***** Eddie Van Halen Repository Thread *****

[TLO]

Have some Eddie Van Halen news? Don't feel like positing in the dudes death thread for the 500th time? Well this thread is for you!

[rabblerouser]

Originally Posted by alpha_omega

I try to keep it going.



Funny, eh?

HIGHlarious.

Even funnier that people think I'm ever really upset...like, read everything in that stoned syrupy drawl with a Missouri accent and it all makes sense

[alpha_omega]

Wolf Van Halen Says 'Van Hagar' Doesn't Get 'Any Respect': 'Just Give It a Chance'

Wolfgang Van Halen noted how the Van Halen era featuring Sammy Hagar "doesn't get any respect", urging naysayers to give it a shot instead of rehashing the "exhausting 'this singer is better, this singer is better' crap."

There was undeniable magic in Van Halen's original glory run with David Lee Roth, and it rightly remains cemented in music history as one of the most exciting rock outfits of the '80s. And while the split with Roth proved to be so polarizing that people argue about it even to this day, the ensuing Van Hagar stuff was at least on par with what came before in terms of musicianship.

During a recent appearance on the Oklahoma City radio station KATT, Eddie Van Halen's son Wolf discussed the Sammy Hagar-era reissues, in particular, the upcoming limited vinyl release of "Live: Right Here, Right Now". He said (via Guitar):

"That era [of Van Halen] doesn’t get any respect, I don't think.

"And there's a lot of amazing songs and just obviously brilliant guitar playing on a lot of that — on all of that stuff — and I think people don't give it a chance 'cause they fall into that just exhausting 'this singer is better, this singer is better' crap, when it's, like, just give it a chance. There's some really good stuff in there."
Wolf also spoke about his own involvement in the reissues and in Van Halen business in general, saying:

"[Alex Van Halen] is, obviously, he's the head honcho when it comes to making the decisions. Obviously, I default to him on anything that he thinks is the right thing to do.

"But when it comes to decision-making or at least just kind of helping out, yeah, I am that sort of what would have been my dad's vote for stuff there with Al. So Al and I are kind of that team. But, all in all, he's the guy."

"Live: Right Here, Right Now" will be available on April 22nd at select independent music retailers. The run is limited to 7,500 copies printed on 180-gram translucent red vinyl.








https://www.ultimate-guitar.com/news..._a_chance.html

[alpha_omega]

EDDIE VAN HALEN's 'Hot For Teacher' Guitar Could Fetch Between $2 Million And $3 Million At Auction

The guitar Eddie Van Halen used in the music video for VAN HALEN's "Hot For Teacher" is going up for auction at Sotheby's.



The custom-made Kramer axe has a minimum bid of $1.8 million, and is valued at between two and three million dollars.

According to Sotheby's, stage-used and -filmed guitar was custom made by Paul Unkert of Kramer Guitars for Eddie Van Halen, including important innovations customized for Eddie's evolving guitar technique. It served as one of Eddie Van Halen's primary guitars in 1983 and 1984. The guitar was gifted by Eddie Van Halen to the band's retiring drum tech Gregg Emerson around 1990. Emerson subsequently gave the guitar to his nephew, who sold the guitar to Neal's Music in Huntington Beach, California. Neal's Music then sold the instrument to its current owner.

The guitar comes with a letter of provenance by Unkert, a signed photograph from Eddie Van Halen, its original case with tour and Warner Brothers tags, and the strait jacket and white gloves worn by Van Halen in the video.

Unkert's accompanying letter details the guitar's history: "The 'Hot For Teacher' Van Halen [guitar] was built by me at the Kramer Green Grove Road Plant in Neptune, NJ around 1982-1985/ #CO176. Look for 'Unk' stamps on Neck and Body. It was my last project for Ed and Kramer."

https://blabbermouth.net/news/eddie-...ion-at-auction

[alpha_omega]

Make that 3.9!

Eddie Van Halen's 'Hot For Teacher' Guitar Sells at Auction for Over $3.9 Million

Spoiler!

If you want to shred like Van Halen, you might have to wait for the next auction.

Eddie Van Halen's original guitar from the 1984 "Hot for Teacher" music video was sold at auction on Tuesday, bringing in an impressive $3,932,000.

The auction on Sotheby's website billed the instrument as "one of the most iconic guitars of the MTV era as played by the most influential guitarist of his generation," which makes sense given the hefty final price tag!

