“Eddie told me, ‘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?’”: When Eddie Van Halen asked to join Kiss — and they turned him down!

He was one of the greatest guitar players the world has ever seen, but when Eddie Van Halen offered his services to Kiss in the early ’80s he was told: “Thanks, but no thanks!”

Speaking to MusicRadar, Kiss bassist/vocalist Gene Simmons explains why EVH made his offer — and why that offer was rejected.

“It happened in 1982,” Simmons recalls. “It was when Kiss was doing a record called Creatures Of The Night.”

This was the first album Kiss made following the departure of the band’s original lead guitarist Ace Frehley.

During the recording of Creatures Of The Night, a variety of lead guitar players were utilised — including Robben Ford, Steve Farris (later of Mr. Mister) and the man who eventually joined Kiss as an official member, Vinnie Vincent.

Ace Frehley appeared on the album's cover and in the video for the anthem I Love It Loud — but that track was one of three on the album co-written by Vincent.

Kiss - I Love It Loud (Official Music Video) - YouTube

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The Van Halen album released in 1982 was Diver Down — created amid rising tension between Eddie and the group’s singer David Lee Roth.

Gene Simmons had played an important part in Van Halen’s early career, producing the demo recordings that eventually led to the band’s deal with Warner Brothers label.

And in the summer of 1982, as Kiss were cutting tracks for Creatures Of The Night in Los Angeles, Eddie Van Halen reached out to Simmons, complaining about David Lee Roth.

Simmons recalls: “Eddie told me, ‘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?’

“Where Eddie lived, it wasn’t far away. So he got into his Jeep and came to the studio. Him driving that Jeep was the scariest thing in the world — it had no doors and he’d drive at 100 miles an hour. It was insane.

“So he came down and we had lunch across the street, and then he came into the studio and heard some of the tracks and was like, ‘Oh, I really like that!’”

When Eddie asked if they could discuss him joining Kiss, Simmons explained why this would never work — and why Eddie should focus on keeping his own band together.

“I said, ‘Eddie, a band is worse than a marriage. You're going to have ups and downs and stuff. But with Van Halen, everything begins and ends with you — it’s all about the guitar. And likewise for AC/DC or Led Zeppelin with Jimmy Page — those riffs, that's the backbone of what it is. That’s the sound. It's a point of view which is not necessarily the point of view of Kiss.’”

Simmons now clarifies: “There wouldn't be room for Eddie in Kiss. It would be like putting Jeff Beck or Hendrix in AC/DC.

“Hendrix would suck up all the oxygen. He needed just one bass player and a drummer so he’d got that room without a rhythm guitar player there.

“Eddie was like Hendrix in that sense. He needed a lot of room. With Van Halen it was a lot of room for the guitar player to take up, and there just wasn’t that room unless we wanted to gut what Kiss was all about. And Eddie would have taken over.”

Simmons reflects: “Morally, I think I did the right thing, which is telling Eddie, ‘You've got to stick it out. No matter what the problems are in the band, you’ve got to hang in there.'

“It's never easy. You take a look at Jagger and Richards, who had their ups and downs, or Lennon and McCartney, who were childhood friends.

“But you don’t let the band break up, even if it means switching lead singers. And in the end, that’s exactly what Eddie did.”

After Diver Down, Van Halen made one more album in the '80s with David Lee Roth — titled 1984, and featuring classic tracks such as Jump, Hot For Teacher and Panama.

It was in 1985 that Roth exited Van Halen and was replaced by Sammy Hagar.

“I love Roth,” Simmons says. “And that's still my favourite era of Van Halen.

“But you can get another lead singer, and when Hagar joined, it may not have been everyone’s cup of tea, but they became a bigger band.

“Likewise, when AC/DC sadly lost Bon Scott, they became one of the biggest bands in the world.

“So that rule: ‘You can't lose the lead singer’. Actually, you can!”