Ozzy Osbourne, Chris Cornell, Joe Satriani almost joined Van Halen, Alex reveals in first interview since brother’s death

nme.com:

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.