The iconic custom Kramer guitar had a minimum bid of $1.8 million, with its value estimated to be somewhere between $2 and $3 million.

The red and white guitar clearly has a bit of wear after being used by one of the greats, and is described by the auction site as having a "poplar double-cut 'Strat' style body, the top routed for a single double-coil Seymour Duncan humbucker pickup, volume control, Floyd Rose bridge with whammy bar, unvarnished 22 fret maple bolt-on neck (stamped 'UNK' on heel) with Kramer sticker on headstock."

"The legendary 'Hot for Teacher' stage used and filmed guitar, custom made by Paul Unkert of Kramer Guitars for Eddie Van Halen, including important innovations customized for Eddie's evolving guitar technique," the listing reads.

Put together at Kramer Green Grove Road Plant in Neptune, NJ around 1982-1985, the guitar was also used by Van Halen on stage, and of course, joined him in the "Hot For Teacher" visual — directed by Pete Angelus and David Lee Roth.

The winning bidder also took home the guitar's original case with tour and Warner Brothers tags, and straight jacket and white gloves worn by Van Halen in the video.

https://people.com/music/eddie-van-h...ns-at-auction/

[alpha_omega]

The Eddie Van Halen I knew, by Gene Simmons

Spoiler!

"When I was told that Eddie Van Halen had died, it hit me like a punch in the face. He was such a kind and beautiful soul, a genuinely nice person. He was so non-judgmental. It’s impossible to think of him without remembering that ever-present smile of his, or the way that his fingers always flew across the guitar.

“He made it all look so effortless, but that’s absolutely the last thing it was. And it’s strange to think that Eddie began as the drummer of Van Halen. His brother Alex was the guitarist until they swapped instruments. Ed had been a classically trained pianist which is why none of the other rockers could touch his musicality.

“I first met Eddie on the night that I saw Van Halen playing at the Starwood, a small club in Hollywood, in 1976.I’ve been credited as the man that discovered Van Halen. No, I didn’t. I did no such thing. I just happened to be there and witness their greatness at what was still a very early stage.

“I saw them that night and was left incredulous. I stood at the front of the stage and couldn’t believe my eyes and ears. This was one man making all of these sounds with his bare human hands? Everybody in the band was singing and playing live and Eddie was a complete guitar symphony in his own right. In those early days Ed would sometimes stand with his back to the audiences because he didn’t want to give his tracks away. But even if you saw how he played those licks, how could you possibly emulate them?

“So I signed the band to my production company, Man Of 1,000 Faces, flew them to New York and produced a demo for them at Electric Lady Studios. If you Google the words ‘Gene Simmons Van Halen demo’ you can hear the song that I consider to be Edward’s defining moment. Not to be confused with the re-make from the album 1984, the version of House Of Pain they recorded with me is the most powerful thing they ever did. It erupts from zero to 60mph in a second. Play it loud; it’s like a steamroller over your face and the band performed it completely live in the studio."

“But despite the quality of those tracks that we recorded together, I could not get interest from my manager at the time, Bill Aucoin, who has since passed away. Paul Stanley wasn’t interested either, and of course Ace Frehley and Peter Criss had bigger thing on their minds, they were too busy making bad decisions about life.

“I had wanted to take Van Halen under the wings of Kiss. We should have signed them and taken them out on tour with us. Sadly, nobody else in our organisation saw it and of course months later Warner Brothers came by and scooped them up. And by the time Kiss went out on tour again they had taken The Kinks’ You Really Got Me and made it into something that Ray Davies could never have imagined. They became superstars. And when that happened I was able to go back to my own band and say: ‘I told you so, you morons’.

“But the songwriting was just as important as the music, and David Lee Roth deserves his share of credit. Nevertheless, possibly due to Roth’s swagger and acrobatics onstage, Van Halen’s songs are often overlooked. That’s a shame as at their absolute peak nobody could touch them. When they went out on tour with Black Sabbath in 1978, Van Halen destroyed that band. Tony Iommi admitted it, and so did Ozzy."

“What really intrigued me about Van Halen was that they came out of nowhere, it seemed like they had no lineage. The big lips and blues-laden songs meant that you could trace the relationship between Aerosmith and the Stones, but to this day I’ve no clue where Van Halen came from. Edward has talked about being a fan of Clapton. I’m sorry, I don’t see that. Where other guitarists were inspired by B.B. King or Albert King, Edward was playing majors and minors and flat-thirds. What he did was closer to classical music.

