Alex Van Halen's book, Brothers, will be published Tuesday, October 22nd, and he's starting to do interviews.
The first was in July with Rolling Stone, and in it, he revealed that he and his late brother were in talks to form a band with Ozzy Osbourne, and that he turned to Queen's Brian May about how to continue without a key bandmember.
They reached out to Sharon Osbourne in 2001 about Ozzy joining them. Alex says, “When you get a dog, you don’t expect it to be a cat. When you get an Ozzy, you get Ozzy. Play the music, he’ll sing, and it’s gonna be great.” However, just before they were to start working together, the Osbournes took a meeting with MTV and their reality show was born.
Ozzy confirms the story, saying, “Yes, we were discussing it. 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.”
The brothers also jammed with Chris Cornell, but obviously nothing materialized.
The planned tour with Alex, David Lee Roth and possibly Joe Satriani and Michael Anthony was more than just talk as Alex, Dave and two members of Roth's band -- "seat fillers" -- started rehearsing. But, it all came crashing down after Alex had several phone conversations with Brian May about how Queen were able to move forward without Freddie Mercury. Alex says, “The thing that broke the camel’s back, and I can be honest about this now, 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 popped a fuse. The vitriol that came out was unbelievable...
“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... It’s not you alone anymore.”
Despite their differences, Alex and Roth still speak, and he has no regrets about the plans for that proposed tour falling through. “It’s too bad on one hand, but it’s fine on the other. 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."
And another reason why it didn't happen was Alex had an accident at a shooting range in 2022. “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.”
As for Eddie's death in 2020, Alex says the cancer metastasized to his brain, and he died after suffering a massive stroke.
In addition to the book, which ends in 1984, Alex is also in talks to have a bio-pic made about the band -- having loved Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody.
There is music in the vaults, but no complete songs. “They’re all little pieces. A bunch of licks don’t make a song.”
To see if anything can come of them, he's reached out to OpenAI to see if there is a possibility of analyzing “the patterns of how Edward would have played something” so that they could help generate new guitar solos. And should songs be generated, he knows who he wants to sing them. “Ideally, it’d be Robert Plant. You're gonna think I’m out of my mind, but when conditions are right, things will manifest.”
Alex will make his first public appearances since Eddie's death on October 6th, 2020 when he does in-store signing events at Barnes & Noble on Fifth Avenue in New York at noon on October 21st, followed by Books & Greetings in Northvale, New Jersey at 6 p.m. on the 22nd.
Then on October 24th he'll be back in Los Angeles for Live Talks LA at the Frost Auditorium in Culver City.
Check out his original posts about it here , and also in the below video, from Alex's official Instagram page.