Alex Van Halen has unveiled the full six-minute version of “Unfinished,” the final song that the drummer wrote and recorded with his late brother, guitarist Eddie Van Halen. The instrumental track comes one day ahead of the release of Alex’s memoir, Brothers (pre-order here).
Eddie’s guitar playing is heard throughout “Unfinished,” with his virtuosity truly shining during a solo that comes at the 4:35 mark of the track. The song provides part of the soundtrack to the audiobook version of Brothers, which is narrated by Alex.
While “Unfinished” may have been the last song the brothers wrote and recorded together, Alex recently told Billboard that there is more unheard Eddie Van Halen material in the archives.
“I’m not in a hurry,” Alex said of unveiling any further unreleased material. “I do have a certain obligation to keep it to Ed’s standards. He was meticulous and he was a pain in the ass… 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. We didn’t go in the studio like, ‘Yeah, we’re gonna make a record from beginning to end.’ We had little pieces here, little pieces there, you put ’em away until the time comes and you go, ‘Hey, I think I like that piece…’ and then go back to it and build something from there.”
Alex told Rolling Stone that he that he’s even reached out to OpenAI to build some of Eddie’s unreleased material into full songs, adding he’d love Robert Plant sing over the music. “You’re gonna think I’m out of my fucking mind,” Alex said. “But when conditions are right, things will manifest.”
The full “Unfinished” track can be downloaded from Van-Halen.com, or heard in the player below. Alex Van Halen’s memoir Brothers is available via Amazon.