The late Eddie Van Halen would have celebrated his 66th birthday today (January 26th). On the Van Halen song “Dreams” Eddie got help from a “Foreigner”.Sammy Hagar credits the producer of Van Halen’s 5150 album, Foreigner guitarist Mick Jones, with “squeezing” a great vocal out of him and arranging a bunch of different Eddie Van Halen guitar parts into a coherent song.
“I think of Mick Jones from Foreigner, who produced that record, who squeezed that out of me. Eddie had a bunch of different parts and he goes, ‘I like that part, I like that part, that should be the verse,’ and he just cut it all up and made a song. He goes, ‘Now Sammy, what are you gonna to this?’ I’m going, ‘I don’t know — I was singing it an octave lower. And he goes, ‘No man, go for it!’ And I just went, [sings] ‘Whoa that’s…”And everybody in the studio just hands went up, ‘Yes!’ y’know, and I just went home and wrote those lyrics. And I’m real proud of that song.”
