SAMMY HAGAR Says He Will Be Ready To Get Back Onstage Before COVID-19 Vaccine Is Developed

Sammy Hagar has told Rolling Stone in a new interview that he will be comfortable enough to get back onstage before a vaccine for COVID-19 is developed. "Yes, I will," he said. "Yeah, not too soon. I want to make sure it's not escalating. When it's declining and seems to be going away. I mean, it's the flu, I guess, unless there is something I don't know. So there's a season where it's going to go, 'Eh.' I mean, someone is going to get it always. It's like the cold or pneumonia. Someone is always getting something. But if it calms down and it seems okay, I wouldn't mind playing an outdoor amphitheater. I've already talked to the promoters and the powers that be that own those places. I've said, 'What if we put sterilization things all over the place? Hand sanitizers, too. And hand out face masks.' I'm not talking about now. I'm talking about when it first starts opening back up. In a big open-air setting, only sell 10,000 out of 19,000. Whatever. I'm fine with it."

The 72-year-old rocker added: "Truthfully, I'd rather personally get sick and even personally die, if that's what it takes. We have to save the world and this country from this economic thing that's going to kill more people in the long run. Look at homelessness. If you want to talk about a pandemic, friggin' homelessness in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Chicago … I've been all over America, man. It's growing faster than anything.

"This shutdown of the economy is going to make that escalate 10 times and then we're all going to be sick and you can't walk down the street. I would rather see everyone go back to work. If some of us have to sacrifice on that, okay. I will die for my children and my grandchildren to have a life anywhere close to the life that I had in this wonderful country and freedom. That's just the way that I feel about it.

"I'm not going to go around spreading the disease. But there may be a time where we have to sacrifice. We used to go to war for our country where hundreds of thousands of people died to keep our freedom and keep this country economically where everyone has a car and a home. Those days are changing, but that's the way I feel about this whole thing. I'm not real big on dragging it out until we're all fucked and there's no way out."

Hagar also addressed the status of SAMMY HAGAR & THE CIRCLE's previously announced summer 2020 U.S. tour with NIGHT RANGER. WHITESNAKE recently pulled out of the trek so that frontman David Coverdale can undergo surgery for bilateral inguinal hernia.

"That [tour] ain't going to happen," he said. "I wouldn't do that. That's too early. But let's get through this summer and see how things are looking. If it's cooling down a bit and the numbers are going down … not in people dying, but people getting it. People are going to die every day. How many people die on the Earth every day? I have no idea. Just because of this virus, it's probably not many more than people that die of something. I'm sorry to say that. But we all gotta die, man.

"I think I'll wait until the numbers of this virus flatten out and start going down and then I'm happy to do a show. If people want to come, they'll come. If they don't wanna come … Wear a mask and have hand sanitizers all over the damn place. How inexpensive is that?"

SAMMY HAGAR & THE CIRCLE released their debut studio album, "Space Between", in May 2019.