Sammy Hagar and The Circle announce 'Crazy Times'

Album drops this fall

Sammy Hagar and The Circle, featuring Jason Bonham, Michael Anthony and Vic Johnson, will release their second studio album, Crazy Times, this fall via BMG. The project will be available on CD and digital on September 30th and vinyl, including a translucent red color vinyl, on October 28th. The album’s first single and title track, “Crazy Times,” is now available digitally.

“This song is basically about how I feel coming out the other side of everything we’ve all gone through together the last couple years,” Hagar shares. “These are some crazy times.”

The 12 track album was recorded with 8x Grammy Award-winning producer Dave Cobb at his RCA Studio A in Nashville.

“Working with Dave Cobb for the first time was enlightening. We went into the studio to record in the fall of 2021, when the world was starting to come out of the pandemic bubble we’d all been living in. The lyrics for ‘Crazy Times’ just came from that new freedom we were feeling, the freedom felt unbelievable, but a little uncertain, too. We had to ask ourselves ‘what are we doing here and what do we want?'” Hagar shares.

“Going back in the studio, creating and being with the music is just what felt natural. And it was just so different from any record I’ve ever made. There was joy in the hard work, catharsis and the comradery we’d craved. It was like those two years of not being able to do very much fell away and we really all came together and let it out in the music and lyrics. We were able to express what we all felt.”

Hagar wrote or co-wrote nine of the album’s tracks, which also features the notable cover, “Pump It Up,” a 1978 song by Elvis Costello and the Attractions. The song “Crazy Times” was written by the whole band along with Dave Cobb and recorded live.

“Before I stepped into the studio with Dave, he’d told me he wanted the best of my career on this record, and he wasn’t going to let me get out of that studio until I gave it to him,” Hagar explains. “So, I said, ‘If you expect that from me, at my age, as many records as I’ve made, you’re going to have to push me,’ and he said no problem. Obviously, I dug down and just tried to write good strong songs, great lyrics, great melodies and not worry so much about the arrangements because he had that covered. And he pushed and squeezed every one of us. We went in the studio with seven songs and came out with 10. We ended up cowriting three songs with Dave Cobb and the band — including the new track, ‘Crazy Times’.”

Crazy Times is the fourth project from the band, which includes last year’s Lockdown 2020 that was recorded on iPhones during the COVID-19 shelter-in-place orders, their 2019 studio debut Space Between, and their 2015 double live project, At Your Service.

The group is currently on their Crazy Times North American summer amphitheater tour with special guests George Thorogood and the Destroyers. Produced by Live Nation and presented by Hagar’s portfolio of spirits, the trek concludes on September 17th in Irving, TX, after adding two Texas dates due to overwhelming demand.

Formed in 2014, the acclaimed supergroup, made up of Hagar on guitar and vocals, bassist Michael Anthony, drummer Jason Bonham and guitarist Vic Johnson, has established itself as one of the most emphatic and exciting live acts on tour today, seamlessly ripping through career-spanning hits from Montrose, Van Halen, Sammy Hagar and The Waboritas and Led Zeppelin.