Rock & Roll Hall of Fame®-inducted, Grammy award-winning singer, songwriter, performer, entrepreneur, and New York Times #1 best-selling author Sammy Hagar has announced the release of his second studio album with his Billboard chart-topping supergroup, The Circle. Their forthcoming album, titled “Crazy Times,” finds Hagar, fellow Hall of Famer and longtime bassist Michael Anthony, Grammy-winning drummer Jason Bonham and Grammy-winning guitar virtuoso Vic Johnson changing course, traveling to Nashville to record the album with 8-time Grammy Award-winning producer Dave Cobb at Nashville’s historic RCA Studio A. Due out Friday, Sept. 30 via UMe on CD as well as digitally, with the vinyl following on Oct. 28, the band has released the title track today on digital and streaming platforms.
Sammy shared about making the album, “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?’”
“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.”
“Crazy Times”, the band’s long-anticipated sophomore album, is a follow-up to their much-lauded debut “Space Between,” a multi-category #1 Billboard charting album. The new album will include 10 songs, nine of which Hagar wrote or co-wrote, along with a 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.
Sammy explains: “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. 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.”
