Where You At, Baby?: Sammy Hagar

December 23rd, 2008

Sometimes TV shows create drama with clever editing to make it good TV. All the drama in this Sammy Hagar episode was real, TRUST ME.

The back story is; the powers that be were not totally sold on a WYAB Sammy Hagar episode, but our team, on the other hand, were very pumped about it. So it was a REAL hard sell by us to actually be flown to Cabo to film this episode. When it was approved we knew it had to be AMAZING; more access and crazy shit than anything we had filmed yet. And like you see in this episode, aside from the potential hurricane and us having to check for early flights out of Cabo…Sammy was literally hooked up to an I.V. – there was almost NO show.

After spending anywhere from 10-20 hours with artists on past WYAB trips, Sammy’s guy told us “I can get you maybe 20 minutes with Sammy” (!!!). I literally felt like I was going to be sick. We fought to be flown to Mexico, won that fight and then were faced with the potential of no show. However! The musical Gods prevailed, Sammy was cool and we made the show happen in the 11th hour – BARELY.

It was still WAY less than we usually have to make a show out of. All said we probably only had about 3 hours of interview with Sammy compared to WAY more for EVERY other episode. So I hope you can appreciate what an amazing job the team did to make this such a badass episode when you see it.

Random notes:
- Our late nights after we left Sammy’s Cabo Wabo Cantina were spent at a delightful establishment called “Squid Row” where we could see local dudes hit on every tourista senorita in the place…it was a scene man.

- Our series producer/2nd camera dude Romeo walked camera and face first into Sammy’s bedroom sliding door while we were filming and left a chunk of his face on the door. He will never live it down (continuing with this blog mention).

- Sammy Hagar is SO rich (how rich is Sammy Hagar?) – that his house in Cabo which you see in the show and is fit for a KING – is just a getaway spot he and his family spend a few weeks a year at.

- I really did sing with Sammy and the band, it was the coolest shit I have ever been able to do since I started playing music. I sang Rock and Roll by Zeppelin but because we couldn’t secure the rights to that song you don’t actually get to hear how it went down on the show…BUT you can check it out on YouTube. Some dude from Brazil who was at the show posted it a few days later.

Check out WYAB! Sammy Hagar on MuchMoreMusic, Sunday, December 27 @ 9:30pm ET & Tuesday at 7:30pm ET.

Happy ho ho
=matt

Posted on Tuesday, December 23rd, 2008 at 1:45 pm by Matt Wells and is filed under We <3 TV.