The one musician Sammy Hagar wanted to “punch in the face”
There aren’t many people who know the ins and outs of band drama like Sammy Hagar.
Even before he joined Van Halen, he had to have wondered what he was getting himself into, having to fill the shoes of a frontman who was like a walking cartoon character, and once he joined, it wasn’t exactly smooth sailing all of the time. But before Eddie and he started butting heads, ‘The Red Rocker’ already had his fair share of trouble with every other band he joined, both onstage and off.
You have to remember that Hagar was already a bona fide superstar before he had even had time to meet Eddie. His solo career was starting to take off with ‘I Can’t Drive 55’, and while he wasn’t exactly a starlet onstage at the time, he could relate to the audience in a far more natural way than David Lee Roth ever could whenever he performed. But that kind of stage persona wasn’t always the best course of action on every single tour.
Hagar already had a bad enough time trying to hold his own before a Kiss audience, but it’s not like he didn’t have some training beforehand. He had followed in the footsteps of James Brown and had grown up wanting to sing the same way that Rod Stewart did when he played with the Jeff Beck Group, and it was up to every one of his bandmates to keep up with him. That would have been no problem in Van Halen, but Montrose was a different story.
Montrose might get written out of the history books more than a few times, but Hagar’s first two records with them are mandatory listening for any diehard rock fans. The frontman was barely in his 20s when the whole thing got started, but he already sounded hungry as hell, making tunes like ‘Rock the Nation’ and ‘Bad Motor Scooter’. But even when songs like ‘Rock Candy’ became rock staples, not everyone was in love with the idea of Hagar getting all of the spotlight once they went onstage.
Ronnie Montrose felt he was destined to be the star every single time he performed, so when some kid started hogging the limelight, he was willing to put his career on the line to make sure that never happened again. And while Hagar could have kept going with the band for ages, he was blindsided the minute that the guitarist decided to pull the plug on the whole thing right as they were about to take off.
Their sophomore effort, Paper Money, wasn’t anything legendary, but Hagar felt that Ronnie only wanted to sabotage his career, saying, “In Europe, Ronnie wouldn’t talk to me. We opened for Little Feat [and] people started whistling in the middle of our songs. That really destroyed Ronnie. We went to Paris the next day. [He said], ‘After tonight, I’m quitting the band. What are you going to do?’ I was sick, edgy and ready to punch the guy in the face. [I said], ‘I’m going to start another fucking band. What the fuck do you think I’m going to do?’”
Ronnie may have been ready to call Hagar’s bluff, but it turned out that Van Halen was already the perfect fit for him. It took him a few more years for Eddie to call him up to ask him to join, but looking back on how they got started, Van Halen’s producer had already been looking to get Hagar in the band all the way back on their debut when he felt that Roth wasn’t good enough for the band.
But even if Ronnie was too jaded about Montrose’s status in the rock and roll world, that doesn’t negate any of the classics that the band made together. Say what you will about how the band never fully “made it”, but there’s a good chance that garage bands will still be going back to jamming on songs like ‘Rock Candy’ until the end of time.
