Imagine if Van Halen didn't exist in 1984. We wouldn't have the album 1984, the hits that album contained, or any of the great music that came after. Thankfully that didn't happen, but it could've if not for the advice of Kiss vocalist and bassist Gene Simmons!
Guns N' Roses manager Alan Niven tells Rock Talk With Mitch Lafon there "was a time apparently when Eddie was so frustrated, and I think this would have been 1983, somewhere around there, that he called Gene Simmons" asking to join Kiss. Despite that being an amazing offer, Simmons refused.
"Apparently, Gene Simmons had the appropriate and accurate assessment at the time and looked at Eddie and said, 'You can't leave your band. It's called Van Halen, it is your band,'" said Niven.
"And that's not just a matter of possession and control, that's a matter of content and style. Because – Van Halen without Eddie… I don't know. Alex I think is an incredibly underrated drummer in the shadow of his younger brother, and I think he deserves far more credit than he gets.
"But the absolute magic of Van Halen to me on my first impression was – the songs are good and the vocalist had an attitude, but my god there was some fire coming off that fretboard on that first album that was just magical."
I mean seriously, what would Van Halen have been without Eddie?
[via Ultimate Guitar]
