HSAS (Hagar Schon Aaronson Shrieve) – Through The Fire [plus 6 never released outtakes]

At the end of 1983 Neal Schon had a little free time from Journey. Enter Sammy Hagar. Sam the Man was just starting to sell a lot of albums and that was in due to a ton of touring where his current album back in 1982-83 (Three Lock Box) had gone Gold.
Sam and Neal obviously knew each other (both from the San Fran area) and hooked up along with bassist Kenny Aaronson (Rick Derringer Band) and drummer Micheal Shrieve (Santana). Neil and Sam with a band in hand wrote about 14 tracks and hit the road before any of these songs were recorded.
For some reason only 8 original and 1 cover song made “Through The Fire“, the debut and only album of H.S.A.S. or HSAS or Hagar Schon Aaronson Shrieve. In fact Geffen Records wanted a shorter album, but all the project songs were recorded.
All those outtakes are added here with an excellent sound quality.

After the release of Journey’s 1983 album Frontiers, guitarist Neal Schon and fellow guitarist / vocalist Sammy Hagar decided to make good on a longstanding promise to work together. Hagar was coming off of his own late 1982 release, Three Lock Box, and the time was right for the pair to explore their desired collaboration.
They began to recruit and audition other musicians to fulfill a band roster, eventually settling on Sammy’s former drummer Denny Carmassi. At one point, the trio were working with Cheap Trick bassist Tom Petersson but that did not pan out over time.
Soon, touring obligations with Journey would delay things until the fall of 1983, by which time Carmassi had exited the project. Eventually, Kenny Aaronson (Derringer, Foghat and countless more) would join on bass along with drummer Michael Shrieve, who’d played with Schon in Santana in the past.

In fact, the pedigree of this foursome read like a real Who’s Who when it came to the collective bands on their resumes. Besides the obvious – Journey, Montrose and Santana – one could now include Billy Idol, Joan Jett & The Blackhearts, Hall & Oates, Blue Öyster Cult, Mountain, Rick Derringer, Billy Squier, Pat Travers Band and several others.

The supergroup Hagar Schon Aaronson Shrieve (also known as HSAS) was now officially born. The quartet opted to go a different route than most bands for their initial debut album, playing live dates in November of 1983, two of which were recorded.
Not just recorded, as the November 14 and 15th shows in San Francisco were aired on MTV in their entirety on at least one occasion. Oddly, none of this footage has ever been issued on official VHS or DVD releases in the years since.

The recorded material from these shows, once edited in-studio to remove the crowd noise, was released as the 1984 Geffen Records release, “Through The Fire“. Oddly, the one and only single ever released from the album was the HSAS cover of the Procol Harum classic “Whiter Shade Of Pale“, which reached No. 94 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts.
HSAS would tour briefly in California during 1984, adding rhythm guitarist Nick Sciorsci to their line up for live performances.

“Through The Fire” would be the one and only album ever released from Hagar Schon Aaronson Shrieve, but remains a cult classic even now. Schon would return to JOURNEY while Sammy would blow up even more as a solo artist with another album he’d release that year, 1984’s VOA, and then he would go on to join VAN HALEN in 1986.
HSAS “Through The Fire” is the one of the best ’80s hard rockin’ albums from the era. The extra tracks written by the project deserved to be released too. Here’s ’em all.
Highly Recommended

01 – Top Of The Rock
02 – Missing You
03 – Animation
04 – Valley Of The Kings
05 – Giza
06 – Whiter Shade Of Pale
07 – Hot And Dirty
08 – He Will Understand
09 – My Home Town
EXTRAS:
10 – Going In For the Kill (outtake)
11 – Hope and Fear (outtake)
12 – Tough Enough (outtake)
13 – Ever Since You Came (outtake)
14 – What Will Never Be (outtake)
15 – Eyes Of Love (outtake)

Sammy Hagar – vocals
Neal Schon – guitars
Kenny Aaronson – bass
Michael Shrieve – drums

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