FOR MILLIONS OF American teens in the 1970s, there was no more perfect song for late-night cruising than Golden Earring’s “Radar Love.” Its shuffling boogie rhythm encouraged pedal-to-themetal driving, while the lyrics captured the thrill of joyriding and, hopefully, getting lucky. Pushing it all along was the insistent riffing of guitarist George Kooymans, who punctuated the space between Barry Hay’s lyrics with some of the tastiest licks outside of a Dairy Queen drive-thru. “Radar Love” was and remains the quintessential American hard-rock road song.
So imagine how surprising it was for young listeners to discover Golden Earring hailed not from the U.S. but the Netherlands, or that the group had been a going concern for more than 10 years by the time it scored its breakthrough hit. Kooymans and bassist Rinus Gerritsen had launched the band in the Hague as the Tornadoes, but had to change its name when the U.K.-based Tornados had a hit with “Telstar.” They took Golden Earrings from a song by the English beat group the Hunters, and found success as a pop act at home and the U.K. In 1969, the band dropped the s from its name and went full-on hard rock, earning an invitation to open the Who’s 1972 European tour and record for their Track Records label, just in time to release 1973’s Moontan and its single “Radar Love.” Kooymans’ guitar work, performed on his black, three-pickup Gibson Les Paul Custom, with exposed pickups, helped propel the song to the upper reaches of the U.S. charts, where it hit Number 13.