively know it's true. Oh, it's true. Or we've somehow seen it. But the notion that you walk into somewhere small, you see it. You see the dimensions. It is what it is. It's a 30-foot container. You walk into it, and it's suddenly as big as SoFi Stadium. Yeah. Yeah.

Unbelievable on the inside. And he said he got so dizzy and so discombobulated that he said, oh, I got to get out of here. And he found out he was in there like for four hours or something. You know, he thought he just got in and got out. That time just went into a whole nother. It's they work time and they do all this stuff. It's just, you know, like I said, that's seventh, sixth, seventh dimensional stuff. I think I love all this stuff. Yeah. But have you had it? Come on. Talk to me, chief. Have you had it? I will tell you the story and then you can be the judge of it.

All set for your flight? Yep. I've got everything I need. Eye mask, neck pillow, T-Mobile, headphones. Wait, T-Mobile? You bet. Free in-flight Wi-Fi. 15% off all Hilton brands. I never go anywhere without T-Mobile. Same goes for my water bottle, chewing gum, nail clippers. Okay, I'm going to leave you to it. Find out how you can experience travel better at T-Mobile.com slash travel.

I think I'm guilty of what I say happens to everybody where I try to rationalize it. So this was in the mid-80s. I was living up Nichols Canyon in the Hollywood Hills.

Yes, in those days I did like to drink. So I'm going to tell you off the top, was not drunk, was not drunk, was not hot, sober as a deacon. Driving up to my house with my then girlfriend, the light, the entire night sky got illuminated white. Like, like so bright that there were shadows everywhere. Like, voof. Wow. No noise whatsoever.

And I thought, oh, and I go, I've never seen anything like it before or after. And I thought, oh, something, again, the rationalization, something must have blown up. There must be a transporter, electrical something or other. I'm going to rush home. I looked at my watch. It was almost 11. I was like, I'm going to rush home to watch the news because this will be on the news. It lit up everything. Came home, watched the news, nothing on the news.

Weird, whatever, put it away. Go to sleep that night. Now, I had a cat that I never let out of a certain area of my house because he had no claws and I was worried about him getting out and getting eaten by a coyote and I also had an alarm system. So I'm asleep with my girlfriend and I hear the door to that part of the house open. Opens, no one's there, it opens. Now I'm awake.

And I'm heightened. And then I hear something coming down the hallway towards my bed. And all I can describe it, Sammy, was it sounded like a mechanical animal, if that would make any sense. It sounded like this. That's what it sounded like. And now I'm like, my eyes are wide and my girlfriend wakes up and she goes stiff.

So I know I'm not imagining it. My cat jumps off the bed and chases whatever it is down. Listen, I don't know if it chased anything. My cat jumped off the bed and ran down the hallway.

Into the living room where the sliding glass door was open, even though there was alarm on. It's open. I closed it. Something opened it. And my cat shot like a rocket across the yard and up over the fence and was gone. It had never been outside. And never came back? It came back. And it eventually came back. So...

We were so freaked out by that that we left that house to go to my other house in Malibu. We left that night. We go to the house in Malibu and a few days later, I'm asleep and I feel, you know those little pen lights that people used to have on their

Little tiny, tiny little pen lights like a doctor would put in your eyes, right? I'm sleeping. Imagine if you put that over your closed eye, the way your eye would glow, that color you would see. I am sleeping and that happens. And now I'm awake going, something's shining something in my eye. That's weird. The next thing I know, I'm awake and I'm standing in another room of my house, looking out the window and everything's glowing red, glowing red everywhere.

And I go, oh, again, with the, we try to rationalize, I go, they must have put a filter on all of the outdoor lights. And then I remember in that conscious thought, and then the next thing, zip, I'm back in my bed, the lights in my eye again, and then,

I don't remember anything above and beyond that. Those are my two experiences. I don't know what the hell they were. I have no idea what that was. Oh, I do. You would totally be an examiner, you know, examination. I think that the gray ones and...

The ones that are, for some reason, I hear that the gray ones are like what they call zippers. You know, they're just in a thing that they're just a spirit. And they really like physical bodies. Like, you know, they really want one so bad they made little uniforms that they cruise around in. You know what I mean? But they're just a consciousness. And I think it's the gray ones that are accused of that. And they like to check us out, man. They really want. And there's such a thing as a walk-in.

