Courtesy of AXS TV
On a new episode of Sammy Hagar‘s AXS TV series Rock & Roll Road Trip, premiering this Sunday, the Red Rocker visits his hometown area of Riverside, California, where he chats with Rob Thomas and also jams onstage during one of the Matchbox Twenty singer’s solo shows.
Hagar tells ABC Audio that he got to channel Carlos Santana while joining Thomas for a rendition of Rob’s collaborative smash with Santana, “Smooth.”
“When I come in playing, I’m going, ‘Woo, Carlos! I hope Carlos sees this,'” says Sammy of the performance. “‘Cause I think I did it justice.”
Hagar reveals that Thomas initially asked him to also sing “Smooth” with him, but Sammy preferred to just rock out on guitar.
“[I]t was so much fun for me,” says Hagar. “It’s the first time I’ve ever just played guitar on a Rock & Roll Road Trip. Normally, if I play guitar, I’m usually just playing rhythm and singing with someone. But I got to just be the lead guitarist and, ahh, I love it, man.”
Meanwhile, in a preview clip from the episode, Thomas tells Sammy that he actually wasn’t supposed to sing on “Smooth” on Santana’s recording.
“I wanted to write for some other people, and this guy…who lived a block away from me was working on a track,” Rob explains, “and I just came and wrote the lyric and the melody.”
The track became “Smooth,” which Santana chose to record for his 1999 album, Supernatural.
“My voice was on the demo…[and] they kept trying to figure out who was gonna sing it,” he recalls. “And one day, Carlos was just like, ‘Well, does this guy sing?’ and they were like, ‘Yeah, he’s in a band.’ And Carlos is like, ‘Well…let’s just have him do it!'”
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