In a recent episode of ‘Story Time With Sammy,’ Sammy Hagar revealed what led to the end of the ‘Rock And Roll Road Trip’ after five seasons. He explained:
“Everybody’s on me about redoing the ‘Rock And Roll Road Trip.’ That was so much fun. I did it for five years; I did over 50 some episodes. I started running out of people that I knew that I could call up and say, ‘Hey! [Let’s] do this.'”
Conflict About The House Visits
‘Rock And Roll Road Trip’ featured Hagar traveling across the United States, interviewing and sometimes performing with different musicians. The show’s format often involved visiting guests in their houses or studios, which was a factor behind the finale:
“Because when you go through management and all that, they’re all trying to protect their artist, ‘Oh, they won’t talk about this. They won’t talk about that. You can’t come to their house, and if you do, you can’t see any other part of the house.’ I want to come to their house. Half of this ‘Rock And Roll Road Trip’ was about house porn. It was like, ‘Oh, let’s go see John Mellencamp’s garage!'”
Mentioning how the concept worked with the artists he knew, the singer said:
“So, I really based my thing off being able to call up the people I have a relationship with, the personal artist that I interviewed, and ask them if they would do it. And it really worked because I asked the people to do it myself. It wasn’t manager-to-manager or anything like that. That’s why I started running out of people that I had their phone numbers or their emails.”
Hagar’s Interview Method
Throughout the show, which started in 2016, Hagar interviewed and held Q&A sessions with names like Tommy Lee, Alice Cooper, Nuno Bettencourt, and Duff McKagan. Behind the scenes of these chats, he made sure not to know much about the guests ahead of the interviews, as he explained:
“But the coolest thing about it was I didn’t do any research on the people. Most of the people I knew a little bit, but a lot of them I really didn’t know that well. So, Kari would be saying, ‘Oh, did you know that he’s married?’ ‘Shh!’ I tell her, ‘Shut up. Don’t tell me nothing.’ I wanna walk into this interview like a fan. I wanna know about John Mellencamp, why he paints, and I wanna see his favorite painting.”
About this method’s effect on the show, the former Van Halen vocalist went on:
“I wanna go down the rabbit hole with them and be curious. I don’t wanna have a list of things. The only thing we finally did is we had a ‘this or that,’ so I always had a ‘this or that.’ Anything this or that. ‘Ford or Chevy? Gibson or Fender? The Beatles or The Stones? Sammy Hagar or David Lee Roth?’ So, I always had my little this or that, which was contrived, but I thought about it ahead of time. Everything else, I walked in there, that was it. We were real. That was a real reality show.”
The Show’s Finale
The final episode of ‘Rock And Roll Road Trip’ aired live on AXS TV in November 2020, featuring interviews with Greg Grunberg and Rick Springfield as well as a performance of Van Halen’s ‘Dreams’ with Hagar and Vic Johnson.
For the finale that also showed some bloopers and never-before-seen footage, the singer said back then:
“I can’t believe it’s been five years already. I set out to do one season of ‘Rock & Roll Road Trip’ to see if I could pull off my own TV show and enjoy doing something I’d never done before. I never dreamed we’d do 56 episodes and five seasons. It’s been a blast.”
You can watch episode 39 of ‘Story Time With Sammy’ below.
