While Alex Van Halen did explore a possible tribute tour to his late brother Eddie and their band, Van Halen, his nephew and Eddie’s son Wolfgang tells AllMusic.com he doesn’t know what his plans are.
“I’m sure he does [want to play music again]. But in the same respect of my feelings of not wanting to play the [Van Halen] material because I only wanted to play with my dad, I know he feels the same way. So, I really don’t know. He’s a very private guy. We still talk all the time, but in terms of playing anything, I don’t know if he really has that desire as long as my dad’s not here.”
And in an interview with Classic Rock magazine, Wolfgang reveals that while Van Halen’s last album, 2012’s A Different Kind of Truth, was mostly a collection of reworkings of old demos, they did write one new song, but it was never recorded.
“I remember the way we knew how to work with Dave [Lee Roth]. Al, Dad and I were working on a song at the time [before the album]. We’d come up with something in the moment when we were jamming and it was really cool — we called it ‘Ain’t Talkin’ ’Bout Panama’ as a joke, because it had a vibe of both of those songs put together — [‘Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love’ and ‘Panama’].
“We told the producer we were working with at the time, ‘When Dave comes to sing tonight, whatever you do, do not tell him that we wrote this. When we’re together tomorrow, we can come to him together and act, like, ‘Hey listen to this…’
“But he didn’t listen to us. He told Dave. ‘Hey, check this out…’ And Dave was, like, [abruptly] ‘No, not doing it. We were, like, ‘If you’d listened to us, it could have been another cool song on the album.’ The relationship between Van Halen and their singers was always complicated.”
Wolfgang, who was in Van Halen from 2007 to ’15. will release a new album, Mammoth II, this Friday.
Meanwhile, Roth has posted two videos on his socials of himself in a tunnel with women and armed soldiers with country duo Big & Rich providing the soundtrack with their 2005 song “Comin’ to Your City.”
No word if Roth plans to tour.
In 2020, he canceled his Las Vegas residency after announcing he was planning to retire after the residency.
While he hasn’t toured since, he has done at least one private show.
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