In a new chat dubbed The Red Rocker And Tequila King, Bryan Reesman from Attention Deficit Delirium spoke with CHICKENFOOT's SAMMY HAGAR (ex-VAN HALEN) recently about a number of topics. A few excerpts from the chat follow:

Attention Deficit Delirium: I’ve noticed that a lot of veteran musicians are now working on outside projects, both as a new creative outlet and as a way to make extra income. Many rockers are putting out drinks, hot sauces and opening restaurants. Obviously you love tequila and have your own Cabo Wabo Tequila. Why did you decide to put out your own brand?

Hagar: "First of all, it was before anybody else had done it. I’m not trying to take full credit for being the first guy, but quite honestly I wasn’t following any path. I went to Cabo in 1980, and it was three hotels, one plane in a week and one plane out of week. No newspapers, no telephones, no TVs. I was sitting down there and fell in love with the place. I said to myself, “I want to build a little bar down here.” A tequila bar, because I was a tequila fan back then, and I’d already been there on a trip to Mexico and went on a wine tour. At that time there were four or five Château’s besides Cueva and the big boys [in Jalisco]. There were little ones that would let you taste their tequilas. I tasted a fantastic tequila that was the real deal before it was in America. There were no 100% agave premium tequilas back then. I tasted the real deal, thought it was great and wanted to build a little tequila bar with a P.A. and a stage. I loved the place [Cabo] so much that I finally bought a house there in ‘81. There was nothing to do there except fish, hang on the beach and lay in the sun. So I decided I was going to build this place.

Then I decided to get my own tequila just for the place, so I went back to Guadalajara, after Cabo Wabo [Cantina] was built, and found some farmers who grew agave for all of the other big brands. They sold them the agaves. They were just farmers with hundreds of acres, but they made their own little batch. They made about 20 cases a year. They just kept it in barrels. They didn’t have bottles or anything. A friend of mine took us over, and we started drinking straight out of the barrels. I told him this was the most amazing tequila I ever had and asked if they would make some for the Cabo Wabo, and they said sure, bring us bottles. So I brought them bottles, filled them up and started selling them at the Cabo Wabo. Somebody tasted it and in a magazine article said it was the greatest tequila they’d ever had, and the next thing I knew people were knocking on my door. I said, “I don’t know anything about this business, but how many cases do you want?” So one thing led to another."

Attention Deficit Delirium: Over the last 20 years, how has Sammy Hagar the rock star managed to balance out with being Sammy Hagar the tequila mogul?

Hagar: "I always had other people doing everything. It was my palate and my concept. I would go in taste and say, “Leave this in the barrel a little bit longer.” That was my job. I could do that right before I went on stage. That’s a perfect time to do it, as a matter of fact! They would have five samples and want to know which one I liked. When I first started Cabo Wabo, we were doing it in traditional ways. We were doing it by the seat of our pants. Every time we made a batch it was a little bit different. I started learning more and more about it. At first I liked añejos that had been left in the barrel for a little bit over a year, and I was always going with that. “I love this! Let’s leave it in for two more months and see what happens.” I was experimenting, but then I started pulling back as I became really into tequila and really understanding it. I started moving towards a blanco, and the reason is that if you like tequila you want to drink a blanco. That’s what tequila tastes like. An añejo tastes like scotch and cognac, and if you’re a real tequila drinker you want that blanco chilled down just a little bit with a hint of salt on your tongue the first time. After that you don’t do salt lime. Blanco tequila is a tequila drinker’s drink, so I started moving towards that. Then I started trying to perfect my blanco because if you put your blanco in wood then your reposado is really good.

We started becoming a little bit more consistent with the formula — distill it twice, pick the agaves by hand, get the biggest, fattest, ripest ones, cook them for 42 hours, then grind them up. We had the system down. Then here is your blanco, and this is the shit. Once we had the shit, then we put it into barrels for four to six months because I like a reposado that’s not too añejo. I was leaving my reposados in there longer as well. So we started pulling them back to about four months. Then I started liking it at four months. It was lightly wooded and just took the edge off a little bit. It was nice. I started getting into super añejos after and started aging them for three years. It’s a process of how your palette changes. That’s all I did. I just made all those decisions. “Let’s try this, let’s try that.” I would taste it and go, “This is killer. Now let’s do this…” And someone else did it. Like I said, there was no work involved, otherwise I wouldn’t have done it. [laughs]"

Attention Deficit Delirium: I heard that you sold off a majority of your shares in your Cabo Wabo tequila company to Gruppo Campari recently?

Hagar: "I sold 80% of it. They wanted to buy all of it, and I only wanted to sell enough of it to get worldwide distribution. The hardest part about any product is getting it on the shelves. You can buy your own trucks and go to the grocery store, and they’ll go, “We’re sorry, we don’t have any room.” Distribution is tough for a record company or for anybody. It’s a physical product, and it takes up space. I didn’t jump into the distribution game. I always had a distributor, but I never had a worldwide distributor. So Compari came in, and they’re the third biggest distributor in the world. I said I’d sell it to them because I want to see it in the rest of the world. We came to do an 80/20 deal. I didn’t really want to sell that much of it, quite honestly, but that’s the only deal that they would make because it takes millions and millions of dollars in investment to get a worldwide distribution system going. There’s a lot of credit involved, a lot of shipping and handling. It’s a big job. Too big for Sammy. But it’s working fantastically. I’m a pretty happy guy."

Attention Deficit Delirium: So what’s coming up for Chickenfoot then?

Hagar: "I’m pretty much going to wait for Chickenfoot now. I was asked if I wanted to go out and do some [solo] shows this summer and was offered a great package with somebody that I thought would be really great. I thought I’d put Mike in the band and we’d go out and do it for fun, then just this morning I woke up and said, “I’m not going to do that. I’m going to wait for Chickenfoot.” It’s something special. I might go out and play 25 or 30 concerts this summer, and if something were to happen with Chickenfoot in the fall, I might not feel like touring because I just toured. I want to save it for my passion right now, just like I said when we first started talking. I’ve got a passion for Chickenfoot. I woke up one morning and said, “I want to play with Joe Satriani, Chad Smith” — who I had been jamming with a lot at the Cabo — “and Mikey.” I wanted to put together this band, and I was so overwhelmed with it. It’s all I wanted to do. I did it, it worked and I want to do it some more now. I want to keep that passion and not burn myself out on something else. Right now that’s my band."

Attention Deficit Delirium: Do you think you guys are going to record anymore stuff?

Hagar: "Oh yeah. In April we’re supposed to go in the studio. Chad has a little window from the Chili Peppers, and we’re going to go in and start recording a second album. We’re not going to rush it, we’re going to start. Joe and I are always writing. We’re definitely going to try to do it again."

Read the entire interview here.