Billy Sheehan clarifies that he never received an “official” offer to join Van Halen
Photo by Joe Schaeffer Photography
Billy Sheehan clarifies that he never received an “official” offer to join Van Halen
Earlier this week, The Metal Voice released excerpts of its interview with bassist Billy Sheehan (The Winery Dogs, Mr. Big, Sons of Apollo, Talas, ex-David Lee Roth) where the latter spoke about being asked to join Van Halen on three separate occasions including in 1981 and 1984.
Photo by Joe Schaeffer Photography
Sheehan stated during his interview with Jimmy Kay for Canada’s The Metal Voice: “[I was offered the position as bassist] three times threw the years and I consider it a great honour. However I am torn because I love Michael Anthony and I think he is the best bass player for Van Halen. And as much as I would have love to do that I want to see Michael in the band. I’m not sure why they asked me to join the band Michael is an awesome player and singer and who knows what the situation was. The first time was the tour of Fair Warning we talked about it then, then I spoke about it with David lee Roth but I mostly spoke about it with Eddie Van Halen in Toronto, Canada and then the second time was 1984. Eddie showed me the stage set up we talked abut it then. Then the last time was when I got together with Eddie and Alex Van Halen at their house.”
The story spurred a number of articles on various websites including on Sleaze Roxx.
Sheehan was apparently unhappy with that coverage as he posted the following comment on his Facebook page yesterday:
“More fake news —-
Though I spoke w EVH on 3 different occasions where he asked me about being in his band, the offer never came through. They never followed through on any sort of an official offer and therefore I never “turned down” any offer, because it eventually fell through. This is the result of recycling old news ( I’ve spoken of this before) because I thought I’d do a favor some little website that asked for an interview, and then they decided to make this the headline ( for clicks) and many other websites picked up the “story” to get more clicks. Recycled, inaccurate and rebranded old news. Never happened.”