Rather than driving them apart, Sammy Hagar told us that recording remotely with the Circle during quarantine actually brought the members of the band closer together. Newly released is the group's “Lockdown Sessions” album titled, Lockdown 2020, which features all the tunes the band recorded in quarantine and posted online since the pandemic hit.
Hagar, along with Michael Anthony, Jason Bonham, and Vic Johnson, have tackled covers of such iconic artists as the Who, David Bowie, the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Van Halen, Little Richard, AC/DC, Buffalo Springfield, and Bob Marley & The Wailers.
Sammy Hagar shed light on how recording apart turned out feeling more normal than not: “It really kept us in tune with each other, and talking to each other, and communicating with each other — and playing music with each other, because, you can't put the singin' first. You have to put the music first, so they didn't know the arrangements. I wanted Beatles songs, y'know what I mean? I wanted songs to be under two minutes; just little fun things that wouldn't take a lot of work. And some time we'd have to talk about it on the phone, so it was just like bein' in the studio — you're just talkin' on the phone instead. So, it was real musical communication — and fun as beep, y'know what I mean? There was no purpose. It wasn't like — 'Oh, this has gotta be brilliant! Oh no, that's not good enough!' It was never like that, it was always one take.”
