Those of us who partake in the electric kale all have a story about who taught us to smoke. Was it a skeevy older brother? That kid from down the block with a skull on his shirt? Some guy in a concert parking lot? Or was it David Lee Roth, lead singer of legendary hard rockers Van Halen? Apparently, for Skid Row frontman Sebastian Bach, it was the later, as Seb recently revealed on his Twitter that Van Halen kept him from auditioning because he was a stoner — and Roth taught him how to rip the bong!
A recent tweet by Ultimate Classic Rock revealed to the world that Ozzy Osbourne, Journey’s Steve Perry, and Back were all up for the role of frontman of Van Halen after David Lee Roth left in 1985. In response, Bach tweeted, “I didn’t get to audition because I was told they didn’t want the lead singer of Van Halen to smoke pot. Never mind that I learned how to smoke pot from the lead singer of Van Halen.”
https://twitter.com/sebastianbach/status/1320463419326132225
Amazing! I mean, a bummer that Van Halen used to be against weed, but rad that Bach learned to smoke from Diamond Dave! It makes one think of that classic anti-drug PSA — “I LEARNED IT BY WATCHING YOU!”
That Ozzy was in the running is already public knowledge — especially because Eddie Van Halen drunk-dialed him to ask him to join. In a new interview with Sirius XM, Ozzy recalls the time Eddie Van Halen dialed him up and asked him to sing for Van Halen after having one too many. “He phoned me up one time and asked me if I wanted to sing in his band — way after Sammy [Hagar had left the band]. I think he was a bit drunk. We’ve all done one of them — calling at four o’clock in the morning, going, [makes unintelligible sound].”
Not even a drunk dial could ever sour Eddie’s reputation in Ozzy’s heart, however. “You think you’ve seen it all — then out of the blue, somebody comes out with such a revolutionized way of playing,” recalled the Prince of Darkness. “To watch Eddie play was, like — his hands would turn into a spider. It was remarkable. He always made it look like it was so easy.”
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Words by Chris Krovatin
