In a new video on Hagar’s YouTube channel, Van Halen rockers Sammy Hagar and Michael Anthony sat down to discuss Van Halen’s best songs and their ninth studio album, ‘For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge.’ During their discussion, Hagar revealed the Van Halen song that is equal to Led Zeppelin’s ‘Stairway To Heaven.’ Despite not being one of the band’s hit songs, Hagar resembled the song to the hit Zeppelin song:
“The funny thing about ‘Right Now,’ it’s like one of those songs like ‘Stairway to Heaven’ for Led Zeppelin. ‘Stairway to Heaven’ wasn’t like a number one single or anything. I think it was, it wasn’t even really a single. It was just an AOR track played on the radio. But it becomes one of their, you know, biggest hits, staple for the band. And ‘Right Now,’ I believe, peaked in the twenties.”
Although Hagar believes ‘Right Now’ is not a big hit like ‘Jump’ or ‘Panama,’ the song would appear in places such as sport events:
“The video got great awards and, you know, won three MTV music awards and all that. But the song itself wasn’t like a giant radio hit or anything. But all of a sudden, you had like, like sports – basketball, Lakers, or different sporting events. They would start playing bits of that song. Yeah. And I’d say the most tracks was… we’d play were ‘Right Now,’ ‘Top of the World,’ ‘Poundcake,’ ‘Judgment Day’ and ‘Runaround.’ Those were kind of like the live hits on this record and the ones we still play today.”
Van Halen’s Hit Song ‘Haunts’ Hagar
Hagar, who left Van Halen in 2005, has contributed to many of the band’s albums, though ‘1984’ is not among those albums. The ‘1984’ album has been one of the most popular Van Halen albums since its release. Despite not taking place in the album, it, in Hagar’s words, haunts’ him for one simple reason: People think it’s him singing Van Halen’s hit songs from the same album. He explained during an earlier interview:
“People meet me [and go] ‘Oh, you’re the singer of Van Halen,’ and for somebody don’t know sh*t, and they think I sing f*cking ‘Jump,’ and I’m going, ‘Damn!’ That thing haunts me.”
The One Song Hagar Is Struggling To Sing
A year after joining Van Halen to replace Roth, the new voice of the band helped them catapult the eighth studio album, ‘5150’ in 1986. Topping the Billboard 200, ‘5150’ ultimately became the band’s most successful album, but singing one of its tracks live became a struggle for Hagar. He revealed:
“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.'”
You can see the video below.
