Alex Van Halen has given his first public interview since the death of his brother Eddie Van Halen, and the drummer revealed some shocking revelations regarding a proposed Van Halen reunion tour that never came to fruition.
Alex spoke to Rolling Stone ahead of the release of his memoir Brothers on October 22nd, opening up about myriad topics, including the nixed reunion tour and the bizarre reason why the plans came to a halt.
Rumors of the tour that had circulated since Eddie’s passing were largely true. According to the Rolling Stone article, Roth and Alex had even begun rehearsing for the tour with members of DLR’s solo band, with plans to fill out the lineup with former Van Halen bassist Michael Anthony and Joe Satriani on lead guitar, in Eddie’s place.
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At the time of these rehearsals, Alex had already begun feeling numbness in his feet, symptomatic of peripheral neuropathy. And while he questioned whether he would be healthy enough to pull off the tour, it was actually David Lee Roth — and his refusal to pay homage to Eddie Van Halen during the reunion shows — who ultimately caused the tour to fall through, according to Alex.
As Alex tells it in the interview, he had been in conversation with Queen’s Brian May about how to properly pay tribute to his late brother during the reunion shows, as Queen did with Freddie Mercury. When Alex expressed this idea to Roth, the singer — for whatever reason — was furious at the suggestion.
“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.”
In turn, Alex was angry and dumbfounded that DLR would take such offense at honoring his brother.
“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.”
He continued: “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.”
According Rolling Stone, Roth has declined to comment.
“It’s too bad on one hand, but it’s fine on the other,” Alex Van Halen said of the aborted tour, adding that he has no regrets. “Because now, in retrospect, playing the old songs is not really paying tribute to anybody. That’s just like a jukebox, in my opinion.… To find a replacement for Ed? It’s just not the same.”
Instead, one of Van Halen’s other frontmen, Sammy Hagar, picked up that torch, touring Van Halen material with Joe Satriani and Michael Anthony, the same guitar/bass lineup as the proposed tour with DLR.
Meanwhile, Alex Van Halen refused to acknowledge Hagar in the Rolling Stone interview and in his new memoir.
“The heart and the soul and the creativity and the magic was Dave, Ed, Mike, and me,” Alex said, while his book simply states: “We had a lot of other singers over the years” — the only apparent reference to the Van Hagar years.