“My friendship with him is something that I will always treasure. In the beginning we saw one another a lot, but less so as the years passed by. Our final meeting was in Los Angeles, we bumped into each other on Sunset Boulevard. He was already deeply affected by cancer. I had read that he blamed his condition on using a metal guitar pick, putting it in his mouth. In my view that wasn’t the case. Ed smoked all the time.

“All the same, when I heard that familiar voice calling my name on the street – ‘Hey, Gene!’ – I wasn’t sure what to say. His condition was wellknown at that point. He brought it up at the start of the conversation: ‘Hey, man, how you doing? I’ve got cancer’. I was embarrassed and wanted to reach out and hug him, but standing there on the street with a cigarette in his hand he opened his mouth and smiled: ‘Check this out’, inviting me to look at the space where his upper palette should have been. He just shrugged: ‘I’ve got this disease, watcha gonna do? I’ll see you around’. It was typical Ed; happy-go-lucky.

“Those that had the honour of having met Eddie Van Halen will know that he never said a bad word about others. Eddie didn’t bad-mouth rival bands. He conducted himself with a shrug of the shoulders. He reminded me of Charlie Chaplin; at the end of a movie he could be left with nothing, tattered and torn, and he’d walk off down the road with nonchalance.

“That part of his character was always a bitchslap to me, with my big ego. I’m full of myself and I love the sound of my own voice. Spending time in the presence of Edward made me think: ‘I should probably stop this’. You know, give up the airs and stupid stuff and just concentrate on being a human being.

“Eddie was all about the music, not just the chicks or the rock‘n’roll lifestyle. That’s something I always admired about him. He was a lover of life. Whenever you met him he smiled from ear to ear.

“As much as his death was upsetting, it also made me a little furious that so many of our so-called ‘younger generation’ remain unaware of his talents. For ****’s sake, parents should be slapping mobile phones out of their kids’ hands and telling them to check out this guy. Our millennials need to know about the most important musician since Jimi Hendrix. There will never be another like him."

Gene Simmons was speaking with Dave Ling.

https://www.loudersound.com/features...y-gene-simmons

[alpha_omega]

EXCLUSIVE: Alex Van Halen's new memoir, 'Brothers,' due Oct. 22, will tell the story behind one of the closest family partnerships in rock.

"We shared a record player, an 800-square-foot house, a mom and dad, and a work ethic."

More: https://t.co/HUKzN0Z7Xd pic.twitter.com/9s5qOWfi0d

— Rolling Stone (@RollingStone) February 29, 2024

[alpha_omega]

Auction link here....
https://www.backstageauctions.com/ca...hts/ac/0/2245/

Story below....


ALEX VAN HALEN’S INSTRUMENTS, AND GEAR, TO BE AUCTIONED OFF NEXT MONTH

Backstage Auctions, Inc. has announced The Alex Van Halen Collection, the auction house’s most anticipated and historical auction event of the year featuring the personal collection of legendary Van Halen drummer Alex Van Halen.

Backstage Auctions says, “It is an unbelievable honor to represent one of the greatest rock drummers of all time and we could not be any more excited. Alex is the reason why so many people picked up a pair of drumsticks and this auction is a fantastic opportunity to see so many of his instruments and gear go to new homes. All of these pieces have a thick layer of magic ‘Al‘ dust and we can only hope that it will bring boundless joy and thrills to their future owners.”

The collection features over 350 lots, with a wide array of memorabilia, such as drum kits, snare drums, kick drums, road cases, drumheads, cymbals, gongs, sticks and mallets, personal items, record awards, autographed pieces and so much more. The auction is definitely one of those once-in-a-lifetime opportunities for fans and collectors to own a piece of van halen history. Each lot sold will come with a personally signed certificate of authenticity from Alex, which is a collectible in itself.

Alex says, “I always have pursued the best possible sound, which drove me every single day, every single album, and every single tour to be on top of my game. I hope that passing on all these pieces will inspire current and next generations to be the best they can be. Now, let’s have some fun — Van Halen style.”

Each piece featured in the auction is essentially a highlight item, but among the standouts is the legendary 5150 tour kit, the 2015 tour kit (and the last kit Alex ever used in concert),his personal collection of vintage RIAA(Recording Industry Association Of America) record awards, the exceptionally rare rosewood snare drums that helped define his signature sound, the eye-catching and iconic gongs, a kick drum from the early backyard party days, and even a piano from the Van Halen family home.

