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Page 2 of 2 His long-term Hagar history was such that he could recall the days when the West Coast band would travel eastward and find Sammy mistaken for one of the "Hee Haw"-singing Haggar Twins.During that late-'70s period, recalls Pihl, Hagar's band opened for Boston on the "Don't Look Back Tour," which is where Pihl forged his lifelong friendship with Boston overlord, Tom Scholz, the sole original band member still on board. "Their (Boston's) fans were very kind to us on that tour, I have to say," recalls Pihl. "With some opening acts, they don't want to see you; they just want you off the stage. Nobody knew who we were out there on the East Coast -- but it turned out the Boston fans were very receptive." Though Scholz has a reputation as a reclusive control-freak more at home obsessing over multi-track guitar sounds than on stage performing live, Pihl begs to differ. "He's a really smart guy, a genius, in fact, who likes the anonymity of walking down the street and not having people bother him," says Pihl. "He's never been one to want to be on the cover of a magazine or be a part of that sort of rock star thing. He wears a T-shirt and shorts on stage; he's not a Spandex kind of guy. And, like most musicians, he's a perfectionist." When Pihl joined Boston, the band was in one of its periodic states of transition, with the long-awaited (eight years) "Third Stage" album in the works. "All the other guys had left for new solo careers, except for Tom and Brad (Delp)," he says. Pihl would be filling "the big shoes" of guitarist Barry Goudreau, who'd left the band several years earlier. He wound up contributing to the final recording stages of "Third Stage" and was unveiled to the public on the subsequent "Third Stage" tour. There's been no looking back for Pihl since, never mind the continual membership changes and the major setback of lead singer Brad Delp's suicide a year ago. That tragedy led to what he describes as a "bittersweet moment" in Boston history: the aforementioned March 2007 tribute concert in Delp's memory, a momentous occasion that brought most of Boston's past membership on stage for what turned out to be more than a simple feeling. It was a milestone in the band's history. "Gosh, I'd known Brad for 30 years...," Pihl begins as he addresses the sense of loss over Delp's untimely passing. "So it was a wonderful feeling to see most of the original members and the other members coming together, and singing together, again."
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