How Ozzy Osbourne almost became lead singer of Van Halen

nypost.com:

Ozzy Osbourne, when he almost became the lead singer of the band.After stints by David Lee Roth, Sammy Hagar and Extreme’s Gary Cherone, the group was between frontmen circa 2001 when its namesake brothers, Eddie and Alex Van Halen, were in talks for Osbourne to bring his signature wail to VH. “When you get a dog, you don’t expect it to be a cat,” Alex told Rolling Stone in his first interview since guitar god Eddie’s death in 2020. “When you get Ozzy, you get Ozzy.

Play the music, he’ll sing, and it’s gonna be great.”Osbourne — who will be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame for the second time on Saturday, his solo enshrinement coming after his 2006 one with Black Sabbath — confirms that he almost made the “Jump” to Van Halen.“Yes, we were discussing it,” he wrote in an email to Rolling Stone. “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.”Blame it on MTV: Just as he was ready to begin working on a Van Halen album, Osbourne and his manager, wife Sharon, met with the network, and their reality show “The Osbournes” was born.“’The Osbournes’ got in the way of creating new music at that time, unfortunately,” Osbourne wrote.Another legendary rocker — Chris Cornell — was also once a potential VH frontman after he jammed with the Van Halen brothers.

After Eddie stepped out, Alex had a one-on-one session with the Soundgarden singer.“Chris was in a very fragile part of his life, so to speak,” Alex recalled of Cornell, who died from suicide in 2017. “I got behind the drums, and he started playing bass.