Ozzy Osbourne, Chris Cornell, Joe Satriani almost joined Van Halen, Alex reveals in first interview since brother’s death
Van Halen could have had new additions to their line-up over the years in Ozzy Osbourne, Chris Cornell, and Joe Satriani, Alex Van Halen reveals.
The former drummer and co-founder of the hard rock band is set to release Brothers, a memoir of his life with brother Eddie – who passed away in October 2020 due to complications from throat cancer – from childhood to 1984, when the band’s first line-up with David Lee Roth ended.
In an interview with Rolling Stone published today (October 15) promoting the book, Alex reveals more moments from the band’s storied career over the decades – for one, how Osbourne was originally tipped to front the band in 2001.
Alex and Eddie had met Ozzy with wife and manager Sharon Osbourne to lay out plans for him to record an album with the band. “When you get a dog, you don’t expect it to be a cat,” Alex tells Rolling Stone, noting that the brothers were open to the implications of the former Black Sabbath frontman joining their band. “When you get an Ozzy, you get Ozzy. Play the music, he’ll sing, and it’s gonna be great.”
However, Ozzy became entangled with MTV to launch The Osbournes, the reality show about the family that became a smash hit upon its debut in 2002, and couldn’t follow through with joining Van Halen.
“Yes, we were discussing it,” Osbourne 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 also reveals in the interview that the brothers once jammed with Cornell and found they had something to work with. “Chris was in a very fragile part of his life, so to speak,” Alex notes.
“I got behind the drums, and he started playing bass. We played for 45 minutes. This motherfucker got so into it he started bleeding. I said, ‘This is the man you want.’ And then he died.”
Decades later, after the death of Eddie, Alex had reconvened with Roth to explore continuing the band in 2022, with early rehearsals taking place alongside musicians from Roth’s solo band.
The idea, Alex shares, was to rope in Satriani to take Eddie’s place on guitars, along with former bassist Michael Anthony, who hadn’t played with the band since 2004 since being replaced by Eddie’s then-teenage son Wolfgang Van Halen. The tour did not materialise, with Alex noting that physical problems he began facing around the time made him wonder if it was an “omen from above” to not follow through with the reunion plans.
He notes that after phone calls with Queen‘s Brian May, Alex brought to Roth the idea to pay tribute to Eddie during each gig. “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.’” he recalls.
“And the moment I said we gotta acknowledge Ed, Dave fuckin’ popped a fuse.… The vitriol that came out was unbelievable.” This moment was “the thing that broke the camel’s back”, Alex adds. “‘You talk to me like that, motherfucker, I’m gonna beat your fucking brains out. You got it?'” he recalls how he felt towards Roth. “And I mean that. And that’s how it ended.”
“It’s just, my God. It’s like I didn’t know him anymore. I have nothing but the utmost respect for his work ethic and all that. But, Dave, you gotta work as a community, motherfucker. It’s not you alone anymore.”
Last month, Alex shared a snippet of ‘Unfinished’, the last song he recorded with his late brother. The track will be included in the audiobook of Brothers, which is set for release on October 24.
The post Ozzy Osbourne, Chris Cornell, Joe Satriani almost joined Van Halen, Alex reveals in first interview since brother’s death appeared first on NME.
Daniel Peters
NME
