Jason Isbell Says He Almost Opened for Van Halen: ‘I Was So Excited’

Jason Isbell almost got to live out a childhood dream by opening for Van Halen.

In a new interview with AL.com, the Alabama-born singer-songwriter recalled getting asked to open for a proposed "Kitchen Sink" Van Halen tour that would've featured David Lee Roth, former vocalists Sammy Hagar and Gary Cherone and former bassist Michael Anthony.

"We were supposed to open at least the Nashville show and maybe more than that, I don't know," Isbell said. "But they just asked me if it was something I wanted to do, and of course my agent and my manager knew that was something I would want to do."

"So I was very, very excited. And then, you know, Eddie got sick and that was that," he added. "And that’s really all that I ever knew about it."

The tour, initially slated for summer 2019, was canceled before it was even announced when Eddie Van Halen's health began to decline early that year. The legendary guitarist died of a stroke in October 2020 following a battle with cancer.

"But I was so excited," Isbell continued. "I was really over the moon about it because I went and saw them when I was a kid, when Sammy was fronting the band, and Mom would take me. We went to a couple of different shows. I think both of them were up here in Nashville at Starwood [Amphitheatre] back in the day, and I was probably 12, maybe 14."

"That was a huge part of my life. I had the car that I drove when I was a teenager – the white Beretta [a song off of Isbell's Weathervanes album], coincidentally – one of the speakers was out. The passenger side speaker was out, and I couldn't afford to have it fixed."

"And the way they recorded those old Van Halen records, I had them on cassette, and the guitar was panned hard in stereo, so you would get Eddie's guitar on one side, and then the reverb from Eddie's guitar on the other side. It was so frustrating because all I could hear was the reverb from Eddie’s guitar when I listened in the car."

"But yeah, that was a huge moment for me to be invited to do that and we were extremely excited," Isbell concluded. "And it didn't happen, but yeah it would have been nice."