Is Steven Seagal a one-man corollary to F. Scott Fitzgerald’s adage about there being no second acts in American lives? Since his heyday as an action star, he’s gone on to do such things as write conspiracy theory-heavy fiction and spend time with authoritarian leaders. (Note: this second act does not have to be a particularly good one.) And there’s also the matter of Seagal’s music career, which apparently includes “rock tunes fused with Jamaican dancehall,” according to one review of his album Songs From the Crystal Cave.
Seagal’s foray into music also included opening up for Sammy Hagar. At Ultimate Classic Rock, Matt Wardlaw explored the history of this unlikely bill.
According to music executive Miles Copeland — who discusses his time managing Seagal in his forthcoming memoir — Seagal reached out to him about working together. “I’d worked with other movie stars before, and they all were drawn to doing movies much more than they were music, but Steven seemed to be genuine,” Copeland recalled in an interview. “He wanted to actually do music.”
Wardlaw also spoke with Hagar about his recollection of the show, which took place in Phoenix in 2006. He describes an entourage of 25 to 30 people accompanying Seagal for the show. “I’m the headliner of the show and he had to have the big dressing room, because he had so damn many people! All packing heat!”
Hagar describes Seagal as “a very interesting character” multiple times in the article. Perhaps that invocation of Fitzgerald works for another reason as well — some lives really are stranger than fiction.
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![[L-R] Bill Berry, Michael Stipe, Mike Mills and Peter Buck of R.E.M. at the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago, Illinois on July 7, 1984.](https://www.insidehook.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/rem-book-interview.jpg?resize=750%2C750)
