Sammy Hagar wants to get back to playing shows, even if it means risking his health. During a new interview, Hagar talks about socially distanced concerts, loading open-air venues with sanitizers and “saving the world” from an economic recession.

While speaking with Rolling Stone, Hagar shared that at age 72, he’s comfortable getting back onstage before a coronavirus vaccine comes out. “If it calms down and it seems OK, I wouldn’t mind playing an outdoor amphitheater,” Hagar explains. “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.”

“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 … It’s like the cold or pneumonia. Someone is always getting something.”

Hagar also speaks about the homeless population in Los Angeles, San Francisco — which has risen over the years — and Chicago, which has gone up and down.

“This is hard to say too without stirring somebody up on me, but 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.”

“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,” Hagar adds. “That’s just the way that I feel about it.”

Hagar also says his planned 2020 summer co-headlining tour with Whitesnake is not happening, adding it’s “too early” to start performing again.

“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.”

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