The auction is a celebration of a 40-year career that saw Van Halen sell nearly 100 million albums worldwide, making them one of the best-selling groups in the history of music. Alex Van Halen‘s place in the pantheon of rock ‘n’ roll drummers is legendary. The incredible body of work that he created alongside his brother Eddie is memorialized in Van Halen‘s historic catalog of genre-defining music.

“I kept all these drums, cymbals, heads, and all other kinds of gear, instruments, and road cases in my warehouse for decades and it will bring me great pleasure to see them end up in the hands of my fans and fellow drummers,” says Alex. “A portion of the proceeds will go to the Ride On Therapeutic Horsemanship charity to further support the services they provide to those in need.”

Alex and his wife have been longtime supporters of Ride On Therapeutic Horsemanship. The organization’s mission is to promote the welfare of at-risk youth and people with any type of physical, intellectual or cognitive disability by means of equine-assisted activities and therapies, and by providing instruction and education for all in equestrian-related social, vocational and recreational activities.

The auction will open up for bidding on June 1st and close on June 9th.

https://eddietrunk.com/alex-van-hale...ff-next-month/

[EPodolak]

Some EVH studio footage just posted on YT, rumor is it won't be up long.

https://youtu.be/GkAWbBsoi_g?si=bwtUWkDNu58UUnV0

[Stewie]

This is great. Could have better camera work.

Wolfie looks to be pretty young. Maybe 15.

I'm assuming Alex is playing on the other side of the mixing board.

I like just before Hot for Teacher, Eddie says to Alex, "Do your best Buddy Rich." Paraphrasing.

I like one of the comments:

"My dad is President of the United States."
Wolfie: "Pffft. My dad's Eddie Van Halen."

Just finished the whole video. Outstanding!

I hope it stays on YT for a while. I know people will really enjoy it.

Play through decent speakers.
.

[alpha_omega]

Originally Posted by EPodolak

Some EVH studio footage just posted on YT, rumor is it won't be up long.

https://youtu.be/GkAWbBsoi_g?si=bwtUWkDNu58UUnV0

Rumor is true. Gone. Damn!

[InChiefsHeaven]

Aaaand it's gone. Shit.

[alpha_omega]

Joe Satriani fears Eddie Van Halen will haunt him for what he’s done to his Frankenstein design

The hotly anticipated Best Of All Worlds tour is right around the corner, and Joe Satriani has given fans a closer look at some of the wild mods he’s made to an EVH Frankenstein electric guitar he'll be playing during the shows.

However, he’s worried about what the consequences of gutting the guitar will be, as he jokes: “It's my own mod on Frankenstein – Eddie's gonna come back and kill me!”

The upcoming tour will find Satch step into the sizable shoes of his hero Eddie Van Halen, as he performs both Hagar- and Roth-era Van Halen hits alongside Sammy Hagar, Michael Anthony, and Jason Bonham.

Satriani has been taking no shortcuts in his preparation for the tour, but in one of his most interesting revelations yet, he's revealed there’s nothing particularly special about the particular Frankenstein replica that acted as his blank canvas.

It is, in fact, a standard, off-the-shelf EVH Striped Series Frankenstein (circa $1,500) from Bananas At Large, and not some million-dollar one-off. Although he does add, with a wry smile, it will be worth a million dollars after the tour.

The virtuoso has already showcased another modded EVH guitar on his Instagram, and like that white-and-black Stripes Series, this too has a Sustainiac in the bridge.

Eddie was known for his experimentation with the Fernandes Sustainer pickups. However, those mods were typically made to his Peavey Wolfgang models rather than his Frankenstein, so it's interesting to see how Satch has accommodated both sounds in his tireless tone quest.

“I added a Sustainiac, a clear pickguard, [and] I removed the stuff that doesn't do anything,” he tells YouTuber Jeremy White.

“I also added a kill switch,” he goes on, confirming our suspicions concerning one extra mystery button that could be found on his other mod. It will be fascinating to hear how he uses it.

Satriani has credited “master luthier Gary Brawer” for the work. He also adds that, despite his ghostly Van Halen concerns, his modifications were made in the spirit of his idol.

“[Eddie] was a tinkerer and an inventor and thank god,” he says. “It sounds really good, [it’s a] fun guitar.”

With final tour preparations now well underway, the true extent of Satriani's gear tampering has been revealed.

Satch has already confirmed he's working with 3rd Power Amps for a custom-made tube amp to nail Eddie's 1986 guitar tone. Recently released rehearsal footage has also shown that his trusty Ibanez signature guitars will also play a part on the tour, alongside his EVH models.

