Kiss Legend Gene Simmons Paid A Heartbreaking Tribute To Fellow Rockstar Eddie Van Halen

Simmons and Eddie Van Halen go back a long way – such a long way, in fact, that plenty don’t know about their initial connection. Without Simmons, the world might never have met Van Halen at all. When the Kiss star first met the band in Los Angeles, they weren’t signed. So it was he who helped the band put together their first demo and got them on the road to mega-fame.

In 2016 Simmons remembered to Classic Rock magazine, “I went to see The Boyzz play at a place called The Starwood, and the first band is a group called Van Halen. By the second song they had knocked me out. I was like, ‘What the hell? Look at the guitar player, look at the singer doing acrobatics and stuff!’ So immediately I was waiting for them backstage.”

Simmons went on, “When I got there, Edward and David [Lee Roth] and all the guys – they were babies – were telling me how excited they were that I was there. They were big Kiss fans and they often did “Firehouse” in their sets… and they were excited because there was a yogurt manufacturer that was going to invest in them. I begged them and said, ‘Don’t do it! I’ll finance your demo and fly you to New York.’ And I did.”

Everyone quickly began doing what they did best, making music. Simmons told Rolling Stone magazine in 2020, “Eddie did all the guitar parts live. He broke into a solo live in the studio. A few takes, and done, 14 or 15 songs. With Eddie – and he actually liked to be called Edward – it was like the street clothes came off and you’re standing next to a superhero.”

It wasn’t smooth sailing, though. Simmons’ manager just didn’t “get” the band, so eventually Simmons decided to let them go. He remembered he said, “I’m tearing up your contract because I don’t want to tie you down. I can’t ethically, morally and in other ways keep you locked in if I can’t work on you…You’re free to go get your own deal. If you don’t get it in that time, you can come back to me and we’ll try it again.”

As it happened, Van Halen did successfully get their own deal. They signed to Warner Bros. in 1978 and released their first album, which would sell 10 million copies in the end. Simmons told the Los Angeles Times newspaper in 2020, “It didn’t surprise me at all. Who are they going to compete against? Nobody.”

Simmons always refused to take credit for “discovering” Van Halen, though. In 2021 he told Guitar World magazine, “That first person who looks up and sees Mount Vesuvius can’t say they discovered Mount Vesuvius. It’s always been there. You just happened to be the person that came by and said, ‘Look at that!’”

The friendship between Simmons and Eddie Van Halen continued to grow from that first encounter. And, so goes one story from Simmons, Eddie actually asked to leave his own band and join Kiss at one point. He was “very serious” about it, Simmons said, because he wasn’t getting along with his bandmate Roth.

The rumor had been around for a while, but Simmons told Guitar World in 2014, “[Eddie] took me to lunch, to a diner right across the street from the Record Plant. Vinnie Vincent, who was not yet in Kiss, tagged along, too. Sneaky guy. And Eddie said, ‘I want to join Kiss. I don’t want to fight any more with Roth. I’m sick and tired of it.’”

If Simmons had said yes it would have changed the course of rock‘n’roll history, but he didn’t. The frontman remembered in the interview, “I told him, ‘Eddie, there’s not enough room. You need to be in a band where you can direct the music. You’re not going to be happy in Kiss.’ I talked him out of it. It didn’t fit.”

There’s always been a bit of debate about whether that really happened the way Simmons remembers it. Kiss guitarist Paul Stanley told Guitar World at the same time, “Eddie did come down to the studio during Creatures [Of The Night], and he spoke to me on the phone during that period. There was real dissension in the band at that time, that much was clear. But as far as I’m wanting to join Kiss? No, not that I know about. Doesn’t mean it didn’t happen, but I never heard it.”

Roth is one of those who thinks it did happen. In his 1997 autobiography Crazy from the Heat he remembered, “Turns out that Gene Simmons’ true interest was in conscripting Ed Van Halen into their show in some form or another, get him to play on a record, get him to help write guitar solos, get him into the band.”

