Sammy Hagar would rather “get sick and even die” if it meant playing in front of an audience during the coronavirus crisis, the rocker said in a new interview.
The former Van Halen frontman, 72, shared his thoughts on the effects of the pandemic that’s sickened more than 9.2 million people and killed more than 477,800 worldwide.
“I’ll be comfortable playing a show before there’s a vaccine, if it’s declining and seems to be going away,” Hagar told Rolling Stone as part of a feature on how musicians are tackling life without concerts.
The Red Rocker continued, “I’m going to make a radical statement here. This is hard to say without stirring somebody up, but truthfully, I’d rather personally get sick and even die, if that’s what it takes.”
He said he’d rather see people return to work — because COVID-19 is “going to kill more people in the long run.”
“If some of us have to sacrifice on that, OK,” Hagar said. “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. 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. I mean, how many people die on the Earth every day? I have no idea. I’m sorry to say it, but we all gotta die, man.”