The two singers Eddie Van Halen always wanted to play with
There’s a good chance that Eddie Van Halen could have had his pick of any singer in the world if he wanted to.
While David Lee Roth and Sammy Hagar added their own distinct flair to Van Halen during their time with the band, most people would have been happy to be the musical foil to Eddie whenever he went through his tapping licks in the studio. There’s no telling whether the chemistry would have been right every single time, but Eddie felt that a few of his favourite musicians were never checked off his bucket list.
Then again, it usually takes a certain type of musician to be able to match what Van Halen did. If Van Halen III had taught us anything, it was that both Hagar and Roth were about more than simply singing along to whatever the band sang, and when it came to Eddie’s part in the group, it was normally up to the rest of his bandmates to take his genius and organise them into fully fleshed-out songs half the time.
Which probably explains why getting into the studio with someone like Michael Jackson took no time at all. ‘The King of Pop’ already had the basic idea for what ‘Beat It’ was going to sound like, and while Eddie did have to rearrange a few things to make it sound more like a rock and roll song, it was much easier for him to throw caution to the wind and throw whatever solo licks he could think of over the top of the track. He had an ear for what people liked, but he also knew when something off-the-wall caught his ear.
And once grunge came in, there was no other band that was more kooky than Soundgarden. While Chris Cornell was the kind of frontman that most classic rock fans had been waiting for since the days of Robert Plant, a lot of his musical instincts had a lot more to do with progressive rock half the time. No one would have thought to make hits out of songs that were in strange time signatures or throw in strange Joni Mitchell-style tunings into every tune they worked on, but Eddie was convinced that the voice was all he needed.
When asked about the kind of artists that he would love to work with, Eddie named Chris Cornell right off the bat when looking for other singers to work with, saying, “Oh god, I love Chris Cornell, there are all kinds of people. I can’t think right off hand, but I’d have to listen to some stuff and obviously meet the people, see if they’re into it.” And despite the obvious genre differences, that’s not exactly as crazy as it seems, either.
But beyond the new school, Eddie did have a great knack for blues rock. He had always followed in the footsteps of Eric Clapton, but from day one, he had already been setting his sights on what Joe Cocker could do. His blues-soaked performances were perfect for Eddie when he was growing up, to the point where he came as close as he could to forming a group with him.
The lineup would have included other familiar faces like Phil Collins and Pete Townshend, but Cocker was always in Eddie’s mind when floating the idea, saying, “I had written ‘Right Now’ back then and I wanted Joe Cocker to sing on it. It would have been fucking great. That’s what I wanted to do, write a record where I did all the music and had a different singer on each song.” But with either singer, it’s only wishful thinking.
Each of them might not be with us anymore, but given what they all left behind, who’s to say that there can’t be some way that Eddie could get his wish from beyond the grave. After all, Alex has talked about the plethora of riffs that are still in the vaults that have yet to see the light of day, so why not get them to the public with the kind of voices that Eddie always wanted screaming over his licks?
