Van Halen was practically dead in the water when David Lee Roth decided to leave the band. Although the band may have had Eddie Van Halen at their disposal, Roth was known as the de facto leader of the group half the time, soaking in the crowd every time he played and becoming a glorified cartoon character whenever he took to the stage. Replacing him would be no easy task, but Van Halen soldiered on with a new face in Sammy Hagar.
Being a staple of the hard rock scene, Hagar had been known as one of the founding members of the group Montrose and had built up a decent solo career when asked by Van Halen if he would be interested in being their frontman. While Hagar was initially hesitant to work with them, magic was struck when they played their first rehearsals together.
As opposed to the larger-than-life persona that Roth boasted, Hagar related to the band in a completely natural way, always having the persona of a man happy to be playing music as his full-time job. Although there were a few songs that may have been suited to Roth’s style more, the band became Van Halen Mk. II the minute that Hagar opened his mouth.
Rather than the rapid-fire swagger machine that Roth was, Hagar got his point across with pure vocal power, reaching some of the highest notes that anyone had ever heard on a Van Halen record. While Michael Anthony may have been in charge of the harmony vocals throughout every Van Halen album, Hagar turned the pair into a vocal team, turning 5150 into one of the biggest successes of the band’s career.
Van Halen may have been looking to kick ass everywhere they went, but Hagar had some regrets about the positioning of some of the tracks. Fitting somewhere between a power ballad and an epic rock song, ‘Dreams’ features the highest notes that Hagar would ever reach with Van Halen, building to the very top of his range throughout most of the track.
Looking back on constructing the track, Hagar thought that the band could have easily lowered the key to the song to take some of the edge off him, saying, “Every time I hear a live performance of ‘Dreams’, I shake and scratch my head and wonder what was I thinking singing in that register. The hardest song to sing night after night of any song I’ve written in my life!”.
While Hagar would nail it every time he went out on stage with Van Halen, it wasn’t long until his massive contributions to the band started to become a nuisance as well. When working on the band’s final album, Balance, Hagar and Eddie’s disagreements over the group’s direction began to reach a head, leading to Hagar quitting the band after work finished on the song ‘Humans Being’. Van Halen may have been able to continue on with and without Hagar through the years, but Hagar created the benchmark for every hard rock singer the minute he recorded ‘Dreams’.
