Lost Mitch Malloy Van Halen demo unveiled

An unreleased demo recorded by Mitch Malloy with Van Halen has been made available by the singer online.

Malloy, who auditioned for the band in 1996 after Sammy Hagar left, says the track is called It’s The Right Time – and features the Van Halen brothers with bassist Michael Anthony.

The 54-year-old had recorded a few songs in 5150 studios with Eddie, Alex and Michael before manager Ray Danniels decided that Extreme frontman Gary Cherone would front the band.

Malloy says: “After an amazing time in LA, which included Ed saying, ‘Congratulations, you’re in the band,’ I’m leaving and he hands me a tape of an instrumental of the band and says, ‘Turn this into a song.’

“Well, I did write that song, but never shared it with anyone out of respect for the band. But, 20 long years later, I decided that with the challenging times the world is having, It’s the Right Time to share that uplifting song.

He adds: “Fans have wondered what I would sound like with Van Halen, now you will know. I hope you dig it.”

Former TeamRock news desk member Christina joined our team in late 2015, and although her time working on online rock news was fairly brief, she made a huge impact by contributing close to 1500 stories. Christina also interviewed artists including Deftones frontman Chino Moreno and worked at the Download festival. In late 2016, Christina left rock journalism to pursue a career in current affairs. In 2021, she was named Local Weekly Feature Writer of the Year at the Scottish Press Awards.