In one of the more obscure ways to learn valuable information, he's also revealed how slipping up while playing Mean Street on Howard Stern taught him a lesson about Eddie's guitar tone.





https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/...155528335.html

[alpha_omega]

Book out tomorrow. Most under the spoiler for massive length for those who care.

‘If I Start Throwing Dirt, It’ll Never End’: Alex Van Halen on Why He Didn’t Want His ‘Brothers’ Book to Be a Tell-All

"Before I die I would like to at least partially set the record straight."

Alex Van Halen hopes that those coming to his new memoir, Brothers, for a tell-all will be disappointed.

“It’s not about the dirt,” Van Halen, older brother and bandmate of the late Eddie Van Halen, tells Billboard. “If I start throwing dirt, it’ll never end. I think some people would like that; that’s how projects are sold nowadays. I think it divides the audience, and we’re not here to divide. I think the tone of the book and how I want the book to be perceived is more on a spiritual and creative level. That’s why there’s very little, or any, dirt in there.

“The majority of things that were written about Ed were third party,” he continues. “They weren’t really there. I’m not degrading any of it, but it’s not accurate. I really felt like a lot of the stuff that was out there was incorrect, and it didn’t do justice to the more sensitive side of Ed. So before I die I would like to at least partially set the record straight.”

Spoiler!

Brothers, publishing Oct. 22 and written with New Yorker staff writer Ariel Levy, acknowledges the sex and drugs and rock n’ roll. But as the title indicates it’s primarily a chronicle of the drummer’s relationship with his guitar hero brother, who passed way during Oct. 2020 at the age of 65 after a long battle with cancer. The tome is undeniably emotional, with some passages written directly to his late brother. Van Halen acknowledges that the process “really took its toll on me.”

“You have to remember we were together for 65 years; that’s a lifetime, if not more,” explains Van Halen, who was born in Amsterdam and came to the United States with his family in 1962, eventually settling in Pasadena, Calif., where the Van Halen band was formed in 1974. “(Brothers) not only forced me to look at everything Ed and I had done in our lifetime, but also — and I should thank Ed for this — it forced me to look at me. What are my motivations? Why am I really doing this? Who does anybody do this? It took me a lot of places…very heavy.”

Throughout Brothers’ 231 pages, Van Halen discloses the tight bond between him and Eddie, personally and musically — and presents the connection between those two as one and the same thing. Van Halen offers a detailed account of the entire family dynamics, too, from the influence of their father, Jan, a jazz musician, and their more strict Dutch East Indies-born mother Eugenia, and the impact of immigrating to America and being treated as outsiders. The passion for music came early and was a constant, of course, and one can read in Brothers a kind of mission on Van Halen’s part to offer a more expansive and sophisticated view of his brother’s talents.

“There was more going on than most people recognize or realize, and it’s not our job to ‘teach’ people,” explains Van Halen, who also makes use in the book of a variety of other sources, including published interviews with his brother, books by original frontman David Lee Roth and producer Ted Templeman, and philosophers such as Friedrich Nietzsche. The brothers, who first learned to play piano, actually started out on each other’s instruments before switching as teenagers. “When Ed picked (the guitar) up he could make it sing. It was amazing. That sound, that intonation was phenomenal. You couldn’t express it in words. Everybody gets blinded by the fact Ed was such a phenomenal player (that) you’re not even understanding who the human being was. Maybe people don’t care, but I care. He’s my brother.”

Brothers of a Band
Writing about Van Halen the rock band in Brothers, Van Halen says that “me, Ed and Dave were very subversive in the way we looked at music and the political system and the way we looked at people in general…The band was dysfunctional. It was completely running on three wheels, if you will. I think Ed was quoted as saying ‘but we always played well,’ and that was ultimately what kept it together until it was no longer together. It was a very sad moment when that whole thing fell apart.” Van Halen, in fact, writes in Brothers that Van Halen’s 1985 split with Roth “was the most disappointing thing I’d experienced in my life, the thing that seemed the most wasteful and unjust. Until I lost my brother.”

Despite the acknowledged rancor with Roth over the years – and blaming Roth for the failure of a planned Eddie Van Halen tribute tour — Van Halen maintains that “I’m not angry at all with Dave. He was one of the three main components of the band. At the time we didn’t recognize it because we were constantly battling things out. That’s why I mentioned (in the book) that the first person I called when Ed died was Dave because I felt like I owed him that, to the work we had done together and the fact that our families knew each other and the fact that everybody was sort of on the same level, if you will, when we first started. I don’t know where things went wrong…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.”

