Arena drops a cover of Van Halen’s “Dreams” and gets the approval of someone special!
Joey Arena may be a name that sounds familiar to some of our readers. He is the front man for the band, OVTLIER, who have had plenty of airtime on Sirius XM’s Octane with tunes such as “Buried Me Alive” and “Who We Are”.
However, the talented vocalist and musician also has many side gigs including his latest, simply known as Arena. He along with Ice Nine Kills’ guitarist, Justin ‘JD’ DeBlieck, collaborated to produce a cover of Van Halen’s hit “Dreams” which was released on March 5, 2021.
That particular song isn’t an easy one to do. In fact, when the original version was made, singer Sammy Hagar came close to passing out due to the high orientation of the vocals.
According to the press release for the video Arena was a huge fan of Van Halen and had this to say about what made him decide to do the cover.
“If I could find the soundtrack to my childhood, no song would compete with “Dreams”. I recall hearing it for my first time on the radio in 93’ but never got the name and at the end of The Power Rangers Movie (1995). The song popped up and brought me full circle,” Arena said. “Dreams” both lyrically and musically has something special. As musicians, we all secretly dissect music, we hear things differently than the average listener; this is one song that cannot be tampered with. Sammy is unarguably one of the greatest vocalists and lyrically, this song hits the nail on the head of what it is to write something so “feel good”, as I’d call it and really finds the words that the music is trying to say.”
Despite the difficulty of doing the cover, the final product is not only spot on but also as good as the original. If you don’t want to take my word for it, perhaps the following video may convince you.
(2832) Sammy Hagar Endorses ARENA (FULL VIDEO) – YouTube
You can also click on the interview that I did with Arena. We discussed the making of Dreams as well as what is going on with OVTLIER.
Until next time, this is Big L saying ‘keep those horns up and rock on’!! \m/ \m/
