The one genre Sammy Hagar couldn’t stand: “It stinks”
Sammy Hagar seemed always destined to play rock and roll. He may not have claimed to be one of the best artists in the genre by any stretch, but he always knew how to get the best out of his audience, whether that meant surrounding himself with legends or turning on the charm every time he got onstage.
Although ‘The Red Rocker’ has had moments where he brought something new to the table, he realised that some genres were outside of his wheelhouse for a damn good reason.
Part of that self-awareness came from understanding exactly what made his style work. Hagar’s strengths were rooted in directness, big hooks and an instinctive connection with a live audience, qualities that thrived in straightforward rock settings. When music drifted too far into stylisation or leaned heavily on production tricks, it risked losing the immediacy that defined his approach.
That clarity also shaped the choices he made throughout his career. Rather than chasing every new trend that came along, Hagar tended to double down on what he knew resonated, even if it meant sitting out certain shifts in the wider musical landscape. It was a philosophy built on consistency rather than reinvention, one that prioritised authenticity over experimentation.
Granted, Hagar should be given some credit for helping Van Halen get out of a slump after the departure of David Lee Roth. Replacing someone like that is no easy feat, and when Hagar got behind the microphone, the idea of bringing in synthesisers alongside Eddie’s roaring guitar solos didn’t sound nearly as clunky, especially when they started working on tunes like ‘Why Can’t This Be Love’.
Then again, Hagar’s penchant for rock and roll seemed to clock out whenever he tried to do justice to one of Roth’s hits. This was a different band altogether, and while they happened to share the same name as the Roth-fronted lineup, Hagar was always going to feel slightly strange if he had to sing the same way that Roth did when he was playing through hits like ‘Jump’.
Despite not touching that kind of rock and roll, the Hagar years do offer their fair share of surprises. ‘Finish What Ya Started’ is a decent stab at blues rock, ‘Right Now’ is one of the best ballads the band ever made, and there is even a bit of country flair to some of the stuff going on on Balance. If there’s one genre that was considered the enemy by Hagar, though, it would have to have been dance music.
Because by the time their career renaissance started, the biggest names in rock were also trying to incorporate dance textures into their sound. Now it wasn’t totally out of the question to have an 808 playing in the background or to have a hypnotic rhythm going throughout a tune, but whereas most people were more than happy to go along with it, Hagar was pissed to be sharing radio time with that kind of music.
To him, it was all a repeat of the sins of dance music of the past, saying, “Most dance music is just contrived, taking a beat and just fuckin’– To me, [it] stinks, most of it. I can’t stand that stuff because it just, it reminds me of disco. Like, this is prefabricated shit that just, just too prefabricated, too contrived. But, to where older music when I first started wasn’t like that. There were the pop bands, but then there were so many, you know, Deep Purple, and Zeppelin, and all these bands.”
But it’s no use throwing the baby out with the bathwater in that respect, either. There might not have been the greatest groups of all time amongst dance acts, but if there hadn’t been people like Trent Reznor pushing the boundaries for what the genre could do, perhaps rock and roll wouldn’t have been able to move forward like it did going into the next century.
Then again, it’s easy to see why Hagar would have been upset. There were plenty of artists willing to change up how rock and roll was supposed to be, but for ‘The Red Rocker’, it was always about being a traditionalist when it came to plugging in a guitar and playing music with his friends.