Roth went on, “I was always very fiercely protective of what we were doing as a group, as a clan, ’cause there’s always going to be pirates, there’s always going to be carpetbaggers, like Simmons. And I would show up with Ed at the studio. Simmons would look at me with horror. Horror. ’Cause I was on to his game way early.”

Alan Niven, the manager of Guns N’ Roses, also remembered a version of that story. After Van Halen’s passing in 2020 Niven told the podcast Rock Talk With Mitch Lafon, “There was a time apparently when Eddie was so frustrated, and I think this would have been 1983, somewhere around there, that he called Gene Simmons. Because they knew each other from the ’70s, and he told Gene that he wanted to join Kiss.”

Niven went on, “Apparently, Gene Simmons had the appropriate and accurate assessment at the time and looked at Eddie and said, ‘You can’t leave your band. It’s called Van Halen, it is your band.’ And that’s not just a matter of possession and control, that’s a matter of content and style.”

That’s several different takes, but as for the thoughts of Eddie himself, he actually stated them all the way back in 1995. Fans of the rocker dug up an interview with him from that year where a journalist named Alan K. Stout from The Times Leader newspaper asked him directly about the rumor.

The interviewer told Eddie the book Kisstory contained the story about him wanting to join the band, and, “I thought that’s a fascinating Eddie Van Halen story that I don’t think anybody knows.” Van Halen responded, “Not even me! Wow. No, I don’t have a clue. They might have just asked me in passing, and I just kind of laughed it off, probably.”

Stout said, “I didn’t think it was something that was being seriously talked about,” and Eddie answered, “If it happened I’m sure I would have remembered… That’s hilarious. Maybe they did ask me and I just thought they were joking?” But he’d never mentioned anything about a Kiss team-up before.

Even though they were never in the same band, Van Halen and Simmons weathered a lot together. Tragedy struck in 2004 when their fellow musician “Dimebag” Darrell Abbott was shot and killed on stage; he was famously buried in a Kiss coffin donated by Simmons alongside a guitar given by Eddie.

But unfortunately, as we know, Eddie too would die prematurely. He passed away on October 6, 2020, at the age of just 65. The underlying cause was cancer, something the rock legend had first battled back in 2000, but this time he had kept the fight as private as it could be.

After the announcement of the news Simmons wrote a piece for Rolling Stone. He said, “This is a heartbreaking day for me. Eddie was a beautiful soul; a sweetheart of a guy. You can say he’s the finest guitarist on two legs since Hendrix and all those superlatives, which of course are true. But for me the most memorable image when I heard he passed today was Eddie smiling from ear to ear.”

Simmons went on, “If you look at the images that are circulating, Eddie’s always smiling. He enjoyed life. He could tear the roof off the sucker on stage and the whole time he’s looking at the fans, hardly at the fretboard. He’s smiling because he’s having the time of his life. That smile is the thing that gets me every time. Someone would say something and he would just kind of smile. I never heard him raise his voice at anybody.”

And Simmons also remembered the story of Eddie wanting to leave his band, though he didn’t mention ever asking him to join Kiss. He said, “I had lunch with him and said, ‘Don’t do it. You’re an amazing band. Every voyage on a ship has bumps,’ – all those corny things. I said, ‘You belong in Van Halen. It’s got your name.’ He stuck it out.”

But another even more poignant tribute came the following day. A visibly emotional Simmons spoke on the TV show Good Morning Britain about the loss of his friend. He was wearing dark sunglasses, and he explained that if he took them off everyone would see how much he was crying.

Fighting back tears, Simmons said, “I saw the phenomenon that is Eddie Van Halen explode. But when they came to New York and headlined for the first time I went backstage and it’s all exciting and all that, Eddie was all smiles and that’s the saddest… Sorry, I’m getting caught up a little bit here.”

