Alex Van Halen said David Lee Roth used to tell Eddie Van Halen to play fewer guitar solos.
The drummer asserted that Roth’s increasing jealousy over Eddie’s popularity led to the singer quitting the band in 1985.
“He couldn’t handle the fact that Eddie was getting more attention than he was,” Alex wrote in his memoir, Brothers. “He kept asking Eddie to play fewer guitar solos. Dave was convinced he was going to be a movie star.”
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As previously reported, Alex described Roth’s departure as a “wasteful” moment, saying it had been “the most disappointing thing I’d experienced in my life” up until Eddie’s death in 2020.
He explained that he’d ended his book with the end of the original Van Halen lineup because it marked the collapse of a specific form of energy. “I don’t know where things went wrong,” he reflected. “I have nothing but the utmost respect for Dave and his work ethic. I just think some of his choices were really strange to me, but that’s not my job to figure it out.”
Alex Van Halen Hopes for ‘Brothers’ Movie
Regardless of Roth’s movie-star hopes, Alex recently told Billboard that he’d like to see Brothers become a film. “I learned a long time ago not to put your hope in things that don’t exist yet,” he said. “I know people who would be willing to participate, but it’s a very complex fabric of things that need to happen.”
And he repeated that, as far as he was concerned, Eddie wasn’t gone and never would be. “His spirit’s here, and it’s not something you can grab or touch. There’s something between us that’s just connected on a level that is beyond explanation.
“Scientists will tell you that you cannot destroy energy – it just takes different shapes, and that’s kind of how it is for me with Ed.”
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