Mike Snider

USA TODAY

Sammy Hagar has found another way to rock: on his own reality TV show.

The Red Rocker has done it all in his four-decade career: team player in Seventies band Montrose and, more recently Chickenfoot, platinum-selling solo artist and one-time Van Halen frontman.

Beyond music, Hagar, 68, has become hard rock's answer to Jimmy Buffett, with eight restaurants and bars, as well as his own top-shelf booze, Sammy's Beach Bar Rum, which he started after selling his Cabo Wabo Tequila business for $100 million.

He's penned an autobiography, as well as a cookbook. But it took some convincing for him to segue to TV for Rock & Roll Road Trip with Sammy Hagar, which premiered on AXS TV Sunday, at 9 p.m. EST/6 p.m. PST.

"I personally don’t like cameras," he said in a telephone interview from Albuquerque. His band Sammy Hagar and the Circle (with bassist Michael Anthony, drummer Jason Bonham and guitarist Vic Johnson) played there Friday. For more on Hagar, visit his website. "Even when I was a young handsome man, they made me nervous."

But producers at the AXS TV channel listened when he came up with the idea for a show.

The network had broadcast his annual birthday bash festival previously, and Hagar used that as a touchstone for the series. "I said, 'Let's make a show like that where I sit and talk with my friends," Hagar said. "It’s part travel because I go to their town and we talk about their town. And it's kind of lifestyle where I hang out with my buddies. And it's kind of rock and roll. We end up playing music before the show is over."

Hagar has this season's six episodes in the can, but it didn't come easy. Initially his industry friends weren't keen on collaborating on what could be a pilot on a non-mainstream network.

"It was tough lining people up, because it wasn’t a guaranteed thing," Hagar said. "The first guy that came in was (former Motley Crue drummer) Tommy Lee. He said, 'What's it going to be about?' I said, 'It’s not about Motley Crue. It's going to be about you. Who are you what do you like to do.' He said, 'I’m in.'"

Upon arrival for taping at Lee's L.A. home — also the home of his Atrium Studio — Hagar asked Lee "'What are you into now?' He said,'I’m into cooking,' and I said, 'Let’s cook. Roll the cameras.'"

After making apple hand pies, Hagar and Lee headed for the studio and along with Anthony played an edgy rendition of Rock Candy, a song co-written by Hagar from 1973's Montrose debut album.

In the second episode, Hagar drops in on Grateful Dead co-founder Bob Weir and drummer Mickey Hart. He asks Weir about the history of the Dead and Haight-Asbury in the Sixties and does a blues acoustic version of Loose Lucy. Then, he connects with Hart, who played on Hagar's 1997 album Marching to Mars, for a celestial jam session that blows out Hagar's amp.

"Everyone is different. It is not a cookie-cutter show," he said. "You are not going to see the same thing again. Even Mickey Hart and Bob Weir, even though they are in the same band, those are two different moments."

Future shows include guests such as Alice Cooper, Heart's Nancy Wilson and Alice in Chain's Jerry Cantrell.

Hagar is already creating a wish list for Season 2. "I want to go to Jersey and do (Bruce) Springsteen and go to Florida and do Tom Petty," he said. "I want to do (John) Mellencamp in Bloomington (Ind.). I want to do Dave Matthews wherever he wants to do it. I want to do Bob Seger in Detroit with Kid Rock hanging around with us, and I want to pick up (ZZ Top's) Billy Gibbons in my plane and fly him to Houston and get him back to his hometown. ... Those are my future dream shows, and I am going to go after them hard."

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