“It would have been phenomenal”: Ozzy Osbourne and Chris Cornell both nearly joined Van Halen
Imagine Van Halen, but now, with two crucial lineup additions: Ozzy Osbourne and Chris Cornell. Well, according to Alex Van Halen, that almost happened.
In an interview with Rolling Stone, the retired drummer confirms that the band had looked into swapping out David Lee Roth for either Osbourne or Cornell.
READ MORE: “It was horrible. He did horrible things to people” Sammy Hagar recalls what Eddie Van Halen was like on 2004 World Tour
Flashback to circa 2001, Sharon Osbourne, manager and wife of Ozzy Osbourne, wrangles up a plan to have the Black Sabbath lead front a Van Halen album – and Alex is on board with it.
“When you get a dog, you don’t expect it to be a cat,” he says. “When you get an Ozzy, you get Ozzy. Play the music, he’ll sing, and it’s gonna be great.” Right before they were set to start work, the Osbournes took a meeting with MTV, and their reality show [The Osbournes] happened instead.”
You don’t have to take just Alex’s word for it either. Osbourne also confirmed discussing plans to join Van Halen, via email, to Rolling Stone, writing: “Yes, we were discussing it. It is something that if it had come to fruition, would have been phenomenal.”
He continues, “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.”
However, this setback didn’t stop Alex from considering alternatives. The drummer recalls hitting up Soundgarden’s Chris Cornell after the two found themselves in an impromptu jam session, as Eddie briefly stepped out.
“Chris was in a very fragile part of his life, so to speak,” he remembers. “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.”
Reflecting on his time with a full band, Alex admits there was a time when Van Halen felt at its fullest: “The heart and the soul and the creativity and the magic was Dave, Ed, Mike, and me,” he says.
Roth is well known as the lead for Van Halen, stepping in for the band between 1974-1985, 1996, and 2006-2020. However, plans for further a reunion were foiled as the vocalist refused to pay respects to the late Van Halen guitarist, according to Alex.
“The thing that broke the camel’s back, and I can be honest about this now,” Alex tells Rolling Stone, “was I said, ‘Dave, at some point, we have to have a very overt – not a bowing – but an acknowledgement 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.”
Despite this, Alex states he holds no regret over the comeback tour that didn’t happen. “It’s too bad on one hand, but it’s fine on the other,” he says. “Because now, in retrospect, playing the old songs is not really paying tribute to anybody. That’s just like a jukebox, in my opinion.… To find a replacement for Ed? It’s just not the same.”
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Source: www.guitar-bass.net