Simmons went on, “When I think of Eddie, all I think about is that big smile. Whenever something was going on, he always took the high road… The saddest part is apparently only the good die young and I’m devastated. Part of this is the idiocy that rockers do, which is to hide behind the facade and all that.”

Touchingly, Simmons continued, "Life isn’t fair. There are a lot of bad people out there that in my estimation shouldn’t be on the planet yet this kind, beautiful soul, who was also a monster of a talent, is taken away and at such a young age. Eddie Van Halen never said a bad word about anybody.”

Once again Simmons said that the thing he would miss most about Eddie was his smile. He concluded his emotional interview, “When I heard the sad news that he had passed away, so help me God my first image was of Eddie smiling, isn’t that strange?” But that’s the nature of grief.

Later on, in a piece for Time magazine, Simmons remembered one of the last times he saw Eddie. He said, “I ran into him on Sunset Boulevard after he got cancer. He was joking, smoking a cigarette, God bless him. He opened his mouth and said, ‘Hey, man, check out my upper palate. It’s gone.’ I was horrified. But he shrugged and said, ‘Oh well.’”

And in the same article Simmons took the opportunity once more to speak about what a good person he thought Eddie was. He remembered to Time, “He never played the rock-star game or put down other bands. It was always just the joy. And he brought joy to millions of people.”

It would be impossible to argue with that last statement. Many, many people paid tribute to Eddie after the news came that he had died. Fans placed flowers and messages outside his childhood home in California, and guitar picks were left on his handprint stone at Hollywood’s Guitar Center.

And other rockers talked on social media about Van Halen’s impact. Brian May of Queen wrote, “This wonderful man was way too young to be taken. What a talent – what a legacy – probably the most original and dazzling rock guitarist in history.” And Roth said simply, “What a long, great trip it’s been.”

Eddie’s son Wolfie also had a touching tribute to his father. He wrote on Instagram, “He was the best father I could ever ask for. Every moment I’ve shared with him on and off stage was a gift. My heart is broken and I don’t think I’ll ever fully recover from this loss. I love you so much, Pop.”

Many media outlets turned to Simmons for comments on Eddie’s death. A week after the news, he talked to People magazine about it and again was very emotional. He said of his friend, “He was unabashed and just comfortable in his own skin. I was not just amazed by his talent, but I admire him so much as a human being.”

And then he went on, “Eddie was aware that he had this God-given talent, but I never saw him push that in anybody’s face. At the core, Eddie just seems to be a happy guy. Every once in a while, God gets it right. He did a good job with Eddie Van Halen, I’ll tell you that. He was a far better man than I'll ever be, that’s the truth.”

Simmons shared an Eddie anecdote with podcast The Dennis Miller Option at the end of October, one that gave insight into how their wild rock ‘n roll friendship worked. He remembered how his friend gave him a lift home after a Metallica concert, but it turned into more than he had anticipated.

He remembered that Eddie’s car was an “old jalopy thing with no doors” and they ended up “driving what I thought was 100mph up the 405.” As Simmons got scared, he told his fellow rock star to slow down, but, “a cigarette was hanging out of his mouth, and he said, ‘Why?’ I didn’t quite know what to answer.”

Even months later in January 2021 Simmons was still thinking about the impact his friend had made on his life. Talking to Guitar World that month, he discussed his favorite songs by Van Halen and the process by which they were made. His favorite ever track by them, he said, was the unreleased “House of Pain” because “that thing is like a locomotive that’s going down the track without being able to stop.”

Simmons remembered that Eddie’s solo of “Jamie’s Cryin’” was “so good that when Kiss went to re-record the song I forced Ace [Frehley] to copy it note-for-note. He hated that.” But it wasn’t just the music he wanted to talk about. Simmons said, touchingly, “And besides being a monster on his instrument, there was such a pure soul in there.” That was the backbone of the friendship between the two legends of rock.