Remember When Van Halen Appeared in a Hank Williams Jr. Video? [Watch]
Van Halen were one of the greatest rock bands of all time, but did you know they also had country connections? In light of Eddie Van Halen's death at 65, we're looking back at that time the Mighty Van Halen helped out Hank Williams Jr. in one of his videos.
It's possible that some fans didn't even realize that was Van Halen in the background in Hank Jr.'s "My Name Is Bocephus" video in 1986. As Sammy Hagar recalled in a post to Facebook in January of 2020, "Not a lot of people know that in 1986 Van Halen were part of a Hank Williams Jr music video. It was a cool tune and a crazy scene."
"[Drummer] Alex [Van Halen] had just shaved his head, me and Mikey [bassist Michael Anthony] were shooting it like a cue ball – we all had a blast!" Hagar adds.
In the clip below, the band members appear in various crowd shots in a bar where everyone has donned shades and fake beards in order to look more like Williams.
According to the Van Halen News Desk, the members of Van Halen would get "good and crazy" on a regular basis when Hagar first joined the band. They called those times "Bocephus mode" in honor of Williams' legendary shenanigans, and when he got wind of that, he invited them to appear in his video.
Williams would later name-check Van Halen in his 1988 song "Young Country," which says, "We like old Waylon / And we know Van Halen / We like ZZ Top / We like country and rock."
Guitarist Eddie Van Halen died on Tuesday (Sept. 6) after battling cancer repeatedly over the course of two decades. Kenny Chesney and Keith Urban are among the many artists from across all genres of music who turned to social media to salute Van Halen's influence following the news of his death.
Country Artists Remember Eddie Van Halen: