Van Halen drummer Alex Van Halen had previously hinted that he was working on an album with Toto guitarist Steve Lukather. While many fans speculated as to what that would actually entail, the legendary drummer has revealed the details for the project in a new interview with Brazil’s Kazagastão.
Alex said: “Ed and I had a lot of stuff that we made, that we made musically that we never let go. Many people have asked, what about releasing unreleased stuff? Well, we’re not gonna release it in its embryonic form because it wouldn’t make any sense. But I’ve been fortunate enough to have Steve Lukather, who was a good friend of Ed’s, and we’re working on putting a record together, but it has to be of the quality and the level of where we left it. Not just to say, ‘Hey, here’s some music that we made. If you like it, that’s great.’ No. It has to be the quality that we expect.”
He continued: “These are recordings that were going to be the next Van Halen record, and that were stopped because Ed didn’t live that long… The drums are already recorded. The drums, the guitar and the bass are already in there. What we didn’t have is a vocalist, and obviously the subtleties and the glue — we call it the glue or the spackle.”
When asked if he plans to add vocal tracks to the recordings Alex said: “We originally had plans to — I think I can probably say without talking outta school, one of the singers who we really, really, really wanted to use for the new stuff was Paul Rodgers, and he has a relationship with Luke and we grew up on Free and all that, but Paul can’t do it anymore. And it was very difficult for him to bring himself to say, ‘No, I can’t. Count me out.’ I respect that. I’m saddened and disappointed, but you know, that’s life… He knows he can’t do it — which I think is better than saying, ‘Yeah, I can do it,’ and then not be able to do it.”
Alex did go on to say, however, that he and Lukather “are looking for somebody right now” but don’t have anyone specifically pegged down for the gig. “If you ask record executives, you’re gonna get one way of looking at it. If you listen to, I call it the peanut gallery, you’re gonna get something else. Music is not so much about music as it is about people having a shared experience. I’m 72. We gotta find somebody in that age group who was exposed to the same musical experience that we have. Otherwise, it doesn’t have the depth. I can’t remember what the expression is, but there’s a difference between knowledge and wisdom. Knowledge is knowing that a cucumber is a vegetable. Wisdom is knowing where to put it.”
