VAN HALEN Is Putting Together A New Album, Says MARK TREMONTI

It's been pretty quiet on the VAN HALEN front lately but we've now found out why – they're working on a new album. ALTER BRIDGE guitarist Mark Tremonti broke the news when he was telling VH1 Radio Network's Dave Basner about how new music is coming along with his solo band, TREMONTI, which includes VAN HALEN bassist Wolfgang Van Halen.

Said Mark: "With Wolfgang in the band now, he does a lot of work with VAN HALEN right now, they're putting together a new album, so it's going to be hard to get everybody's schedules to line up."

When VH1 Radio Network asked Tremonti if Wolfie tells him how the new VAN HALEN music is sounding, Mark said: "You know, he doesn't. He just says, 'Yeah, sounds great, man. Sounds great.'"

After singer David Lee Roth said in an interview last summer that VAN HALEN has started work on its 13th studio album, the next question was whether the material will be freshly written or pulled from the band's vaults. Many of the songs on 2012's "A Different Kind Of Truth" originated from demos going back to the group's earliest days, and Wolfgang Van Halen told The Pulse Of Radio that there's more where that came from. "There's plenty of other ideas lying around and some new stuff that we've been working on too," he said. "You never know what'll happen."

According to The Pulse Of Radio, Roth told comedian Jim Florentine back in August: "I was up at [guitarist] Edward's [Van Halen] house three days ago, and we're starting to put music together. We're writing; I write lyrics routinely and the band plays together routinely, at least three times a week up at Ed's place."

But Roth also cautioned that fans should not expect to hear the finished follow-up to 2012's "A Different Kind Of Truth" for at least 18 months.

"A Different Kind Of Truth" was the first new VAN HALEN album in 14 years and the first since 1984 to feature Roth, the band's original singer, on lead vocals.

The disc debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard album chart, selling 187,000 copies in its first week of release.

The group toured through the spring and early part of the summer of 2012 behind the album, but abruptly pulled off the road that June due to "exhaustion." A severe intestinal disorder later sidelined Eddie Van Halen, restricting the band to only sporadic live shows since.