Earlier this month, Alex Van Halen revealed the details of a project he’s working on with Toto guitarist Steve Lukather to bring unreleased Van Halen material to light. “Ed and I had a lot of stuff that we made, that we made musically that we never let go,” he said. “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.”
Alex said they had hoped Free/Bad Company singer Paul Rodgers could be a part of the project on vocals, but Rodgers’ health will keep him from participating.
Former Van Halen singer Sammy Hagar and bassist Michael Anthony were asked about their thoughts on the project. “We haven’t been asked, number one,” Hagar told Rock of Nations. “I can tell you, the day I walked in the studio, in 5150, to basically, if you wanna call it an audition, but to meet the guys and to play music, we played for about eight hours at least. And we recorded everything. Everything that I ever did, and every time we made a record, we recorded hundreds of hours of jam and music, and then we cut ’em up, made songs. That’s the way we did it. So there’s so much stuff from Mike and I and Ed and Al in the studio.”
“Like I said, just the initial day that I went in there, we got ‘Summer Nights’, we got ‘Good Enough’ and the beginnings of ‘Get Up’ from ‘5150’ — three songs that came from that eight-hour jam. And I remember there was a blues thing we did, and I was making up lyrics. So there’s so much stuff that Al could really choose from, if he wanted to include Mike and I.”
Hagar continued: “But, obviously, Al’s got a reason, and he’s Alex Van Halen; he can do whatever he wants. And, to me, it’s an Alex Van Halen project, and it’s not necessarily a Van Halen project, but I guess we’ll see if it ever sees the light today. But I’m disappointed that Mike and I wouldn’t be invited. It’s, like, what? Are you kidding me? We’re still alive. We’re out here doing it. We’re playing those songs. We can still do it, you know?”
Anthony added: “Yeah. If this is material that we jammed on or whatever, I’d have no problem coming in and singing or [playing bass] or whatever. It’s all good there.”
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