Alex Van Halen has broken his silence.
In a new Rolling Stone interview with Brian Hiatt (with additional reporting by Kory Grow), Alex opened up about the loss of his brother Edward, his current health, the failed post-Edward tour with David Lee Roth, unreleased Van Halen music, a possible Van Halen biopic, and much more.
Below is a breakdown of Alex’s comments in the article, which you can read in its entirety HERE:
The Aftermath Of Edward’s Death
Alex said he experienced “oceanic grief”, which left him with a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder. “I shut down,” said Alex. “I was yelling and screaming. I was beside myself.”
Current Health
Alex hasn’t been able to play drums for the past couple of years due to a spinal injury but has recently been able to hit practice pads again. He’s also able to walk again thanks to an experimental stem-cell therapy from a doctor. “Had you seen me six months ago, you’d go, man, I’m in sad shape.” Alex had been experiencing signs of back problems but his spine finally gave out in 2022 while at a shooting range with friends. “The rifle kicked me on my ass and broke my back, instantly. And then I spent a year on the floor. Just staring at the ceiling. We became best friends.”
On Sobriety
Alex first quit drinking in 1986 after the death of his father Jan Van Halen. Edward made an unsuccessful attempt at sobriety around the same time. Alex added that he has spent the entire 21st century sober thanks in big part to finding stability with his wife of 24 years, Stine, an artist, and equestrian. “There is a part of me that’s common sense,” Alex said. “If this is going to fuck me up, why would I do that?… Common sense was not Ed’s strong point.”
The Failed Post-Eddie Tour
Rumors of a planned Edward Van Halen tribute tour with Alex and David Lee Roth were true. Alex and Roth began early rehearsals for that tour, with two musicians from Roth’s solo band serving as “seat fillers.” The idea was to eventually bring in Joe Satriani on guitar, and maybe even original bassist Michael Anthony, who hadn’t played with Van Halen since 2004, after which Alex and Eddie replaced him with Eddie’s then-teenage son, Wolfgang Van Halen. But in those early rehearsals, Alex started feeling numbness, peripheral neuropathy, especially in his feet.
But even if Alex were able to perform, the planned tour came to a screeching halt. After several phone conversations with Queen’s Brian May, Alex was inspired to properly pay tribute to Edward. “The thing that broke the camel’s back, and I can be honest about this now,” Alex said, “was I said, ‘Dave, at some point, we have to have a very overt — not a bowing — but an acknowledgment of Ed in the gig. If you look at how Queen does it, they show old footage.’ And the moment I said we gotta acknowledge Ed, Dave fuckin’ popped a fuse…. The vitriol that came out was unbelievable.”
Alex stated Roth simply refused to pay tribute to his brother, finding the very idea offensive, for reasons he can’t comprehend. “I’m from the street,” he said. “‘You talk to me like that, motherfucker, I’m gonna beat your fucking brains out. You got it?’ And I mean that. And that’s how it ended. It’s just, my God. It’s like I didn’t know him anymore. I have nothing but the utmost respect for his work ethic and all that. But, Dave, you gotta work as a community, motherfucker. It’s not you alone anymore.” Rolling Stone said Roth declined to comment.
Sammy Who?
Rolling Stone stated Alex wouldn’t even utter Sammy Hagar’s name during the interview. “The heart and the soul and the creativity and the magic was Dave, Ed, Mike, and me,” said Alex, who later lamented the end of the original era of Van Halen. “It was the most disappointing thing I’d experienced in my life, the thing that seemed most wasteful and unjust. Until I lost my brother.”
How Edward’s “Beat It” Solo Led To The Breakup
Alex felt Eddie took a major step toward the destruction of the band in 1982 when he agreed to play the guitar solo on Michael Jackson’s “Beat It,” which, in turn, led Roth to pursue his own solo ventures. Alex told Eddie not to do it and would have preferred to have Jackson guest on a Van Halen album. “Why would you lend your talents to Michael Jackson? I just don’t fucking get it,” he said. “And the funny part was that Ed fibbed his way out of it by saying, ‘Oh, who knows that kid anyway?’ You made the mistake! Fess up. Don’t add insult to injury by acting stupid.”
An Ozzy Fronted Van Halen?
Sometime around 2001, Alex and Edward approached Ozzy Osbourne’s wife and manager, Sharon Osbourne, and worked out a plan for an Ozzy-fronted Van Halen album. Right before they were set to start work, the Osbournes took a meeting with MTV, and their reality show happened instead. Ozzy Osbourne confirmed the story in an e-mail to Rolling Stone: “Yes, we were discussing it,” he wrote. “It is something that if it had come to fruition, would have been phenomenal. Eddie and Alex were great friends of mine for a very long time and it’s a regret of mine that we never got it together. The Osbournes got in the way of creating new music at that time, unfortunately.”
Jamming With Chris Cornell
Alex couldn’t recall exactly when but said he once had a jam session with Chris Cornell and considered him for the role of Van Halen singer. “Chris was in a very fragile part of his life, so to speak,” he said. “I got behind the drums, and he started playing bass. We played for 45 minutes. This motherfucker got so into it he started bleeding. I said, ‘This is the man you want.’ And then he died.”
Edward Just Wanted Approval
Around 2006, Edward came to Alex with a side project he was working on. “My wife and I were sitting there, and I’m looking at it — ‘What’s this shit,’ right?” Alex recalled. “And he goes, ‘See? Little brother can do something after all.’ Had I been more receptive to the fact that all he wanted was approval I would have said, ‘That is the greatest fucking thing I’ve ever seen.’ But at the time, I was more thinking, ‘Ed, what are you talking about? What more could you want? You already have the…. You are the king of the…’ You know, it just didn’t make sense to me. And now, when I think about it, it makes me want to cry.”
Edward’s Talent Was A Gift And A Curse
Alex is convinced the drugs and alcohol Edward used to deal with his insecurities ultimately helped cancer take his life. “To have all that talent was probably the biggest curse he ever carried,” said Alex. “The fact was that Ed was an incredible player, but in the end he paid for it with his health, paid for it with his life.”
Unreleased Music
Alex said there’s tons of unreleased music in the Van Halen vaults, but very few finished songs, and even fewer with vocals. “They’re all little pieces,” he said. “A bunch of licks don’t make a song.” But he said there is a group of songs that he would like to find a way to release, though he warns it could take years. He’s reached out to OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, about the possibility of analyzing “the patterns of how Edward would have played something” so that they could help generate new guitar solos. And he has a singer in mind for this material. “Ideally, it’d be Robert Plant,” he said, though he hasn’t talked to the former Led Zeppelin frontman since 1993. “You’re gonna think I’m out of my fucking mind,” Alex added. “But when conditions are right, things will manifest.”
A Van Halen Biopic?
Alex said he’s working on a Van Halen biopic but says we shouldn’t hold our breath. “It’s just a long-term plan,” he said. “I mean, to put things in perspective, the Queen movie took 30 years to make.”
Praise For Wolfgang
Due to the pandemic, there was no funeral after Edward passed. Not even a memorial event. “It was a very unceremonious thing,” Alex said. Eddie was cremated, and Wolfgang took possession of his ashes. “I gotta say that Wolf did a phenomenal job in handling all that shit. It was way more than any young man should have ever been in charge of.”
Brothers is due October 22nd and available at the Van Halen Store. Fans who order direct from Van Halen Store will receive our Exclusive Photo Print Collection (pictured above) of the young Van Halen brothers!