Bad Motor Scooter

"Bad Motor Scooter" opens with one of the great motorcycle-engine guitar intros in rock history — Ronnie Montrose mimicking the sound of a machine winding up, and then the song lurches into motion with that exact same kinetic energy it promised. The riff is bluesy at its foundation but mutated by sheer volume and attitude into something that anticipates heavy metal while still keeping one boot in the roadhouse. There's a looseness here that their harder tracks don't always have, a swagger in the groove that lets the song breathe even as it roars. Hagar is in his element — voice at full throttle, delivery somewhere between a grin and a snarl, the persona of the guy on the bike entirely convincing. The song is about movement, freedom, the particular American mythology of two wheels and an open highway, but Montrose render it with enough musical wit that it never tips into cliché. The solo section is unshowy by the standards of the era, more about feel than display. This was the sound of a band that had absorbed Deep Purple and Humble Pie and was beginning to synthesize something that would influence Van Halen and a dozen other California hard rock acts. It's driving music, obviously, but specifically driving-too-fast music — the kind you reach for when the speedometer creeps up and somehow the song makes that feel earned rather than reckless.