Sammy Hagar’s abandoned prog album about the strange second-coming of Jesus
Prog rock has always been a genre that opens itself up to mystery and myth. Sci-fi and fantasy easily slot into this style of music that seems to have been built around it.
Prog has always been a pretty difficult genre to put any kind of definition to. One of the movement’s most iconic artists, Frank Zappa, once tried, and his standard definition was rock music but that sits outside the realm of the mainstream. In other words, the music should be recognisable as rock music, but it should also contain elements that wouldn’t be welcome by most radio stations.
“I would presume that people would accept this definition,” said Zappa, “Progressive Rock is anything that doesn’t sound like regular Rock. Regular Rock is everything that sounds like itself. All songs which sound the same, everything on MTV, everything on the radio, that’s Rock. Progressive Rock is stuff that doesn’t sound like that.”
These different elements were introduced into the genre in a few different ways. You had some bands who introduced different genres into rock to give their songs more of an edge, for instance, a lot of prog bands use folk or jazz elements. Then you had other bands who achieved prog status through narrative and themes, as, rather than writing about conventional topics within music, such as love and partying, bands would write about Vikings, wizards, and aliens.
While this might sound tricky, writing about aliens comes a lot more naturally to some artists than you might think. You’d be surprised just how many great musicians believe that they’ve had some kind of encounter with people from other worlds. For instance, Jimi Hendrix believed that he saw aliens fly past his house, additionally, jazz musician Sun Ra felt as though he had been sent to Earth by aliens to bring peace to the planet through music.
Prog rock has its unconventional claws in a lot more musicians than you would believe. Sammy Hagar is often associated with hard rock because of his work with the bands Montrose and Van Halen; however, when he was in a creative spiral, he opted to make a prog rock album that centred around a number of different mystical themes. Why not? After all, he already had the two main qualities a prog musician needs: a love of layered music, and the belief he was abducted by aliens.
First, the music: “Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon is probably my favourite album ever,” Hagar once said when discussing the records that shaped him, “When I heard [Floyd’s 1973 single] ‘Money’, I went out and bought the album. When I left Montrose, I wanted to be in a band like that.”
Now, the aliens: “I’m a straight up honest guy,” he admitted, “I had an alien experience. And I’ve had more than one. Anyone that doesn’t believe that there’s other life in this universe, those are the crazy people.”
Combining these two elements, Hagar had the foundation for a prog rock classic, which he opted to start working on when he left Montrose. On his record, he would make expansive music that touched upon a range of strange narratives. One of the abandoned tracks, ‘Silver Lights’, sounded particularly interesting, as Hagar admitted it didn’t just talk about aliens, but about the son of God. “That was about the second coming of Jesus,” he explained, “Except he’s in a spaceship.”
What a shame for us prog fans that we never got the chance to hear Hagar’s masterpiece. Now, it remains an unfinished piece of music scattered amongst the stars.
