Van Halen’s 5150 album was released 35 years ago today—on March 24, 1986.It was the band’s first album with lead vocals from Sammy Hagar.
The title of the album came from the name of the studio behind the late Eddie Van Halen’s home in Studio City, California. By the way ‘5150’ is also the California law enforcement code for a “mentally disturbed person.
Eddie Van Halen once discussed how he came to hire Sammy to replace David Lee Roth as lead vocalist in the legendary rock band:
"Thank God I had a piece of [SFX] Italian car that broke down and I was at Claudio's and Claudio happened to just have gotten off the phone with Sammy and I called him on a Friday from his shop and he came down the Monday. We jammed. Hey, he could sing. We said, 'You're in.'"
The album was produced by Mick Jones of Foreigner. The album gave us the memorable Van Halen classics “Dreams,” “Why Can’t This Be Love,” and “Love Walks In”—a completely different sound for the hard rocking band.
[Source: Classic Hits Today]