But yesterday (December 8) a little known singer named Mitch Malloy released a demo to YouTube that he claims features the Van Halen brothers and Michael Anthony backing him up, after they'd invited him to join the band. He's just one of a handful of singers who almost joined the band. Here's a list of some of the men and women who almost took up the mic for VH.

Patty Smyth of Scandal - The singer most famous for "Goodbye To You," "The Warrior" and the Don Henley duet "Sometimes Love Just Ain't Enough" was originally invited by Ed Van Halen to replace David Lee Roth. As she said in an interview last year, "Eddie asked me to join Van Halen. 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. It was a long time ago; I never bring it up, but people do ask me about it and there's no reason to deny it." Part of her reasoning for not joining was because she had just gotten pregnant, she didn't want to move to California and the Van Halen guys were partying too hard for her tastes.

Sass Jordan - Blues rock singer Sass Jordan was apparently jamming with the Van Halen brothers at their studio for a while after Sammy Hagar left the band but before they hired Gary Cherone, although Ed Van Halen has denied this. In a 1998 interview with Wall of Sound (via VHLinks) she said, "I went over [to their studio], and the two of them were playing me new stuff that they were working on. We hung out for about a month. Ed would leave me in the studio and say, 'Can you just sing something over this particular piece of music? I'm going to listen to you. You sing whatever you want, and I'll be back.' And I'd say, 'I can't sing by myself!' I can't say if any of it ended up on the record because I don't remember well enough. Anyway, I didn't come up with anything brilliant, because I have to be sitting there writing with the person to do it well. A couple of weeks later I was talking to their manager Ray Danniels and I said, 'I swear to God, I think they were thinking of having a female singer in the band.' And he said, 'Of course they were! Why the hell else do you think you were up there?'"