The audiobook version of Alex Van Halen’s upcoming memoir will feature a previously unreleased song he wrote with Eddie Van Halen.
Alex's book, due on October 22 via Harper Collins, takes a mammoth 240-page retrospective look at his life and career. The accompanying track, named Unfinished, will be shared as part of the audiobook package. It is the last song the pair worked on before Eddie’s passing in 2020, and it will be heard as Alex tells his story.
Going off its title, it’s unclear how rough or polished the track will be, but as the book vies to provide an unprecedented insight into the brother’s relationship and the Van Halen story, so too will the work-in-progress track that carries much significance in its riffs and rhythms.
According to the Van Halen website the book – titled Brothers – is an “intimate and open account” of their relationship, and is “nothing like any rock-and-roll memoir you’ve ever read”.
Alex Van Halen has teamed up with The New Yorker writer and essayist Ariel Levy to pen the account, with much of it written amid his mourning.
It charts their cross-continental upbringing, first in the Netherlands and then in working-class Pasadena, California, through to the “musical politics, infighting, and bad boy behavior” that iced life in the band.
“I was with him from day one,” Alex writes. “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 mom and dad, and a work ethic.
“Later, we shared the back of a tour bus, alcoholism, the experience of becoming famous, of becoming fathers and uncles, and of spending more hours in the studio than I’ve spent doing anything else in this life. We shared a depth of understanding that most people can only hope to achieve in a lifetime.”
The statement on the Van Halen website goes on to say the book is the most accurate account of the Van Halen brothers and their world-conquering band, with Alex Van Halen wanting to set the record straight on Eddie’s life and death.
Alex has previously addressed the inaccuracy of other written accounts on the band's history, once saying to Modern Drummer (via Rolling Stone) they are written by people who “know nothing about the inner workings of the band”.
The book currently has a list price of $32, with a 720-minute audiobook and an eBook version also set to be made available. Never-before-seen photos, lifted from the drummer’s personal archive, have also been included.
Head to Van Halen to learn more and pre-order the book.
In related news, there were hopes that the drummer would play a part in Sammy Hagar’s Best of All Worlds tour, which finds Joe Satriani stepping into play Eddie Van Halen’s electric guitar parts. However, Alex looks to be closing the door on his playing days, recently putting his gear up for sale on Reverb.
