The band that Sammy Hagar wishes he could have joined: “A band like that”
Sammy Hagar has been one of the few artists fortunate enough to be in any band that he wanted to be in. Anyone would have killed to have a band as good as Montrose be their first taste of success, and when he eventually started working with Van Halen, it was hardly a question as to whether a band with Hagar and Eddie Van Halen would have worked out alright. ‘The Red Rocker’ could turn anything to gold whenever he worked, but he also has a few more artists on his musical bucket list.
Granted, Hagar has developed into the kind of artist who is more comfortable jamming with people rather than getting together for a full record. Chickenfoot does give him a nice outlet with Michael Anthony, Chad Smith, and Joe Satriani playing alongside him, but there are a handful of moments where he will show up on a song either for a laugh or bringing a certain sonic spice to everything to get the tune off the ground.
But when Hagar first started, he wasn’t looking to make the most ambitious rock and roll in the world. He always loved plugging in his guitar and hearing the strange sounds he could make with it, but there was always a need for him to create tunes that meant something, and that door opened the minute he joined Van Halen. There would always be goofy songs like ‘Good Enough’, but ‘Why Can’t This Be Love’ and ‘Right Now’ are still beautiful in their construction.
Most of Hagar’s lyrics may have turned towards something more emotional and heartfelt, but not every band can make that jump as quickly. While Hagar was finding his feet in Montrose and starting to learn the ropes as a frontman, Roger Waters was slowly chipping away at writing music that had a deep impact on people in Pink Floyd, and once ‘Echoes’ came out, people started to realise the kind of band they were dealing with.
And it didn’t take long for Hagar to see what Floyd were doing, either. The entire focus of Dark Side of the Moon was about dissecting what makes us all feel human, and while Hagar was from a completely different world, he wanted to see what he could do had he been given the chance to work alongside Waters and Gilmour.
When speaking about some of his favoruite albums, Hagar said that he would love the opportunity to perform with Pink Floyd if he could, saying, “While I was making the first Montrose record, I was listening to ‘Money’ on the radio and the whole album poolside on a cassette player with headphones and wishing that I was in a band like that. And here I was making the first Montrose record, which turned out to be my intro into the music business.”
But Hagar may not have been the best fit for what the band were looking for. Some of Waters’s concepts may have hit on a vital part of the human spirit, but the bluesy tone of Hagar’s voice doesn’t feel like it would compliment what Gilmour brought to the table, unless they had found a way to reimagine themselves as a bluesy prog outfit with ‘Money’ as the template for the rets of their career.
Floyd may have had greater ambitions than that one song, but it’s not like the door is officially closed on Hagar having a chance to jam with them. After all, ‘The Red Rocker’ had the chance to rehearse with the members of Aerosmith, and while Floyd is a far different kind of group, stranger things have happened in the industry.
