Alex Van Halen has shared the full six-minute version of ‘Unfinished,’ the last song he wrote and recorded with his late brother, Eddie Van Halen. The instrumental track highlights Eddie’s guitar work, with a solo at the 4:35 mark. The song is also part of the audiobook for Alex’s new memoir Brothers. The drummer himself narrates the audiobook.
Alex told Billboard that there is more unreleased Eddie Van Halen material but said he wants to release it carefully.”I’m not in a hurry. I do have a certain obligation to keep it to Ed’s standards,” the drummer explained. “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 added.
In an interview with Rolling Stone, Alex also mentioned reaching out to OpenAI to help complete some of Eddie’s unreleased music. He even said he would like Robert Plant to sing on some of the tracks, adding, “You’re gonna think I’m out of my f*cking mind. But when conditions are right, things will manifest.”
The full ‘Unfinished’ track is available for download on Van-Halen.com, and Alex’s memoir ‘Brothers’ can be purchased on Amazon.