After high school, Sammy Hagar bounced around in a number of bands around California before landing in San Francisco with the Justice Brothers. When the band broke up soon after, Hagar was left on his own and eventually moved back to his hometown of Fontana. Then, a strange dream sent him right back to San Francisco.
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Strange Dreams
“I saw a ship and two creatures inside of this ship,” said Hagar. “I couldn’t see their faces. I just knew that there were two intelligent creatures, sitting up in a craft in the Lytle Creek forest area about 12 miles away in the foothills above Fontana. And they were connected to me, tapped into my mind through some kind of mysterious wireless connection.”
Hagar added, “I was kind of waking up. They said, in their communication to each other, no words [but] spoke, `Oh, he’s waking up. We’ve got to go.’ They fired off a numerical code, but it was not of our numerical system. All of a sudden, the connection instantly broke.”
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The dream led Hagar to visit a psychic who told him he must return to San Francisco to find success. Once back in the city, Hagar was playing in a cover band, when guitarist Ronnie Montrose saw him and recruited him to join his band Montrose.
Montrose
Hagar joined Montrose in 1973 and remained with the band for two albums, their self-titled debut and 1974 follow-up Paper Money, before going solo and a decade before joining Van Halen.
Montrose’s debut featured four songs co-written by Hagar and members of the band and two more he wrote on his own, the closing track “Make it Last,” along with the first song he ever wrote “Bad Motor Scooter.”
The Meaning
“Bad Motor Scooter” is a direct invitation to a girl to leave her family farm to come visit him on her bad motor scooter.
If you get lonely on your daddy’s farm, mmm
Just remember I don’t live too far
And there’s a red bridge that arcs the bay, yes
You’ll be at my place in less than a day
Huh, so get on your bad motor scooter and ride
Hop over to my place and stay all night, mm, yeah
The first thing in the morning we’ll be feeling alright, alright, alright, alright
A-get on your bad motor scooter and ride
Ooh, the last time I seen your face
Swore that no one’d take your place
Now, since you been gone, I been feelin’ a-bad, yeah
I’d come out to your place, I’m afraid of your dad
[RELATED: The Van Halen Song Eddie Van Halen Never Liked]
Soundgarden
In 1991, Soundgarden named their breakthrough album Badmotorfinger, which delivered “Outshined,” “Rusty Cage,” and “Jesus Christ Pose”—after “Bad Motor Scooter.” Guitarist Kim Thayil first suggested the title, Badmotorfinger as a joke and a play on the Montrose song.
“It was sort of off the top of my head,” said Thayil in 1992. “I simply like it because it was colorful. It was kinda aggressive, too. It conjures up a lot of different kinds of images. We like the ambiguity in it, the way it sounded and the way it looked.”
Post-Montrose, Hagar released his own version of “Bad Motor Scooter” on his 1978 live album All Night Long.
Photo: Rebecca Sapp/Getty Images for The Recording Academy