I wrote a song in Van Halen, you know, in the first album called Love Walks In. And it's a metaphor about walk-ins that if you're in a situation where you're in dire need, sometimes, you know, near death experience or something, there's a moment where one of these guys, the energy, they can exchange and you can be a whole new guy. You can wake up the next morning and,

look like the same guy and everything and kind of act like him. But you're a different soul that you get walked into and you make the deal. I believe all this stuff, I'm sorry. But Love Walks In, I'm gonna put that song in the set. We haven't played that song since the 5150 tour in Van Halen.

And it's funny because of what's going on. I want to sing that song and I want to tell the story on stage. You gotta tell that story. That'd be amazing. Not that story. I want to tell the story of the song. Hell, that's stars. I don't want to be like Mr. Roboto out there. Yeah.

I got some redneck fans, you know, too, Rob. Yeah, yeah. They're like, I don't want to hear about the UFO with your damn merchants. Get out of here. Damn nut. Man, Sammy went nuts, man. Yes, I did. But wow. You know, I really think those great ones, they like to examine people. Do you think that was something? Oh, hell yeah. Oh, hell yeah, man. They were shining lights in your eyes. You probably weren't even there. They probably put you back in the wrong room and then you went back to your bed. You know, they probably took you away.

The my favorite is now that, you know, our government has officially acknowledged that they exist and it was met with a complete yawn. Yeah, it literally there are publications that never I always thought that would be like screaming headlines. And it just goes to show you where we where we are. I mean, people are like, yeah, sure, of course, whatever next.

Yeah, Robert, if you want to get serious about this show right now with me, I got to tell you, the whole world, I think that's what's going on. We're still dropping bombs on people and we're still shooting people. People are still raping and killing people.

It's like some of us are going, how could you do that? You know what I mean? And so this planet is not as sophisticated, I think, as we think it is. And, you know, you can put the evidence right in front of some people. They're not even interested that there might be some aliens coming from another dimension or from another planet. You know, another solar, I mean, another galaxy, you know, freaking another star. I mean, the thought...

of thinking we're the only people in the whole universe is so small thinking to say, well, don't you realize how big the universe is? I mean, that would be- Well, by the way, now the physicist will tell you

that there are multiple universes. - Exactly, yeah. It's like- - It's not just- - You can't even comprehend. It's infinite. - Yeah. - How can you comprehend infinity? Well, I'm interested, but some people don't even wanna know, and they don't even imagine that there might be people from other planets and planetary systems in the universe.

To me, that's like scary. It's like, I don't know. I think we've all been put here by different alien creatures. You know, that's why, you know, just because you're born this part of the world, you look and act like that and develop that language. Why? I mean, you know, it's like, why is it so different? It's a very small planet. Have you ever talked to the guy from Blink-182? No, but I will. But you know who he is. You know, he literally quit the band.

to devote his life and his money to researching this. Oh, well, shoot, it's all he's got to do is watch some of these shows on TV and it's all revealed right now. Go hang out with some of those guys. Like, what's his name? Tim. He's one of my favorites. He talks like he's kind of German. He wears a suit, got a little mustache. Yeah. And he can explain anything. You see? I interviewed the guy from Fire in the Sky, the famous abductee, Travis Walton. And-

his story was, I mean, his story is, they made movies and books and gone and on and on about it. And, you know, I sat face to face with him, heard his story and, you know, the fire in the sky is about him. He was abducted for, for a week. But anyway, this is, I love that we went down this rabbit hole.

I can't help myself. Don't ever, my publicist, when I get up and say, don't ever get sucked into that again. You were supposed to be talking about the tour. I'm joking. This is good stuff, Rob. It's our job to enlighten people. It is, it is. It's 100%. It is our stuff. And everybody's going to go to the tour. Who doesn't want to, I mean, Satriani, I want to see him play.

because he's such a legend, but I don't think I've ever seen him play live. I mean, I know because I love music and I'm sort of a student of it. His reputation more than precedes him. And like what, you're right. Who else would you get to replace Eddie?

Steve A? Who would you... There's a million guys that can learn his stuff and play just like him, you know, but they don't know what they're doing. So that's the difference. You know, a guy like Joe, he understands it and will do it the...

like to perfection. Joe, here's how anal he is. In Chicken Foot, we did this live record. He had a solo that he did that was like one of those, you know, Joe can shred. He's soulful too. Like Eddie was a soul player, you know. Eddie shredded a little bit, but he wasn't like a guy that just shredded, you know. No, he played licks that you could sing. Joe does the same thing. He can shred it, but he can also play really great melodies with soul. So Joe had this shredding guitar solo from one of our songs yesterday.

