Alex Van Halen says Van Halen nearly reunited in 2021 following the death of his brother and lead guitarist Eddie Van Halen.
In a new interview with Rolling Stone to promote his new book, Brothers, the drummer reveals that Joe Satriani came on board to fill in on guitar in place of his brother (who passed away in 2020 at the age of 65) for a tour that included bassist Michael Anthony and frontman David Lee Roth.
While Van Halen tells Rolling Stone that feeling numbness from peripheral neuropathy threatened his ability to do the tour, it was Roth's refusal to pay tribute to Eddie during the concerts that killed the plan.
“The thing that broke the camel’s back, and I can be honest about this now,” Van Halen admits, “was I said, ‘Dave, at some point, we have to have a very overt — not a bowing — but an acknowledgment of Ed in the gig. If you look at how Queen does it, they show old footage.’ And the moment I said we gotta acknowledge Ed, Dave fuckin’ popped a fuse.… The vitriol that came out was unbelievable.”
Van Halen says he could never understand why Roth wouldn't go along with the tribute. "It’s like I didn’t know him anymore," he explains. "I have nothing but the utmost respect for his work ethic and all that. But, Dave, you gotta work as a community, motherf**ker. It’s not you alone anymore.”
Another version of Van Halen that nearly happened while Eddie was still alive included Ozzy Osbourne on vocals for a new album around 2001.
“When you get a dog, you don’t expect it to be a cat,” Alex says about the potential for Ozzy to front Van Halen. “When you get an Ozzy, you get Ozzy. Play the music, he’ll sing, and it’s gonna be great.”
Unfortunately for the band, Ozzy had already signed on to shoot his family reality show The Osbournes with MTV, which required his full attention.
“Yes, we were discussing it,” Ozzy tells Rolling Stone via email. “It is something that if it had come to fruition, would have been phenomenal. Eddie and Alex were great friends of mine for a very long time and it’s a regret of mine that we never got it together. The Osbournes got in the way of creating new music at that time, unfortunately.”
Alex Van Halen also shares that late Soundgarden singer Chris Cornell had a jam session with the band before he passed away. But Cornell wasn't in a good place at the time.
“Chris was in a very fragile part of his life, so to speak,” Van Halen explains. “I got behind the drums, and he started playing bass. We played for 45 minutes. This motherf**ker got so into it he started bleeding. I said, ‘This is the man you want.’ And then he died.”
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