ALEX VAN HALEN On VAN HALEN: 'We Did Our Best Work With DAVID LEE ROTH'

In a new interview with Gastão Moreira of Brazil's Kazagastão, VAN HALEN drummer Alex Van Halen was once again asked why he made the decision to end his "Brothers" book in 1984 and not cover any of the band's later years, including those with Sammy Hagar. He responded (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "Well, I can only answer it one way, that was the publisher never mentioned it. They said this is the meat of the story. Yeah, there was good music made and all that, but the essence and the spirit and the balls to the wall was the first model. And that's nothing to do with other than everybody has a peak in their life. I don't care what anybody says, because it's simply not true. Just because you sell more of anything doesn't make you better or more creative. It's just you learn how to sell more [laughs], like BIC lighters. So it was not meant to be anything other than he wasn't there during that time period. And if somebody really wants to, that'll be the next book. [Laughs]"

After Moreira noted that he personally prefers the David Lee Roth era of VAN HALEN over the Hagar era, Alex said: "There's one thing to remember, and that was, this book, it was selfish, if you will. It was my way of putting all these open-ended things to bed. My brother [legendary VAN HALEN guitarist Eddie Van Halen] died [as] he tried to create more stuff. He didn't have to do it. I don't know whatever reason prompted him to do it, but he died trying to go further. And this is not just about playing more hits, about more Number One records. That stuff is gonna fade. We're glad that we had them. I don't wanna lay on my deathbed and look up and go, 'Man, Ed, I wish we should've done this,' because you can't take it with you. We did our best work with Dave."

Asked if he thinks VAN HALEN was a unique band, Alex said: "I think it was an interesting collection of different influences. Because of the exposure from my dad, who we worked with, and the different kind of musical tastes. And the fact that Dave is a very restless kind of guy. He couldn't settle on one thing for one day. The next day he's on something else, which some people might think is a negative. And it is, if it's left alone by itself to fester and become something that it shouldn't. In my personal opinion, if you see what happened when he went solo, that was it. You need conflict. You need open space. You need contradiction. You need friction. Without friction, you got no heat. Without heat, you got nothing. I can't think of the rest of the lyrics. [Laughs] But, no, a creative environment is an extremely different, difficult kind of a thing to foster and to keep in check and keep it balanced. Now, you don't want it completely balanced because then it becomes inert, then it becomes predictable, it becomes another record. And we were very concerned about ending up doing the same thing over and over again. The real question comes, are you doing something new just to be new or because you're hearing something different? And you have to be honest with yourself. Yeah, we could have cranked out more records, more Number One records, whatever, but that wasn't the point. And sometimes you make mistakes. Ed and I, we made some really bad choices."

Alex previously talked about his decision to exclude the Hagar years from "Brothers" in a December 2024 interview with Bringing It Back To The Beatles. He said at the time: "[The Hagar era wasn't included] because the original band was the band that was the driving force. That was the connection between the disparate parts of the musical world, if you will. And we were young. The first record going platinum — it's incredible. That's something you can really never expect to happen again. Later on, it was different — that's for another book — but the excitement and the confusion and the groping in the dark, if you will, and all the mistakes that we made, and all the B.S. we had to endure, and then to recognize at the very end, maybe we had one more record in us, it was very… You can't take it back, but those are the things that are in the back of your head. The old expression of, if you don't go over the edge, then you can't come back. You have to go too far to come back in. Does that make sense? Unfortunately, we're human and we made some bad choices. The US Festival, for instance, was just a clusterfuck. Nobody knew what the hell was going on. All we said was, 'You make sure you have enough power, and we'll play.' That's it."

When the interviewer noted that this attitude is "true rock and roll," Alex concurred. "Bingo. That's exactly right," he said. "You just hit the nail on the head. After that, that's why the book ends in 1984, because that was true rock and roll. After that, it became much more — I don't know; I can't explain it. But it's not to say that it was not any good. We always did our best at whatever we were doing, but it wasn't the same."

He added earlier in the interview: "I think I picked up where Ed left off in terms of saying… His example was that we were actually happier playing in clubs than we were when we hit the so-called big time, because in the clubs you weren't quite sure what you were doing, you could, at the drop of a hat, change directions, you can play anything you want and there's nobody that holds you accountable or they have expectations of any sort. You just go on and you play. And it's intimate. You're right there, two feet away. People are right there in front of your face. And that kind of goes away when you get to the place where you have five lines of security people. And we always kept it to a minimum, but nonetheless, that was the soup du jour."

In October 2024, Alex gave a slightly different answer to USA Today when asked about his decision to end the book when VAN HALEN's original singer David Lee Roth first quit the band more than 40 years ago.

"For me, the spirit of the band ended in 1984," Alex said. "We did good work after that, but the primary spiritual aspect, the magic, the potential, the looking to the future together, all of that stuff, our mutually strange backgrounds — that's what made VAN HALEN. Ed and I were outsiders. Dave was an outsider. Those kinds of intangible things make the fabric of how we were tied together."

Asked about his current relationship with David, Alex said: "I think Dave is laying low right now. I don't know his mental state in terms of how he's dealing with all of this.

"I was taught early on that the music field isn't about the notes and things, it's about relationships and what we all had [in VAN HALEN] was deeply entangled.

"I don't hold [Roth leaving VAN HALEN] against him. We're not here to hold you prisoner. But it was very telling how the dynamic of certain entities got warped by the people around him.

"Dave was in the middle of [huge success] where he wasn't thinking clearly, and he would admit that now. That's the reason I called him first [after Ed died] — only to find out that 23 years changes people."

Asked if that means that the conversation didn't go as expected, Alex said: "He's the not the same guy. But if he called me right now, I would answer the phone. It's about human dignity and respect."

"Brothers" ignores Sammy Hagar's stint with VAN HALEN, as well as that of EXTREME vocalist Gary Cherone, and even VAN HALEN's reunion with Roth that started in 2007.

"What happened after Dave left is not the same band," Alex told Billboard. "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."

Alex also explained his refusal to participate in the "The Best Of All Worlds" that focused largely on the music of VAN HALEN. The trek featured Hagar and former VAN HALEN bassist Michael Anthony, along with guitarist Joe Satriani and drummer Jason Bonham.

The 2024 tour came more than two years after Satriani revealed that he was approached about participating in a VAN HALEN tribute show with Alex and David Lee Roth. That project never got off the ground, reportedly because Roth was "holding up" getting everything approved.

In the Billboard interview, Alex said about why he was not responsive when Hagar and Anthony reached out about him taking part in some way in "The Best Of All Worlds": "I'm not interested. They're not doing the band justice. They can do what they want to do. That's not my business."

In a separate interview with Rolling Stone, Alex didn't even utter Hagar's name. "The heart and the soul and the creativity and the magic was Dave, Ed, Mike and me," he said. In the book, his only acknowledgment of the "Van Hagar" era reportedly came in the line, "We had a lot of other singers over the years."

Hagar mended his relationship with Eddie Van Halen months prior to the legendary VAN HALEN guitarist's October 2020 passing.

Hagar replaced Roth in VAN HALEN in 1985 and recorded four studio albums with the band — "5150", "OU812", "For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge" and "Balance" — all of which topped the U.S. chart.

Sammy, Eddie, Alex and Mike last teamed up in 2004 for a U.S. summer tour. In exchange for taking part in the tour, Anthony reportedly had to agree to take a pay cut and sign away his rights to the band name and logo.