Mitch Malloy has shared a demo of a song called "It's The Right Time" that he composed with Eddie Van Halen, that the vocalist has now shared as "a gift to fans" as he revealed his short tenure working with the band.
Malloy says in the video description and in comments on YouTube that following the departure of Sammy Hagar from the band, he was the legendary's band's new lead singer in 1996. They ultimately hired Extreme frontman Gary Cherone to lead the ill-fated Van Halen III lineup.
YouTube caption explains the track, "Van Halen's third singer was actually Mitch Malloy in 1996. Mitch asked the band to not disclose this. It was later discovered and incorrectly documented and after more than a decade of silence forced Mitch into correcting the record. This song was written by Mitch Malloy and Eddie Van Halen. It's Mitch Malloy in Van Halen. It's not an official release and it's not for sale. It's a gift, from Mitch."
In the comments section Malloy expands, "I should be able to benefit from the art I worked my entire life to perfect. What person doesn't get promoted for their accomplishments? In America that's how it's supposed to work. Instead of being celebrated as Van Halen's first choice to replace Sam I'm left with sticking up for myself. It's not right and it's not fair to me. And I'm kinda pissed. Anyone else would not have had handled this as well as I have. Ed told me that last time I saw him. I just wish in the end he'd told the press the truth. So I don't have to. I wish no one knew to be honest. But since they do they should be able to hear the result. You're welcome."
He added in another post, "Well the music for III he presented me was ahh.. Not inspiring enough for me to even make songs out of. But we had wicked chemistry as you can hear. So we would have grown into a bad as writing team for sure. I'm extremely melodic as you can hear as this is his music but all my melody and lyric so really 75% my song. I would have encouraged some of his heavy side but you never know. Of course the riffs and chords came from him. He was a master of that. I would have tried to take a nod from Dave as well as I LOVE the first few records. Obviously I was never gonna sound like Dave though but thats ok too. It would have been great I'm sure of it.. Of course not everyone would have thought so. But we would have."
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