I wasn’t too worried. I had seen the same thing happen with the Red Hot Chili Peppers, who were my de facto business model. They had made their first record, gigged, and didn’t make much money. Then they made the second record and started to get booked in places like the Universal Amphitheatre. I figured we’d record the new album and it would make us popular enough to play places like the Hollywood Palladium. Next Saturday Afternoon came out in 1987, and we toured like crazy behind its release. It was grueling.
People think, “Oh, you’re on tour! That’s great! You get to go places, meet interesting people, and see the country!” You don’t get to do any of that. You show up and do a sound check, go to a bar, have some drinks, see a dressing room, get wasted, do a show, and then drive through the night to the next show, where the routine starts again. It’s not a “See America” sightseeing jaunt. It’s fucking work. And it’s brutal, mind-fucking work. K. K. and Jon quit under the strain.
“You can’t quit now!” I said.
K. K. said, “Dude, I have a real career back in Los Angeles. Tear-assin’ around the country in a van isn’t doing me a bit of good.”
“Jon? Come on, man. We wrote ‘Life’s a Groove’ together.”
“Bob, I can make good money back home. I don’t need this bullshit. Sorry, man.”
They were right. They had real careers. But Pete and I were full bore and wide open. We were all in. Chris was in just because he was a student then and could arrange his schedule to accommodate the band. It was all good to him. And he wasn’t a drunk or a doper. He earned a doctorate in linguistics and another one in architecture. He didn’t go out. He didn’t party. It was music or school with him. Chris saved his money. He didn’t spend one unnecessary dime. He even scrimped with his per diem money. But he managed to pay his way through school and eventually bought a house in France from the dough he made in the band.
We toured Next Saturday Afternoon, and I felt like a musical success. My ego was in full bloom. And it was time to go cut a third record. It was 1989. Pete and Chris were still on board and we had picked up Rob Graves to play bass and had Mike Martt and Dix Denney, who covered the vacated guitar posts. John Doe from X produced us. Looking back on it, Stormy Weather was a good title. It reflected the vibe, both inside and out. There was pressure with this one. Everyone expected us to have a hit and break nationally. Relativity Records had given us a real budget and we recorded at Existia Music Group, L.A., a real state-of-the-art facility. Welcome, my son, to the machine. I was absolutely as convinced as any drunken, drug-abusing songwriter could be that “Sammy Hagar Weekend,” a sincere homage to the life of the teenage hard-rock fan and a shout-out to the embodiment of the working-class rocker, Fontana, California’s hometown hero, Sammy Hagar, was destined to be a huge hit.
’Cause it’s a Sammy Hagar weekend
It’s a big man’s day
We got a Metallica T-shirt
Got a little tiny baby mustache
Got a jacked-up Camaro
We’re sitting in the parking lot at Anaheim Stadium
Drinking beer
Smoking some pot
Snorting coke
And then drive
Drive over 55, yeah!
I had been that kid at the stadium. I knew what it meant to be out on a weekend like that, and I knew there were kids all over the country who knew what it meant too. Pete and I did not see eye to eye on the song at all. He didn’t even want it on the record. “That’s just a joke song,” he sneered. “Save it for your solo record, man.”
My contempt for Pete grew. How dare he be so dismissive of my great song?
“This song will be the hit of the record. You watch. You don’t know,” I slurred back at him.
John Doe, our producer—who had always been a huge inspiration to me as a songwriter—told us, “These songs are fucking amazing! You don’t play ’em very well … but they’re really, really solid.” Once I heard that, there was no doubt in my mind that this would be the band’s shining moment and our big breakout. Then the record came out.
“Sammy Hagar Weekend” didn’t go national. It stayed regional. But it did get people excited. We sold out the Palace in Hollywood. Two thousand people at one shot. We sold out a similarly sized club—the Channel—in Boston. I felt like we had made an impression. “Oh, my God, we’re rolling! There’s no stopping us!” I’d tell everybody. But, in the end, the record didn’t hit the mark I thought it would. It didn’t hit the mark anybody thought it would. My management team of Danny Heaps and Nick Wechsler took steps to make the band break. They set up a showcase for record-industry executives at McCabe’s Guitar Shop in Santa Monica. It was a tiny, tiny space with a stage not much bigger than a postage stamp, but it had history in that any number of well-respected, big-time musicians had done some very special shows there through the years.
“Now, Bob,” Danny said. “We need you to be sharp. Be on point. Be cohesive and … don’t be
