According to Alex Van Halen, the only people who really understood Van Halen’s creative mechanics were he and his brother, Eddie.
“All these people are writing books about the band and they don’t know anything about the inner workings of the band,” explained Alex in an interview with Modern drummer, conducted in August 2020 and recently published as part of the Modern Drummer Legends Vol. 2 – Alex Van Halen book. “And Ed and I don’t say anything because we’re not in the bullshit business on the internet and books and all that crap. We just want to play. It’s that simple.”
Despite enjoying his status as one of the greatest bands on the planet, Van Halen has been notoriously shy with the media in recent years, only giving interviews on rare occasions. While this privacy helped build the group’s mystique, it also allowed strangers to make assumptions about Van Halen that, according to Alex, were often false.
“Anyone who thinks they know how the band operates, maybe even including Dave [frontman David Lee Roth], were not 100 percent there all the time, ”Alex explained, noting that even his other bandmates were not completely aware of the work being done by the Van Halen brothers.
“Ed and I are the only ones there day and night. When they leave, Ed and I go back to work on the shit. Or Ed, Wolf [Eddie’s son, Wolfgang] and I go back and work on it. And ‘working’ sometimes just means playing it, or Ed finishing a piece. So when we go into the studio to actually record it, and there is friction, it’s easy to say, ‘The brothers are fighting again.’ “
This “friction” often served as fodder for the tabloids, with writers regularly speculating about cracks inside Van Halen. While the band definitely had its share of real turbulence, Alex insists that he and Eddie have always been on solid ground.
“Being in a band is no different than any other territorial dispute. Everyone is trying to claim a certain piece of territory. The real solution is to play together, to play as a unit. You are much stronger like that ”, explained the drummer. “The conflict is good up to a point. Conflict causes friction, it causes heat, but once it reaches a certain point, it is useless. “
Even in the months after Eddie’s death, Alex remained largely out of the media spotlight. While other former Van Halen bandmates – including Roth, Wolfgang, Sammy Hagar and Michael Anthony – gave interviews since Eddie’s death, Alex issued only one quote, a message delivered to the Van Halen News Desk that said, “Hey, Ed. Love you. See you on the other side. Your brother, Al. “