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TABLE CONVERSATIONS: SAMMY HAGAR

Four years ago, I interviewed musician Sammy Hagar at the opening of The Kitchen restaurant at the Hard Rock Hotel in Orlando. He was a lot of fun and it was clear that he not only knew a lot about tequila - he started bottling his own Cabo Wabo line in 1999 - he had an appreciation for food and wine. He told me that he collected wine and that he did a little cooking as a chef. He also told me that night that he was a big foodie.

As I wrote at the time:

The former lead singer for Van Halen is the proprietor of the Cabo Wabo Cantina in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. He also bottles the premium Cabo Wabo tequila, the key ingredient of his trademark "Waborita."

"Chefs are the new rock stars," he said recently at the opening of The Kitchen, a new rock-star-themed restaurant at Universal Orlando's Hard Rock Hotel resort. "They make more money than we do."

It shouldn't be a surprise to find a link between the stage and the kitchen. The image of the rock 'n' roll star has always been about exaggerated appetites. For drugs. For debauchery. For destruction.

Hagar says that buried within the souls of many musicians is a culinary artist dying to get into the kitchen.

The menu at his cantina is dotted with recipes contributed by almost a dozen chef friends. Kerry Simon's Red Rocker Tomato and Shrimp is popular. So is the Fettucini With Cabo Wabo Tequila Sauce by Carlo A. Cavallo. His favorite dish to cook at home: any kind of fish marinated with a margarita and sea salt.

"I have more chef friends, probably, than I do rock stars," Hagar says. "I've always been a fan of that kind of stuff."

And then there was this:

Cooking a feast and writing a song share similarities, Hagar says. Both acts are dependent upon inspiration to make them great.

Hagar even wrote a song, "Red Voodoo" about food. The lyrics came to him after one too many nights of mediocre room service dining on the road.

"Operator help me please," the song starts. "Room service got me on my knees/ They got the same ol' ham and rye/ Give me fillet gumbo crawfish pie/ I want it Red Voodoo style."

When he and his wife, Kari, married about eight years ago, he hired Emeril Lagasse to cater the reception.

The chef cooked risotto with white truffles and crayfish stuffed with blackened filet mignon. He also featured a bar with vegetarian, chicken gumbo and seafood gumbos.

"It was the best meal I ever had," Hagar says. "He shut down his whole restaurant in New Orleans and brought his entire staff to California. I always tell my wife, "We can't ever get divorced because I can't afford Emeril again.' "

I always wanted to do a story with him about the brand and how it came to be, but it never came to pass.

Fast forward to last week, when the publicists for the alcohol company that now owns 80 percent of the label, Gruppo Campari, called about a separate story. They were able to arrange a phone interview from his tour stop in Green Bay, Wisc., so we recorded it for a Table Conversations podcast.

Oh, and for you fans out there, Hagar talks during the podcast about hosting the third annual Cabo Wabo Cruise next April.

FYI: You can see photos from Hagar's most recent Tampa concert in my Flickr gallery. He played the Ford Amphitheater in 2006.

This was one of the first things I saw through the gate at the amphitheater. Needless to say, I felt instantly at home.

Posted by Jeff at November 8, 2007 03:59 PM | TrackBack