In the summer of 1982, Kiss was busy recording their first album after Ace Frehley left the band. During this time, Eddie Van Halen drove to the Los Angeles studio in a doorless Jeep to talk to Gene Simmons about joining Kiss. Van Halen was frustrated with his band, saying, “Roth is driving me nuts. I can’t take it. I gotta leave. I know you’re looking for a lead guitar player. Do you want me in the band?”
Simmons, however, turned him down. He felt that Van Halen’s guitar style wouldn’t fit with Kiss. He compared adding Eddie to the band to trying to play a wrong note in a song. “There wouldn’t be room for Eddie in Kiss,” Simmons explained. “He needed a lot of space to shine, just like Hendrix.”
Instead of joining Kiss, Simmons encouraged Van Halen to work through his issues with his band. He reminded Eddie that the guitar was the heart of Van Halen’s sound and that it wouldn’t be the same in Kiss. “A band is worse than a marriage,” Simmons said. “You’ll have ups and downs. But with Van Halen, everything begins and ends with you — it’s all about the guitar.”
Later that year, Van Halen released the album Diver Down, even as tensions grew within the band. They would go on to make one more record with David Lee Roth in 1984, featuring hits like “Jump” and “Panama,” before Roth left in 1985. Sammy Hagar then stepped in, and the band continued to gain popularity throughout the late 1980s.
