The best Eddie Van Halen guitar song, according to Wolfgang Van Halen
The 1980s were a particularly strange period for American rock, torn between the abrasive rebellion of punk, the early origins of grunge emerging from Seattle, and the deluge of hair metal dominating the pop charts. If any one guitarist captured the entirety of the American rock scene during that rather disjointed period, though, it was Eddie Van Halen.
Armed with a seemingly endless array of riffs and the captivating performance style to back them up, Eddie Van Halen is regularly and rightly hailed among the greatest guitarists to ever grace the American rock scene, and it was with the neon-hued backdrop of the 1980s that his revolutionary output truly came into its own. Striking the elusive balance between commercial power and inarguable rock authenticity, the guitarist was a true one-off, and he remained that way throughout Van Halen’s illustrious discography.
Despite the guitarist being the clear, defining star of Van Halen’s hard rock domination, the band are more often noted for their frontman, or frontmen. When the group first broke into the musical mainstream during the late 1970s, after all, it was David Lee Roth at the helm, paving the way for countless future rock frontmen to follow in his wake.
By 1985, though, Roth had seemingly reached the end of his tether when it came to Van Halen and, after a few successful solo releases, chose to abandon ship entirely. Now, most bands do not recover from the loss of their frontman and primary vocalist, but then Van Halen weren’t most bands, so Roth’s spot was quickly filled by Sammy Hagar, thus giving life to a new era for the hard rock titans.
At the end of the day, every Van Halen fan’s got their own opinion on whether the Roth years or the Hagar era best defined the band’s sound – and let’s be honest, that debate’s not wrapping up any time soon. Both periods had their highs and lows, and while Roth usually grabs the lion’s share of the spotlight, some of Van Halen’s boldest and most impressive work came during his time with Hagar.
A large section of Van Halen devotees might disagree with that idea, but one person who has always maintained a deep appreciation for the Hagar era is the guitarist’s son, Wolfgang Van Halen. Having had his own stint in the family band from 2007 until his father’s untimely passing in 2020, Wolfgang is an incredibly skilful musician in his own right, and has never shied away from discussing the peaks and roughs of Van Halen’s extensive discography.
During one interview with Songfacts, Wolfgang shared, “I look at the Hagar era and the Roth era as two sides of the same coin,” adding to the ongoing debate over which era of the band remains the greatest. Although he did not give a definitive answer himself, he did note that some of the band’s greatest moments came under Hagar.
“I really had to pick iconic songs from each era, I think ‘Dreams’ from the Hagar era, that’s one of the best things my father ever wrote,” he declared. Although a rather bold claim, it is hard to dispute the credentials of ‘Dreams’, which ushered in an entirely new era for the band upon its release back in 1986.
‘Dreams’ is inseparable from the Hagar era, being one of the vocalist’s defining performances with the band, but what really shines through when revisiting that track is the quality and ambition of Eddie Van Halen’s writing; he was never afraid to push the boundaries of Van Halen’s sound, and even if it did upset some of their long-term devotees, that doesn’t stop ‘Dreams’ from being an ultimate highlight within their discography.
