Final Alex and Eddie Van Halen song to premiere on AVH memoir audiobook
Alex Van Halen will release the last song he worked on with his brother Eddie as an extra in the audiobook version of his upcoming memoir, titled “Brothers.”
The book “Brothers” will be released on October 22nd and Alex himself narrates the audio version. The new track, simply titled “Unfinished,” is, according to Harper Collins, the last piece of music the brothers wrote together before Eddie died in 2020 at the age of 65.
And that seems to be it as far as Alex Van Halen and music are concerned. The 71-year-old drummer recently caused a stir when it was announced that he would be auctioning off his entire collection of drums and music equipment. Not least among his former bandmates.
“We contacted him a dozen times,” Sammy Hagar said in an interview with Ultimate Classic Rock. “Email, text, phone call, voicemail… No response. I mean, we made every offer to meet up or just talk or have breakfast, lunch or dinner together. Go to the studio and play. Come to my house or I’ll come to your house. Let’s just do something. Let’s get together. And nothing.”
“I texted him on his birthday this month and haven’t heard from him since,” the group’s bassist Michael Anthony said in a recent interview with Ultimate Guitar.
“I was pretty surprised when I heard about this auction… It looks like he’s selling everything, right down to his last drumstick. I know he’s still grieving Eddie’s death to this day. And basically Eddie was the only person he ever made music with.”
Anthony said he was looking forward to reading Brothers. Harper Collins described the book as “unlike any rock ‘n’ roll memoir you’ve ever read” and as Van Halen’s “personal story of family, friendship, music and brotherly love… (It’s his) love letter to his younger brother Edward (maybe ‘Ed’, but never ‘Eddie’), written while still mourning his untimely death.”
“I was with him from day one,” Alex writes in an excerpt from Brothers: “We shared the experience of coming to this country and figuring out how to fit in. We shared a record player, an 800-square-foot house, a mother and father, and a work ethic… We shared a depth of understanding that most people can only hope to achieve in their entire lives.”
Van Halen said of the memoir: “This is my tribute to my brother; my way of saying goodbye. Ed, I love you and I miss you. When I see you again, I’m going to kick your ass!”