And I think it was like, you know, like that, that kind of soul, right? Yeah. And he goes, oh, I hit a bad note. And he goes, we can't use that take. We're going, get out of here, Joe. He slowed it down. And I had to.

you know, Pro Tools, right? He slowed it down and slowed it down. And it was like, boom. But it wasn't even a bad note. It just wasn't the note that was supposed to be played. Because in his head, he don't just shred. He plays every note. He knows what he's playing. So you get a guy like that playing Eddie's stuff.

It's gonna be as close to the real thing as possible. That's just the way I look at it. And Joey's a friend. I trust him. I love him. He's not an alcoholic. He's not a drug addict. He's a clean guy and he's a good guy and he's a bad moe.

I'm psyched. I'm psyched. So give us the tour day. The tour starts? I think it starts like July 1st or something like that. And we have a few days rehearsal. I'm going to build a big production. I'm going to try to make the production look like the different eras I'm playing from. Like when I'm playing, let's say I'm playing a Montrose tune, Rock Candy or something. I'm going to have it done, you know, probably with video and with sound.

drapes and stuff, you know, make it look like the old park hands, you know, like the 70s, you know, and then when I'm playing a newer song, we'll modernize it up. Like, you know, the last Van Halen tour, we had this really badass production. And so, you know, when I play something like Humans Being from the Twister movie soundtrack, I want it to look like that movie, you know, so I'm like... By the way, it's July 14th is your first date. It's

14th? July 14th. Gee, I was going to go back on the first, back to Florida for the first date. I think it starts in Florida. Oh, that's all right. I'll still go. You can go anyway. It's next year. It's next year. Like I was trying to tell Howard, I don't want to keep bringing him up, but it's like- He's the best. Well, yeah, but it's like, Howard, the tour is next year. We haven't rehearsed. They're trying to get us to play all these songs. We haven't rehearsed. We just know each other and we know we can do it. We're going to get, you know, we're,

collecting information. But... Are you gonna... Can you please at least build a fake... Like, you build a fake amp that you destroyed. Build a fake Mr. Roboto just for me. And destroy him. Mr. Roboto. Domo. Yeah.

No, but on the tour, so the way I plan on doing it is, like I said, I'm going to come out. We're going to open up with something really cool. I'm not going to give you the set list, that's for sure. And then we'll go into like a couple Van Hagar tunes. Then I'll play, believe it or not, I'll play like a

a Roth tune that maybe I'll sing or Mike might sing, but there's gonna be so many special guests coming out for this tour because of the love for Eddie, all the guitar players in the world are gonna come and join with Joe. But then, but a lot of singers will come out and I'm gonna get them to sing for the fans, some of their first era stuff, like "Ain't Talking About Love" and "You Really Got Me" and "Panama." I mean, those are great frigging songs.

Dave can't even do them. So we're going to do a few of those things. So I thought every now and then we throw a little one of those in there, play one of my hits. Okay. Hey, people, how's it going? Mix myself another margarita. I do drink on stage, by the way.

Good. Yes, not at any time. Only at night. Only at night. Yeah, they only come out at night at the margaritas. Amazing. So anyway, then we're just going to kind of do that all night. Then Joe will play like one of his classics, just show off like a mother. You know, like Eddie always took a solo. Well, Joe's not going to play Eddie's damn guitar solo, you know, where he played Cathedral and Eruption and Spanish Fly and all that stuff in one sitting. He's not going to play that. He'll play something like Surfing with the Aliens.

There you go. Joe's a believer. Joe is an alien, by the way. I think he's a great. I think I'm a reptile. I don't know what y'all are, but I think I'm a reptilian. You're a reptilian? Yeah. You're a reptilian? Yeah. I think I'm a Nordic.

Ah, you might be. My wife is. I know I'm married to one. Yeah, I think I'm a Nordic. I like them Nordics, man. Yeah, me too. They're good looking folks. Yeah, exactly. Okay, let's see what else. Well, you know, yeah. And then Joe's going to do a little thing where he will show off like every guitar player being jaw drop, eyebrows up, jaw drop. You know what I mean? That look. Yeah.

And then, yeah, we just do that all night. Well, I'll be there with bells on, dressed as Mr. Roboto, ready. I'll use it, bro. When we play the form, you come down there in a Mr. Roboto suit, or you could come in a gray suit, too. You could also have a zipper suit come out. I'll wear the zipper suit. Love walks in. Yeah, love walks in. You can come out during that and be the...

