Alex Van Halen, brother of Eddie Van Halen and co-founder of the famed rock band Van Halen, has just released a full, six-minute recording of the song “Unfinished”. The track is the very last song that Alex and Eddie recorded together before Eddie’s death in 2020.
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The instrumental recording was released yesterday ahead of the release of Alex’s much-anticipated memoir, Brothers. Alex also used the song as part of the background music for the audiobook version of his memoir, which he also narrates.
For Van Halen fans, this track might be a real heartbreaker. One can hear Eddie playing the guitar throughout the track with as much energy and talent as he did in his younger years. Around the four-and-a-half-minute mark, Eddie bursts into a solo that sounds straight out of Van Halen’s earlier albums.
Where To Listen to Alex and Eddie Van Halen’s Final Recording
Fans can download the song via Van Halen’s website. The track has also been uploaded to YouTube for immediate streaming as well.
“Unfinished” is the final song the two rock star brothers worked on together, but Alex has also noted that there is even more unreleased and unheard material in the archives, waiting to be released. Alex is in no hurry to do so, though.
“I do have a certain obligation to keep it to Ed’s standards,” Alex told Billboard recently. “He was meticulous and he was a pain in the a**… and I need to have access to the right takes, ’cause not every day did we play at our best. But we always had the tape recorders running.”
Surprisingly, Alex is also open to the use of AI to bring some of Eddie Van Halen’s unreleased and unfinished works to life. In a recent Rolling Stone interview, Alex discussed his openness to using artificial intelligence like OpenAI to finish some of Eddie’s unreleased material and noted that he would like if Robert Plant (of Led Zeppelin) provided the foundational vocals.
“You’re gonna think I’m out of my f***ing mind,” Alex told Rolling Stone. “But when conditions are right, things will manifest.”
Alex isn’t the only musician to see the appeal of using AI to bring unfinished work to life. Country star Randy Travis released some new music this year with the assistance of AI. Travis suffered from a stroke several years ago that left him unable to sing. But with AI, he was able to provide vocal tracks to his mixes.
Photo by David Tan/Shinko Music/Getty Images
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