![Patty Smyth Is Happy to Have Turned Down Van Halen Job](http://townsquare.media/site/295/files/2014/02/Patty-Smyth-Eddie-Van-Halen.jpg?w=980&q=75)
Patty Smyth Is Happy to Have Turned Down Van Halen Job
For Patty Smyth, the improbable opportunity to join Van Halen as David Lee Roth's replacement in the mid-'80s would have come at too high of a cost.
Roth had just abruptly quit, and the Scandal singer -- still riding a wave of popularity after 'The Warrior' became a Top 10 hit song -- had become close friends with Eddie Van Halen and his then-wife Valerie Bertinelli. Van Halen even joined Scandal on stage in 1984, adding a few of his patented guitar flourishes to 'Maybe We Went Too Far,' from 'The Warror' album.
"Eddie was dead serious," Smyth tells DelawareOnline. "He wanted me to join the band, and we talked about it repeatedly. I had several problems with it: I had just gotten pregnant with my daughter; I didn't want to move to California; plus, those guys were partying very hard at that time."
Van Halen ultimately went with Sammy Hagar, and became a rock juggernaut. Meanwhile, Smyth built on her successes with Scandal, releasing the No. 2 Billboard solo hit "Sometimes Love Just Ain't Enough" in 1992. She has been married to tennis star John McEnroe since 1997.
"They had asked me not to talk about it in interviews at the time, because they didn't want Sammy Hagar to feel like he was the second choice," Smyth says. "I haven't always made all of the right decisions from a career perspective, but things worked out in the end. If I had done that, I never would have written 'Sometimes Love Just Ain't Enough.'"
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