Simply pulls a string. Some kind of alien looks for the opening and simply pulls a string. Love comes walking in. Oh, I got goosebumps. Oh, my God. I have to go see my dermatologist. I'll be right back. This is so good.

Sammy, you're the man. I love you. I forgot how much fun you are. There's nobody like you. You're the absolute greatest. Our people are going to exchange our information and you and I are going to be friends. Yes. This is too stupid. We'll see a UFO together. We'll go for a ride together. We have... And my kids saw one on the big island, but they...

pretend that they didn't. They're all over over there, man. My kids describe it to me. I said, what did you see? And they tell me and they go, we think it was fireworks. Okay. Yeah, it was in some way. All right, brother. This is great, man. Right on. Wow. That's the definition of covering a lot of ground. I don't know what I'm more excited about. The new tour or

the specter of him blowing up a Mr. Roboto on stage, or that I met another person who actually had an alien encounter, not just saw a UFO. Ironically, he never saw the UFO, if you listened carefully. He was aware of the UFO. Anyway.

That was fun, really. And that's why I do this. I always like to talk about why I do this podcast. You never know what rabbit hole you're going to end up going down with the guest. And this was an unbelievable one. Ring, ring, what's that? Ooh, it's the lowdown line. Hello, you've reached literally in our lowdown line.

where you can get the lowdown on all things about me, Rob Lowe. 323-570-4551. So have at it. Here's the beep. Hi, Mr. Lowe. My name is Harinder from Edison, New Jersey. I've enjoyed your work on Parks and Recreation, Austin Powers, and other works, including Unstable. Anyway, I have a question for you.

I was watching Austin Powers International Man of Mystery and noticed you had a cameo in that movie that I didn't notice before. I later Googled this and found that on international viewings of that movie, that's when you can see the cameo. So my question for you is, what's your favorite cameo? Or what cameo have you made in a movie that was missed on Netflix?

the U.S. hearings of such works. Thanks so much. Enjoy the show. Hope you have Jimmy Carr on in future episodes. Thanks so much. Bye-bye. Ooh, Jimmy Carr. That's a really good idea. Thank you. Hey, team, make a note. Jimmy Carr. We got, in all seriousness, let's reach out to him. Great idea. Thank you for that. You should help me produce this podcast. Well, that podcast, the, um,

That cameo you referenced in the first Austin Powers is the only cameo I've done that did not make it into the final cut. And the reason for that is actually a great storytelling lesson that I learned from Mike Myers. And that is at a certain point in a movie, and it's usually around the halfway point,

But beyond a certain point, let's say halfway, any joke, any story, any character, any scene, any tangent that doesn't directly move the story to its conclusion has to come out. At a certain point, an audience, even in a comedy, just wants to know they're moving towards the end. And that piece that I'm in came very late in the movie.

and is a tangent. Literally, the movie stops and becomes a tangent about a character you've never seen before, my character. So that's why it went out. And I learned a great storytelling lesson from that. And you do see it in the international versions. And I'm trying to think if I ever had... I mean, I'm very fond of my cameo in Thank You for Smoking. Really good movie. And it's one of my favorite little appearances ever.

I've ever done. Thanks for the question. Thank you for listening. Don't forget to subscribe if you have not subscribed yet. Please tell your friends to check out the podcast and I'll see you next time here on Literally.

You've been listening to Literally with Rob Lowe, produced by me, Nick Liao. With help from associate producer Sarah Begar. Research by Alyssa Grawl. Editing by Jerron Ferguson. Engineering and mixing by Rich Garcia. Our executive producers are Rob Lowe for Low Profile, Adam Sachs, Jeff Ross, and myself for Team Coco, and Colin Anderson for Stitcher. Booking by Deirdre Dodd. Music by Devin Bryant. Special thanks to Hidden City Studios.

Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time on Literally with Rob Lowe. All set for your flight? Yep, I've got everything I need. Eye mask, neck pillow, T-Mobile, headphones. Wait, T-Mobile? You bet. Free in-flight Wi-Fi. 15% off all Hilton brands. I never go anywhere without T-Mobile. Same goes for my water bottle, chewing gum, nail clippers. Okay, I'm going to leave you to it. Find out how you can experience travel better at T-Mobile.com slash travel.

Qualifying plan required. Wi-Fi were available on select U.S. airlines. Deposit and Hilton Honors membership required for 15% discount terms and conditions apply.