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Fri 27 March 2026 20:30, UK
Sammy Hagar isn’t usually the first person that comes to mind when you think about the fiercest rock and rollers on the planet.
Sure, he had many points during his career where no one could touch him, but compared to the likes of Metallica and Aerosmith, it’s hard to think of him seeming all that dangerous when listening to him singing with bands like the Waboritas later on in life. He was simply out there to have a good time whenever he worked on a new record, but he generally liked to surround himself with people who were a cut above the rest every single time he performed.
And when it comes to guitarists, ‘The Red Rocker’ really hit the jackpot when he got the call to join Van Halen. Eddie was the epitome of what a guitar hero was supposed to be in the 1980s, and while David Lee Roth was one of the finest frontmen that MTV had ever laid eyes on, Hagar was out to do something different. He wanted to give the band a kick in the ass, and that meant putting a bit more muscle behind a lot of their songs.
Not every one of their tunes was a home run by any stretch, but when looking at their track record, they were a much more seasoned band with Hagar behind the microphone. Since he knew how to play guitar, he could take a lot more chances when working on their tunes, and when he finally managed to go solo, it’s not like he needed to look very hard for another legend when Joe Satriani started working with him in Chickenfoot.
‘Satch’ was one of the few people who could give Eddie a run for his money back in the day, but Hagar wasn’t always after perfection when he played guitar. He had grown up listening to people like Eric Clapton, but you have to remember that even in the days when Cream was thought to be one of the greatest rock and roll bands of all time, there were still more than a few rough patches throughout their time together that weren’t exactly perfect from one song to the next.
But that kind of bluesy swagger was what made Hagar attracted to guitarists like Ronnie Montrose when he first started making waves in California. Montrose was going to be his vehicle to become a great frontman, and while he did his best as he could to rip off Rod Stewart on that debut album, Hagar always felt that no one could manage to beat what Ronnie was doing whenever he pulled out blues licks.
He was like the American inverse of someone like Paul Kossoff, and Hagar felt that there was no other guitarist who had as much energy as he did, saying, “Ronnie was the most fiery, intense guitar player of everybody. There was Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck and Clapton, those were the guys, but none had Ronnie’s fire. He played at 100 [percent], he was just on fire — he jumped around, just was a really high-energy performer. I learned all that from him, and everything I do today — no ego involved — it came from him, from seeing him perform that first time with Edgard Winter and then standing next to him within a week and rehearsing.”
That’s a fairly bold statement coming from the same person that shared a stage with Eddie, but even at the height of Van Halen, every one of Eddie’s greatest licks was coming from a place of fun. He was so naturally gifted whenever he played those tapping licks, but you could hear a lot of the blood, sweat and tears that went into every one of Ronnie’s licks, especially on that first record like ‘Bad Motor Scooter’ and ‘Rock the Nation’.
While Hagar was only with Ronnie for a few years before moving on to his solo career, there was never a moment when he didn’t respect what he could do as a musician. He wasn’t the greatest person to get along with, but there was a lot more that he had to offer than a couple of great rock and roll albums. He was the blueprint for what hard rock guitarists were doing, and even if ‘The Red Rocker’ only lasted a few albums, that didn’t stop Iron Maiden and even early Van Halen from taking a few cues from what Montrose did.
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