Featuring guest appearances by some of his favorite collaborators, and at least one surprising cover, Sammy Hagar's new album is shaping up to be one of the more eagerly anticipated of the fall. The Red Rocker premiered portions of the record during a recent interview.

Hagar was on hand in Carlsbad, Calif., as part of Sunset Sessions 2013, where he sat for a Q&A session with host Terrie Carr. Talk immediately turned to the new LP, due in September, which Hagar said started out as a retrospective box set. "I was gonna do an anthology -- it's like my fourth decade of things," he explained. "I thought I would put an anthology record out and license all the different stuff. I was gonna write four new songs."

But after inviting his former Montrose mates Denny Carmassi and Bill Church into the studio for what he described as a "'Rock Candy'-esque" new cut, and penning a "car song" meant to recapture the vibe of early solo sides like 'I Can't Drive 55,' Hagar said, "I start going, and these songs turned out so good, I said, 'I'm gonna make a record.' I kept writing and asking friends to write with me, and I had a bunch of friends who came out and wrote and sang with me."

He then proceeded to treat the audience to snippets from three of the new track set for inclusion on the album: 'Winding Down,' which he described as "a protest song"; his cover of Depeche Mode's 'Personal Jesus,' which prompted him to joke, "If you've never heard it before, I wrote it"; and 'Father Sun,' which he called his favorite of the new songs.

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