Article By: Pat ‘Riot’ Whitaker ‡ Edited By: Leanne Ridgeway
HAGEN ALTER – a new band featuring Sammy Hagar’s son, Andrew Hagar, alongside Beastmaker’s Trevor William Church, and Andrew Alejandro Saldate IV – have debuted their first single.
“Mourning Ritual” arrives with an official video premiere from the trio as they continue to work on an EP they plan to release later this year. HAGEN ALTER formed a little over a year ago and is shooting for a possible full-length album release in 2019.
Andrew Hagar had the following to say about the band and its members:
“It’s an old-school, ’60s/’70s rock and roll project with some major garage and psychedelic flavor.
“Trevor and I have known each other since we were fetuses, so we’re basically cousins, and, of course, our fathers played in various bands together over the years.
“Andrew Saldate is one of Trevor’s best friends, a low-key genius and a fucking fantastic drummer and producer. This collab has been a long time coming, and we’re just getting started.“
He continues: “My pops [Sammy Hagar] has over 50 years of experience in the music industry. I’ve learned so much from just being around him, let alone all the actual nuggets of wisdom he has dropped over the years. I could fill a book with all the little bits of knowledge he has shared with me. But the most important thing I have learned is that no matter how good you get as a performer and musician, you’re always going to feel like there’s so much more to learn. So we have to appreciate the process, not the goal. The journey is never done, and there’s always more work to do.“
Check out the simmering psyche-tinged single “Mourning Ritual” below. It was directed, shot, and edited by Andrew Bennett, with additional drone photography by Nick Trigueiro & Aaron Kahn.
