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Alex Van Halen has revealed the singer he hopes might sing on unreleased and unfinished Van Halen music, saying: “Ideally, it’d be Robert Plant.”
Drummer Alex Van Halen, 71, formed the band with his guitarist brother Eddie Van Halen in 1972. Two years later they added bassist Michael Anthony and singer David Lee Roth to the group and went on to become one of the most successful rock bands of the late 1970s and 1980s.
Eddie Van Halen drew particular praise and became widely recognized as one of the most skilled and celebrated guitarists of all time. He died in 2020 at the age of 65 after being diagnosed with throat cancer.
In a new interview with Rolling Stone, Alex Van Halen revealed that there is a large amount of unreleased music in the Van Halen vaults, but very little of it is finished.
“They’re all little pieces,” said the drummer. “A bunch of licks don’t make a song.”
Van Halen went on to say that he’s approached OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, to see if they could analyze “the patterns of how Edward would have played something” in order to generate new guitar solos.
Elsewhere in the interview, Van Halen outlined how a proposed 2022 tour, which would have featured guitarist Joe Satriani, fell apart over David Lee Roth’s refusal to dedicate part of the show to a tribute to Eddie.
As a result of the rift with Roth, Van Halen said he hopes to recruit former Led Zeppelin frontman Plant to sing on any new music, despite the fact the pair haven’t spoken since 1993. “Ideally, it’d be Robert Plant,” he said. “You’re gonna think I’m out of my f***ing mind, but when conditions are right, things will manifest.”
Van Halen also said he wants to produce a biopic about his band’s rise to fame, although fans shouldn’t expect to see it in cinemas too soon. “It’s just a long-term plan,” he said. “I mean, to put things in perspective, the Queen movie took 30 years to make.”
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“Anyone peddling this s*** is not only hurting the fans, but hurting me and my family,” he added.
