Charlie Sheen Interview: Slash, Ozzy, Van Halen + More — A Look Back at a Rock and Roll Life

"There's really no other life I can imagine — and I'm super grateful for everything."

It was a very special edition of Loudwire Nights on Tuesday (Nov. 18) as Charlie Sheen joined the radio show to celebrate his recently-released memoir, The Book of Sheen.

Listen to the full conversation and watch the interview in the players near the end of this article.

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"I have to take the good with the bad," Sheen told Loudwire Nights' Chuck Armstrong about how he views his life and his approach to writing The Book of Sheen.

"I didn't shy away from a lot of the things that happened or why they happened because when I set out to do this thing, I made a conscious decision that there are going to be no victims in my book, myself included."

Sheen said he didn't want his memoir to be a "woe is me" story and that he had no interest in pointing fingers.

"That would have been kind of a waste of time," he admitted.

"It wouldn't have been authentic. I think what's kind of cool is just the ownership ... One of the themes in the book is that it's really all about choices."

Charlie Sheen's Friendship With Slash

While the basis of the conversation with Sheen was about his memoir, it didn't take long for him and Chuck to get into his love of rock and roll and his many friendships with artists and musicians, including Slash.

"We met the first time, gosh, would have been like in '90...at the Hamburger Hamlet on Sunset and Doheny," he recalled.

"He was there with his first wife and I was with a dude named Dead Rick — he wasn't called that before he died but since he died, he's been known as Dead Rick."

The second time that Sheen met Slash was with Bret Michaels from Poison at a club in Los Angeles.

"This was the first time I actually got to sit with Slash at a table, have a few drinks, just pick his brain about some stuff that I've been mesmerized by for several years," he said.

"I mean, where do you start with Slash when you want to discuss Appetite? I mean, what is the intro question so you don't sound like a total dorky fanboy but you just want to tell the guy what the music has meant to you?"

Though Sheen doesn't remember that first question he asked Slash, it's clear the hang grew into a legitimate friendship as Sheen later was a significant part of the ceremony when Slash received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

And, as Sheen shared, he also had the chance to introduce Slash at a show in Ireland.

"I stalker chased him to Ireland for a Conspirators show and they asked me to introduce the band at this big ancient royal hall that they were in," he said.

In addition to the stage announcement, Sheen had asked the band to play a song that Myles Kennedy — whom Sheen professed his fandom for on Loudwire Nights — didn't normally sing.

"Myles had 10 hours, jet lagged out of his mind, to learn that song and...Slash comes up to the mic and he goes, 'This is for Carlos,' and they played the song. It was incredible."

When Charlie Sheen Met Ozzy Osbourne

At one point in the chat, Chuck put some pieces together connecting Sheen to the life of Ozzy Osbourne. Unbeknownst to Sheen, Ozzy's "Secret Loser" from 1986's The Ultimate Sin was part of a movie he was in that came out the same year, The Wraith.

Decades later, The Osbournes premiered on television not long before Two and a Half Men made its debut. To Chuck at least, it seemed as though Sheen and Ozzy's paths ran parallel to one another — but according to Sheen, those paths only crossed once.

"We met in rehab," Sheen shared.

"We met at Promises. I was cycling out. They do this thing, they talk you into this sober living thing where you're still paying them, but you're on your own and it's — whatever."

Sheen said he was only going to rehab a few hours a day to check in for court-related things.

"Ozzy had just come in," he recalled.

"So, we did have a few meals together, went to a few meetings together."

There was one thing that struck Sheen as odd when he first ran into Ozzy, something he'll never forget.

"He was chewing a peppermint stick," Sheen said.

"I'm like, 'What is that? What, are you cleaning your teeth?' And he says, 'No, I've quit smoking.' And I'm like, 'Well, how long did you smoke?' And he was like, 'I don't know, 1,000 years?' And so I said, 'So you're going to take on getting rid of the dope, getting rid of the booze and you're getting rid of cigarettes?' And he was like, 'I'm here. I might as well just unload it all at the same time.'"

As Sheen shared that memory, he also emphasized the importance of The Osbournes and what it meant for the future of reality television.

"That was the first time we really felt like we were kind of living with that family," he explained.

"We felt like it was happening to us. We felt like we were part of it."

Unfortunately, Sheen said he and Ozzy did not stay in touch after their interactions in rehab.

"What I tell people, if I see you on the campus, great. If I don't, then safe travels."

What Else Did Charlie Sheen Discuss on Loudwire Nights?

What it was like working with Eddie Van Halen for an episode of Two and a Half Men: "During the table read for that episode, he made a change in one of the lines of dialogue. You're not supposed to do that in that kind of environment — especially on that show. His change was brilliant. The alternate that he added was brilliant ... It's the thing where I'm constipated and he's at the studio. Did you ever see that episode? He comes out of the bathroom and I think his line is, 'Two burritos and a root beer float,' or something like that. That might even be the title of the episode. And then he plays that amazing lead, just shredding, and I'm two feet from him. I mean, can you get a better, private, short concert with Van Halen anywhere? Ever? And they did five takes of it. I'm like, 'Are you sure we don't need a sixth?'"
How he resonates with Robert Johnson's legend of making a deal with the devil for fame in rock and roll: "You don't really know in the moment that's the contract you've agreed to. That's only revealed a little bit down the road when suddenly the things that keep you sane or that make you comfortable or content or happy are not, are no longer prioritized ... Then it's like when you've crossed over from being hungry, just wanting to really get out there and do your thing, suddenly you become a commodity, you know?"
That one time he bought his own tour bus and then sold it to Tim Montana: "I got the idea that I would go to the [Prevost] factory in Eugene, Ore., and design my own [tour bus]. I showed up there hammered, like on a frickin' 12-day bender. And I was seeing this porn star at the time. I'm like, 'Hey, I've got to go design a bus ... So we jump on the plane, we get there. She nodded off in the meeting with the head guys of the company, talking about what I was looking for. We kind of had to go, 'Wake up, sweetie' ... Then I get this call months later, 'Hey, your bus is ready.' Now I've got a clear mind and this thing pulls up and I walk inside and I'm like, 'Whose idea was this?' I had to get reacquainted with the choices I made from Jupiter back on Earth."

We covered many other topics, too, including his new non-alcoholic beer, Wild AF Brewing, how he ended up directing a music video for Tim Montana, what it was like having Sean Penn join him on Two and a Half Men and much, much more. Make sure to check out our full conversation with Charlie Sheen.