A Whiter Shade of Pale

Hey Zoo Freaks, the Zoo Crew just dropped the needle on something special here at THE ZOO. We're spinning "A Whiter Shade of Pale" from the Hagar, Schon, Aaronson, Shrieve crew, better known as HSAS, right off their 1984 album Through the Fire. This one's a cover of the Procol Harum classic, but those four rock veterans put their own stamp on it, and it still holds up as one of those deep cuts that sneaks up on you.

The story behind this track starts with how the whole band came together in the first place. Neal Schon, fresh off Journey's Frontiers album, had been itching to do something a little harder and more freewheeling with Sammy Hagar. Sammy had just put out Three Lock Box and taken a break, and the two of them had been jamming together for years already, sometimes jumping in on Montrose tunes like Rock Candy whenever they crossed paths. Schon later said they always wanted to collaborate properly because they got along so well. After the Journey tour wrapped up in the fall of 1983, they finally had a window. They brought in Kenny Aaronson on bass, a guy Schon had seen opening for Journey with Billy Squier and who brought solid chops from Rick Derringer and Joan Jett, and Michael Shrieve on drums, who had played with Schon way back in Santana in the early seventies. They rehearsed for less than a month, wrote a bunch of new songs in about a week, and hit the road for a short run of Bay Area dates.

That's how Through the Fire got made. The band played live shows from November 9th through the 21st in 1983, hitting the Warfield in San Francisco, a spot in Marin County, and the Civic Center in San Jose. A couple of those San Jose nights got recorded and even broadcast by MTV at least once, though that footage never saw an official video release. Neal Schon explained it pretty plainly in one interview: they threw it together, wrote the material quick, rehearsed for a week, played the shows, then went in the studio to add some overdubs. He figured they used most or all of the San Jose show. Sammy left him in the studio to mix it, which Neal still laughs about. They cleaned up the crowd noise a bit so it sat better as a record, but the core of it stayed live. The album landed in March 1984 on Geffen, and this cover of "A Whiter Shade of Pale" became the lead single in May.

The original Procol Harum song from 1967 has that mysterious, Bach-tinged organ line and those cryptic lyrics about vestal virgins and millers' tales. Keith Reid once said he overheard the phrase "a whiter shade of pale" at a party and built the rest around the mood it created. HSAS treated it with respect but gave it a rock edge. Sammy sings it more measured than his usual belting style, and Neal takes that famous organ solo and stretches it out on guitar. It only reached number 94 on the Billboard Hot 100, but it got radio play and still stands as the one single that charted from the album. Other tracks like Top of the Rock and Missing You did better on the rock charts as promos, but this cover is the one most folks remember from the record.

The whole project stayed short-lived because both Schon and Hagar had bigger commitments waiting. Schon headed back to Journey, and Sammy put out VOA that same year before joining Van Halen. They only did a brief run of California dates in 1984, adding a rhythm guitarist for the live shows. Some songs they played never made the album, like Tough Enough and Through the Eyes of Love, and one later got revisited by Sammy as The Love on his 1999 Red Voodoo record. Years afterward, Hagar and Schon teamed up again briefly in Planet Us, but HSAS remains that one-off flash of a supergroup. Michael Shrieve once noted that a band like that should have hit the road properly, and a lot of fans still wonder what a full tour might have sounded like.

You can dig into the full story and the track list over on Sammy Hagar's official site at redrocker.com, where they keep the Through the Fire page with details on those live dates and the single. Follow the Red Rocker himself on Facebook at Sammy Hagar, Instagram at sammyhagar, and on X at @sammyhagar. Neal Schon keeps the conversation going too on Facebook at Neal Schon, Instagram at nealschon, and X at @NealSchonMusic. Kenny Aaronson still stays active with his own site at kennyaaronson.com and shares updates on Instagram at kenny.aaronson. The Zoo Crew keeps the freeform rock rolling for all you Zoo Freaks, so stick around and let us know what deep cuts you want next.