According to Alex Van Halen, there are “three or four” albums’ worth of unheard Eddie Van Halen music currently sitting in the vaults.
The plan, he said recently on the Talk Is Jericho podcast, is to sift through the material carefully to see what’s worthy of release and what isn’t.
“On the one end of the spectrum is the fact that little licks don’t make a song,” he said. “On the other end of the spectrum, some of those licks are so unbelievably powerful, it’s too bad that they ended up in the back of the vault, rather than being records.”
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Alex Van Halen emphasized that even though there’s a wealth of music, he is setting a high standard for it and won’t be releasing just anything.
“They will stay there [in the vault] until we figure out how and why and what to do with them,” he explained. “And again, you have to remember, it has to be on the level of where Ed and I, where we used to play. We’re not just gonna shovel it in. We have access to some of the greatest musicians on the planet, and a lot of ’em are more than willing to take a chance on some of the stuff.”
But, as he said, “that takes time. And you wanna do it right. I wanna do it right.”
Alex and Eddie Van Halen’s ‘Unfinished’
In October, Alex Van Halen released the last song he wrote with his brother before his death, titled “Unfinished.”
Also in October, the drummer noted to Billboard that the unreleased Van Halen music may not be everyone’s cup of tea.
“I know people want to hear it,” he said, “the other side of the coin is this doesn’t sound like Van Halen. You’re damned if you do, damned if you don’t.”
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Gallery Credit: Matthew Wilkening
