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Credit: Far Out \/ Sammy Hagar<\/p>\n
Sun 12 July 2026 21:15, UK <\/p>\n
Any ambitions to front \u201cthe American Led Zeppelin\u201d would have been quietly parked by Sammy Hagar<\/a> the moment he joined Pasadena\u2019s biggest musical export.<\/p>\n It\u2019s one of the most successful frontman swaps of all time, after AC\/DC\u2019s jump from Bon Scott to Brian Johnson\u2019s Back in Black duckwalk. At the peak of their powers, Van Halen\u2019s acrobatic frontman, David Lee Roth, decided to call it quits while the mammoth \u2018Jump\u2019 was still enjoying MTV rotation. Enter Hagar. Bringing a little brawnier \u2018Red Rock\u2019 to Eddie Van Halen\u2019s tapping pop metal, the \u2018Van Hagar\u2019 era would last 11 years and boast four number-one albums in a row from 1986\u2019s 5150.<\/p>\n Yet, Zeppelin, it ain\u2019t. While certainly orbiting the world of hard rock in even their synth-laden moments, Van Halen\u2019s glossy escapism was too gleaming, produced, and manicured to ever dwell in the gusty, exotic heft of Jimmy Page\u2019s heavy stadium behemoth. When examining the band Hagar felt could have been a contender to Britain\u2019s 1970s heavyweights, we have to reach back into his pre-Halen career.<\/p>\n Hagar didn\u2019t come out of nowhere. He counted eight solo records under his belt before stepping onto the 1985 Farm Aid stage for his first-ever performance with the band, jumping from the covers group circuit as a young and hungry rocker to opening for Boston in the late 1970s, plus joining forces with Journey guitarist Neal Schon for the Hagar Schon Aaronson Shrieve supergroup. It was already a respectable CV. But one band along his road to Van Halen stands as the most pivotal for his path to rock stardom.<\/p>\n \u201cMontrose \u2013 we were about to explode<\/a>,\u201d he reflected to Guitar Player. \u201cWe were gonna be the American Led Zeppelin, and he couldn\u2019t take it. I don\u2019t know what it was. He was afraid of success. He\u2019d sit there in the studio holding his face like, \u2018Oh God, what are we gonna do?\u2019 I\u2019m like, \u2018Fuck, let\u2019s jam! Let\u2019s make some music.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Ronnie Montrose was one of the most in-demand session men in rock, having laid down guitar parts for the likes of Van Morrison, Edgar Winter, Herbie Hancock, and Boz Scaggs. Fancying his own project, he formed his namesake band in 1973 with a young Hagar behind the mic, cut the Montrose and Paper Money LPs before Hagar was fired, precipitating his solo career. Such fraught relationships with his band members and the routine dismissal of new recruits would scupper whatever momentum Montrose had enjoyed.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve never seen a guy like that,\u201d Hagar added. \u201cHe fired everybody. The second you had one smidgen of success with him, he broke up the band.\u201d<\/p>\n Further reading: From The Vault<\/strong><\/p>\n Montrose would continue without Hagar, but the hard rock explosion they promised was never realised, their founding guitarist smoothing the sound to a funkier direction with Bob James fronting the new style while Van Halen was conquering the Billboard charts. A string of solo albums would follow across the 1990s before he sadly took his own life in 2012.<\/p>\n Hagar never nabbed the \u201cAmerican Led Zeppelin\u201d mantle he was after, but he was catapulted to the rock A-grade after ten years going it solo<\/a>. He had Montrose to thank. When Roth called it quits from his Van Halen day job, Eddie was such a fan of Hagar\u2019s old band that the band offered the former frontman an audition for the singer and a swift offer of the role soon after. Hagar can\u2019t have ever looked back.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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