SCANDAL singer Patty Smyth has commented on the passing of Eddie Van Halen. The legendary VAN HALEN guitarist died on Tuesday (October 6) at the age of 65.
Smyth told Radio Forrest (hear audio below): “I literally did not leave my house [on Tuesday]. I just couldn’t believe it. I just started looking through the recordings of when he came out on the road with us and played with us. And I put some of those up. I just feel so badly for his son, for his brother, for his wife, his ex-wife. It’s just really, really sad. He was awesome.”
When VAN HALEN parted with frontman David Lee Roth in 1985, his eventual replacement, Sammy Hagar, was not the band’s first choice to fill Roth‘s shoes. Eddie asked Smyth to join the band first, “which is pretty amazing,” Patty told Radio Forrest. “It really says a lot about him — that he was ballsy enough to want a chick to take over. So I think that was great. It just was bad timing for me. I was eight months pregnant and there was a lot of shit going on. It just wasn’t the right time. And it’s interesting how timing really is everything.”
SCANDAL, which had several hits in the ’80s, broke up soon after and Smyth went on to record as a solo act.
VAN HALEN eventually recruited Hagar, who sang on four studio albums between 1986 and 1995 before he quit the group in 1996. Hagar rejoined for a 2004 tour but left again after that, paving the way for the most recent reunion with Roth, which began in 2007 with a world tour.
Smyth will release a new album, “It’s About Time”, on October 9 via BMG. It is Smyth‘s first set of new material in 28 years, following her self-titled 1992 effort, which featured the Grammy-nominated Don Henley duet “Sometimes Love Just Ain’t Enough”.
Photo credit: Melanie Dunea
