“This record totally blew my mind”: The album that changed Sammy Hagar’s life
When Van Halen decided to replace their initial lead singer, David Lee Roth, many fans got their backs up, not sure who could ever fill the boots of such a monumental force on stage. Lee Roth had cemented himself as one of the world’s leading frontmen and gave Van Halen a lot of life, so it’s easy to see why people hesitated to embrace his replacement. That is until they saw Sammy Hagar.
All too often, when bands replace singers, they try to find someone who can match what the other person did, but this is the wrong approach. Bands should look at new singers as a turning point, seeing them as a way to expand upon the sound they have already created.
Hagar understood this when he took the job. When he refused to play any of David Lee Roth’s music on stage, people thought it was him being petty, but it was actually because he didn’t want to be an imitation and knew he and the band could create some exceptional music if they worked together.
“What I brought to Van Halen was just who and what I am,” he said, “It was Sammy Hagar, who and what I was at that moment, but very inspired by Eddie Van Halen’s musicianship… He inspired me to write songs…goosebump songs.”
Hagar also felt comfortable with the band, which meant having fun and stumbling over what kind of music they wanted to make was easy. “Back then,” he said, “Eddie and I were doing these crazy acrobatics where I would sing crazy lines, and he’d go nuts on the guitar. When I was in Van Halen, at least in the early days, it was all about having fun.”
There is no secret to Hagar’s magic other than that he was an artist who was comfortable with himself and excited about the band he was joining. This comes from the fact that he had an eclectic taste and was a fan of such an array of different bands that he managed to locate the kind of sound he was keen on making. He had been fixated on the Beatles, the Stones, Bob Dylan and plenty of others, to the point that they had all blended into one and created what then became Hagar, his own independent musician.
One album that stood out to him in particular was Jeff Beck’s Truth. He recalls how the album changed his perception of music. It came out near a Rod Stewart album he was also a big fan of, so he blends the two together as being from a specific moment in his life.
“This is almost like a Jeff Beck and Rod Stewart album. When I heard the Truth album, I tried to be Rod Stewart and Jeff Beck at the same time,” said Hagar, “I learned every song on it. I knew Beck from The Yardbirds, and I was a big fan, so I was primed to hear him doing his own thing. This record totally blew my mind and changed my life”.
