More fake news —- Though I spoke w EVH on 3 different occasions where he asked me about being in his band, the offer... Posted by Billy Sheehan on Friday, February 7, 2020
Billy Sheehan says that he was never officially asked to join VAN HALEN.
The bassist, whose early band TALAS opened for VAN HALEN in 1981, made the clarification three days after an interview he gave to The Metal Voice quoted him as saying he was "offered" the position in VAN HALEN on three separate occasions.
On Friday, Sheehan took to his Facebook page to share an article headlined "Mr Big's Billy Sheehan Explains Why He Declined To Be Van Halen's Bassist" and he included the following message: "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."
In The Metal Voice interview, Sheehan was asked the question, "Were you ever offered the position as bassist for VAN HALEN?" He responded: "Three times through the years. And I considered it a great, great honor. However, I'm torn, because I love Michael Anthony, and I think he's the best bass player for VAN HALEN. And as much as I would have loved to do that, I wanna see Michael in the band. And I'm not even sure why they asked me in the band, 'cause I think Michael is an awesome player and a great singer. Who knows what the situation was? But it was just a great honor to be associated with them in any capacity."
When asked by The Metal Voice during which era of VAN HALEN he was approached about joining the group, Sheehan said: "It was the tour after the 'Women And Children First' tour. I think it was 'Fair Warning'. We talked about it then. And then I spoke with [singer] Dave [Lee Roth] about it also. I mostly spoke with [guitarist] Eddie [Van Halen], and I [talked to] Dave about it too, I remember, in Toronto, Canada. I came up to see them play from Buffalo. And then, at the end, [on the] '1984' [tour], I remember Ed took me onstage to show me the stage setup, and we talked about it then. … The last time that it went down, I went up to Eddie's studio when I lived in L.A. a few years back, and jammed with him and [drummer] Alex [Van Halen] for a while. And we thought about doing something then. But it didn't happen."
Sheehan played on Roth's first two solo albums, "Eat 'Em And Smile" (1986) and "Skyscraper" (1988), before leaving the band.
Anthony, Hagar, Alex and Eddie Van Halen last teamed up in 2004 for a U.S. summer tour. In exchange for taking part in the tour, Anthony reportedly had to agree to take a pay cut and sign away his rights to the band name and logo.
In 2007, the Van Halen brothers, Wolfgang Van Halen and Roth announced they would be hitting the road for a reunion tour. Anthony later told Music Radar that he "found out about that tour like everybody else did — in the press."
