Montrose: the ultimate precursor to Van Halen
Normally, only a few bands can come out sounding like no one else ever did. From The Beatles paving the way for the British invasion to Nirvana putting an end to every hair metal band in existence, there are only a few bands that could claim to change the entire world of music overnight based on their debut. And while Van Halen certainly deserves to be in that sort of company, there were definitely some telltale signs that they were pulling things from other groups.
Listening back to his interviews, though, Eddie never claimed to be the best guitarist in the world. He was certainly a natural virtuoso and could spend time doing tapping licks for hours on end, but he was still more than willing to call his inspirations the best, whether that was Eric Clapton’s best work in Cream or watching Allan Holdsworth pull out the odd jazz lick that left most people dumbfounded as to how he pulled it off.
If there was one genre that Van Halen fit into, it was hard rock. While many people also consider them a heavy metal band, Eddie seemed to see both sides of the argument, whether that was his love of Tony Iommi’s riffs or covering his favourite artists during their heyday, like The Kinks or ZZ Top.
There might have been a lot of hard rock in his record collection to choose from, but the one that seemed a bit too on-the-nose was Montrose. Whereas Eddie took his guitar playing one step further with tracks like ‘Eruption’ and ‘I’m the One’, the bluesy riffs at the heart of Montrose’s debut album helped set the standard for what Van Halen’s debut would be. ‘Rock the Nation’ already feels like a lost Van Halen song, and ‘Bad Motor Scooter’ is the kind of high-energy rock tune that Eddie pumped up on steroids when making the heavier moments on Women and Children First.
Oh, and who do we see at the front of this band? Why, none other than a sheepish-looking teenager with a booming voice by the name of Sammy Hagar. Even though Hagar and David Lee Roth have had more than their fair share of mud-slinging over the years, it’s hard for ‘Diamond Dave’ to have too much animosity towards ‘The Red Rocker’, especially considering they cover the tune ‘Make It Last’ when they were still playing bars in West Hollywood.
But the strangest part is the fact that Hagar’s iteration of the band doesn’t sound that much like Montrose. There’s the odd song that harkens back to those days on 5150, like ‘Good Enough’, but there’s a much better case to be made that Montrose influenced what they did with Roth more, especially with Eddie’s habit of sprinkling in the occasional bluesy riff into the mix or laying into a groove like Hagar had been doing on the song ‘Rock Candy’.
Does that mean that Van Halen owes Montrose royalties? Hardly. Eddie may have taken inspiration from them, but when listening to where he took the group later, it was clear that those early riffs were a homage to Montrose rather than a fully-fledged ripoff. Ronnie Montrose was one hell of a player, but it would be a stretch to say he could pull off something as nutty as ‘Little Guitars’ or ‘Hear About It Later’.
Still, anyone even vaguely interested in what Van Halen started out as owes it to themselves to dig up Montrose’s debut album. It might not be jampacked with hits like Van Halens’s greatest moments were, but listening back to it, this is what the band might have sounded like had they started with Hagar first instead of Roth.