Other than his brother’s death, Van Halen chose to stop the story with the Roth split, leaving out subsequent runs with Sammy Hagar and Gary Cherone and even the reunion with Roth that started in 2007. (Roth and Hagar both wrote memoirs after their respective tenures with the band.) Van Halen cites “limitations to how big the book could be” but also says it the scope of the narrative made sense to him.

“What happened after Dave left is not the same band,” Van Halen explains. “I’m not saying it was better or worse or any of that. The fact is Ed and I did our best work whenever we played. We always gave it our best shot. But the magic was in the first years, when we didn’t know what we were doing, when we were willing to try anything.” Not surprisingly, Van Halen was not responsive, either, when Hagar and bassist Michael Anthony reached out about him taking part in some way in their Best of All Worlds tour celebrating Van Halen.

“I’m not interested,” he says. “They’re not doing the band justice. They can do what they want to do. That’s not my business.”

Everybody Wants Some
Van Halen does add, however, that his auction of drum equipment and other items in June “was misinterpreted” and simply clearing out a warehouse of gear that wasn’t being used.

“I’m not quitting. I don’t know where that came from,” Van Halen says. “I’ll die with sticks in my hand.” Spinal issues he’s been battling for decades are still present, he adds, including a recent injury during a trip to a shooting range in 2022. “But with modern technology we have now I should be OK in about five years,” he says.

Despite rumors of what the Van Halens were up to between the last tour with Roth (in 2015) and Eddie’s death, Alex maintains there was little to report. “We never really talked about it,” he says. “We prefer that things just happen by some kind of magic. The issue was Ed had been dealing with cancer for quite a number of years, and some of the stuff that he was doing out of the normal procedures, if you will, had side effects. Some of the stuff that was being said about Ed was completely wrong, and it was painful…. He was fighting cancer. It’s as simple as that.”

Fans are certainly excited about the presence of a new instrumental track, “Unfinished,” that’s part of the audio version of Brothers. It hails from a trove of ideas the brothers recorded at Eddie’s 5150 studio and stashed away, and Alex anticipates releasing more of that material “when it feels right.”

“I’m not in a hurry,” he says. “I do have a certain obligation to keep it to Ed’s standards. He was meticulous and he was a pain in the ass…and I need to have access to the right takes, ’cause not every day did we play at our best. But we always had the tape recorders running. We didn’t go in the studio like, ‘Yeah, we’re gonna make a record from beginning to end.’ We had little pieces here, little pieces there, you put ’em away until the time comes and you go, ‘Hey, I think I like that piece…’ and then go back to it and build something from there.” He told Rolling Stone that he’s approached OpenAI about using its technology to help turn some of the material into songs.

“I know people want to hear it,” Van Halen adds, before cautioning that, “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.” He says that for future releases he’s also “looking forward to getting some people involved…other musicians and producers. You have to have the right team, because not everybody can do everything. So we’ll see.”

For the time being Van Halen is focused on promoting Brothers, which he’d also like to turn into a movie — though he notes that, “I learned a long time ago not to put your hope in things that don’t exist yet. I know people who would be willing to participate, but it’s a very complex fabric of things that need to happen.” Meanwhile Van Halen has three book events lined up — signings at Barnes & Noble in New York on Oct. 21 and at Books & Greetings in Northvale, N.J., the following day, and a live conversation on Oct. 24 at the Frost Auditorium in Culver City, Calif.

“People can ask whatever they like — that’s their prerogative,” Van Halen says. “It’s my prerogative to answer. Or not answer.”

One thing Van Halen will make clear, however, is that his brother is still a strong presence in his life.

“He’s not gone for me,” Van Halen says, citing the “island voodoo” of their mother’s upbringing and the Spooky Action at a Distance concept of quantum physics. “He’s still there. 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.

“I really had a tough time when Ed passed — full of rage, for a number of reasons. I heard this thing by Billy Bob Thornton; he just said basically when his brother died he didn’t know how to deal with it, and he basically said that you’re not running away from the fact that you’re not together anymore. You accept it for what it is and then the pain will slowly diminish, but it’ll never go away. That’s why i said (in the book), ‘When I see you again, I’m gonna kick yo’ ass…’”

https://www.billboard.com/music/rock...ew-1235804745/

[alpha_omega]