“The police were dealing dope!” When America fell in love with an eccentric British prog band “I’m talking about the great divide, the division between the people on the planet, between the left and the right, the good and the band,” claims “I say, ‘So let‘s have a good time before the great divide/Cos things will start separating come 2025.’ I was talking about exactly what’s going on right now. There’s a war going on right now everywhere on this planet, and I predicted it in that song.” Leaning even further into it all, he came up with the idea of a Ziggy Stardust-style character named Sammy Wilde, the leader of a band called Dustcloud. “A dust cloud is the beginning of a star,” says Hagar. “I was saying that a star is being formed. from a dust cloud.” Silver Lights — YouTube Watch On He was so serious about the idea that he played his first ever solo gig under the name Sammy Wilde And Dustcloud. “I started a band and played in San Bernardino at the old Swing,” he told Inland Empire in 2019. “And there was only about 500 people there, and the place held about 5,000 or 6,000, I think.” “I believe we are part of an organic consciousness that goes on for dimension after dimension.” Sammy Hagar That wasn’t his sole reason for abandoning the Sammy Wilde persona. His label MCA, who had picked him up as a solo artist after leaving Montrose, definitely weren’t into the idea. “My record company and my producer, they wouldn’t let me do it,” says Hagar. Still, the songs didn’t go to waste. Silver Lights, the number about the second coming of Jesus, appeared on Hagar’s 1976 debut solo album Nine On A Ten Scale, as did Hot Rocks, though the latter was renamed Urban Guerrilla, with altered lyrics courtesy of producer John S Carter. Another song, Someone Out There, made it onto 1977’s Musical Chairs, as did the clairvoyant Crack In The World. We could probably add Little Star/Eclipse, from 1977’s Sammy Hagar, aka The Red Album, to the pile of Sammy Wilde rejects based on its song title alone. “You listen to them, they’re kind of progressive rock,” he says. “I wanted to be Pink Floyd so bad.” Love Walks In — YouTube Watch On He was still on his sci-fi trip when he joined Van Halen. The band’s 1985 power ballad was an unlikely nod to his belief in extra-terrestrial life and his own experiences with it. “Contact is all that it takes/To change your life, to lose your place in time,” sings Hagar, later adding: “Some kind of alien/Waits for the opening.” “It’s about aliens and ‘walk-ins’,” he tells Classic Rock, referring to a term coined by new age writer Ruth Montgomery for when aliens ‘walk in’ to a human body and take control of their consciousness. “It’s all in there, man.” While the Sammy Wilde concept album may never have materialised, Hagar has held onto his esoteric beliefs. “I believe we are part of an organic consciousness that goes on for dimension after dimension,” he tells Classic Rock. “We live in a third dimension with a fourth dimension consciousness. Someone like Jesus is in the fifth dimension. And our God – the thing we want to believe created us – is in the ninth dimension. And the ninth dimension is almost like a computer, and everything is created from that point down. This universe is full of life.” Read the full interview with Sammy Hagar in an upcoming issue of Classic Rock. Hagar will play two UK arena dates in July 2026. Dave Everley Dave Everley has been writing about and occasionally humming along to music since the early 90s. During that time, he has been Deputy Editor on Kerrang! and Classic Rock, Associate Editor on Q magazine and staff writer/tea boy on Raw, not necessarily in that order. He has written for Metal Hammer, Louder, Prog, the Observer, Select, Mojo, the Evening Standard and the totally legendary Ultrakill. He is still waiting for Billy Gibbons to send him a bottle of hot sauce he was promised several years ago. You must confirm your public display name before commenting Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name. Logout Source: https://www.loudersound.com/bands-artists/sammy-hagar-on-jesus-aliens-and-the-70s-prog-album-he-never-got-a-chance-to-make