From the Sun vaults, October 5-11, 1979

The Pacific Sun was seeing red--red rockers, that is--30 years ago this week.

Marin's rock 'n' roll legacy was pretty well documented by the end of the 1970s, with such luminaries as Janis Joplin, the Grateful Dead and Van Morrison calling the county home at various points that decade. But as another Marin pop idol, Peter Tork, might've observed, there's "a young generation and [they've got somethin' to say."

And what they had to say was "Red! Red! That's what I said! Red! Red!"

Yes, Mill Valley resident Sammy Hagar--the Red Rocker himself--was on the verge of a major breakthrough on the national music scene and was advising autumn of '79 AM radio listeners to "Turn up the music! Yeooow...huh!"

Samuel Roy "Sammy" Hagar was a 32-year-old semi-grizzled veteran of the hard rock trenches when Pacific Sun reporter Catherine Peters caught up with him at his Mill Valley home in the closing October of the Me Decade. The future agave-tequilana entrepreneur had already paid his dues in various '60s garage bands, plus a 1973-'74 stint handling vocals in Ronnie Montrose's eponymously dubbed band, before embarking on a solo career built around hard-driving songs about hard-driving cars.

"I came from a rough little town, Fontana," Hagar told the Sun. "Cars, drugs, booze, girls--there was really nothing else...The fun thing to do was to get in a car, yelling and screaming out the windows. If a good song came on the radio, crank it up, roll down the windows and pull into a hamburger stand. Those were the best highs I had as a teenager...I try to write songs like that."

Did he ever. "Keep On Rockin'," "Rock 'n' Roll Weekend," "Cruisin' & Boozin'," "Turn Up the Music," "Reckless," "Hey Boys," "Bad Motor Scooter," "Growin' Pains" and "Trans Am (Highway Wonderland)" were all variations on the theme.

The future Van Halen frontman had just returned from a grueling 10-month North American tour opening for Boston, a road trip that left Hagar "never want[ing to play live again." But just as soon as he'd returned to his wife Betsy and 9-year-old son Aaron, the ambitious musician was busy at work on Street Machine, an album he wanted to "look, smell and taste like Sammy Hagar."

"I worked so hard on this album I can't tell you. I went through the lyrics with a fine-toothed comb. It was almost painful. I said what I wanted to say--the best I could," said Hagar. And, make no mistake, few could say, "Ooh this planet's on fire, Satan's desire" or "catch me if you can--in my Trans Am!" less painfully than Hagar.

And though his songs celebrated hard partying, homely women ("Plain Jane, ow! Love you, love you, love you...") and the warmest color of the rainbow, Peters told Hagar she found his music overwhelmingly wholesome.

"His lyrics are odes to girls' lips, not thighs," wrote Peters. "The boozin' is in the spirit of good, clean American Graffiti fun."

Hagar had to agree.

"Yeah, I'd say my songs are kinda wholesome," he conceded. "To me, the greatest songs are felt from the heart."

Added the Red Rocker: "[Bruce Springsteen's my favorite. Whatever he sings about he sings with passion, honesty, conviction. That's what I want to do when I grow up."

Two years later, Hagar enjoyed his first platinum album with Standing Hampton, regarded by many to be his finest; in 1984 the hit "I Can't Drive 55" vaulted him to national prominence and he was soon recruited to replace David Lee Roth in Van Halen.

He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2007.

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