The “genius” musician who leaves Sammy Hagar in awe
Throwing around the word ‘genius’ in the music world isn’t something that should be taken lightly.
Anyone can use this term to describe their favourite artist as long as they make something that resonates with them specifically, but the ability to put melodies together and make advancements with music to turn it into true art is a different skill set. While Sammy Hagar has had the opportunity to work with various legends in rock and roll, he knows there was ground to cover that he has never reached.
Having spent decades around some of rock’s most gifted musicians, Hagar developed a strong appreciation for what separated great performers from genuinely transformative artists. Technical ability and charisma could take a musician a long way, but true innovation was something far rarer.
Then again, ‘The Red Rocker’ was never one to stretch himself beyond his limitations. No one was going to be hearing him take a stab at hip-hop or try to make a lounge record, in the same way Rod Stewart did in his later years, but listening to his voice, it’s evident that he didn’t need to. His searing register was perfect for fiery rock, and when David Lee Roth left Van Halen, Hagar was the perfect choice to get them back on the radio.
Hagar was also never afraid to have a pop song in his arsenal. He could still scream with the best of them, but he came from the same school as Robert Plant where both sides of one’s voice were emphasised. So instead of having to sing ‘Jump’ every night, he could also switch to something heavy like ‘Get Up’ or a smooth ballad like ‘Love Walks In’.
Although he had diversity, it was clear heaviness had taken over by the 1990s. The band did have one surefire hit at the start of the decade with ‘Right Now’, but seeing Eddie’s fretboard runs compete with Nirvana on the charts was never going to happen. However, Hagar only needed to wait a few years before some true heavy bands started coming out of the woodwork.
Nine Inch Nails had already released music concurrently with albums like Nevermind, but once Tool started gaining traction, metal fans were shell-shocked. Since most of grunge had also killed off metal mainstays in genres like thrash, Maynard James Keenan helped take things to a different level, making melodies that sounded intense as hell while Danny Carey played the most disorienting drum fills behind him.
At this stage, Hagar only had a few more years in Van Halen before getting off the train, he knew that he was listening to someone without competition when he heard Aenema, saying, “This record is so musically great–and so far from an album that I could make–that it drives and inspires me. It’s so innovative, raw and dark. I’ve become friends with Maynard, and I think he’s one of the great artists of our time. He’s a genius, a complete renaissance man.”
Unfortunately, grunge snuffed itself out before it really got going, but Tool gave credibility to metal at the time. The nu-metal scene was crawling with bands that seemed too melodramatic for their own good, and hearing Lateralus in the 2000s was a way for fans to get a taste of what the progressive side of the genre had to offer.
It’s far from Van Halen’s territory, and there’s a slim chance that Hagar would ever guest on a Tool record, but it’s not an accident that Hagar used the kind of terminology most people would use to describe Eddie in his prime. When sculpting a Tool song, Keenan is always looking at the big picture, and with the rest of the band behind him bringing strange time signatures to life, there was no way anyone could have stopped them.
For someone who had spent his career alongside figures like Eddie Van Halen, Hagar did not hand out praise lightly. His admiration for Keenan speaks to the rare quality he recognised in Tool’s work: the ability to push music forward rather than simply excel within existing boundaries. In Hagar’s eyes, that was the mark of a true genius.
