Album drops January 8th
Sammy Hagar & The Circle have announced the release of their massively popular Lockdown Sessions as an album collection titled, Lockdown 2020, on January 8, 2021. Fans who pre-order the album will also receive a new instant grat track, a cover of David Bowie’s “Heroes.” Additionally, all proceeds from the song “Heroes” will be donated to food banks nationwide.
Sammy Hagar & The Circle’s “Lockdown Sessions” began in March, when the COVID-19 shelter-at-home order went into effect. With time on their hands and their upcoming tour in limbo, the band’s legendary drummer Jason Bonham challenged his bandmates Sammy Hagar, Michael Anthony and Vic Johnson to record a warmup jam they’d been playing backstage before concerts for several years. Equipped with iPhones and their respective instruments, they each laid down their individual tracks from the den, music room, closet and even showers of their homes, and “Funky Feng Shui” and the band’s Lockdown Sessions were born.
“When we first start doing these lockdown sessions, it was only meant to stay in touch with the fans until we could get back out on the road again,” Sammy Hagar explains. “But as the weeks and months drew on, it also became a fun way to keep the band together, musically and creatively.”
Over the next eight months, their “Lockdown Sessions” became a hit with critics and fans alike, producing 10 tracks and reaching an online audience approaching 30 million. The sessions gave the band the opportunity to throw down raw and raucous compact covers of classic hits that they’d jammed to backstage but never planned to record, including The Who’s “Won‘t Get Fooled Again,” Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds,” AC/DC, “Whole Lotta Rosie” and more. When plans for an album came to fruition around the holidays, the band came together to record one more track, a cover of David Bowie’s “Heroes” which they’d offer as an instant download or single purchase. “With the addition of ‘Heroes’, it made sense to help those who are struggling from the effects of COVID-19. It probably wouldn’t have happened without it.”
“It’s funny how it all started from a conversation I had with my digital strategy guy, Jon Luini. He was explaining to me how The Circle could still record new music remotely during the COVID-19 lockdown,” Hagar says. “I had an idea to turn a jam me and The Circle would do backstage called ‘Funky Feng Shui’ into an actual song and Jon suggested we film & record it on our iPhones and maybe he could make a little video. Next thing I know, we’re doing a little test from each one of us filming our individual parts and recording it with our iPhones. We sent the videos to Jon and he made a cool little music video for ‘Funky Feng Shui’ that we put up on our socials and the fans loved. Everyone in The Circle really got inspired and had a blast doing it, so we decided to keep going and record a series of them. As the response grew, so did our ideas of which new songs to cover.”
The songs were recorded mostly on iPhones and mixed by Jaimeson Durr using Waves Audio.
