All There Is with Anderson Cooper - Remembering Eddie Van Halen

Episode Date: December 4, 2024

Before they co-founded one of the most successful rock bands in history, Alex and Eddie Van Halen were two kid brothers with a love of music. In an emotional, and musically rich interview, Alex talks about Eddie’s life and death and the communication he feels he still has with him. Alex also plays some of the unreleased music they were working on before his brother’s death in 2020. Visit the All There Is online grief community at cnn.com/allthereisonline and watch the video version on YouTube.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's in this McDonald's bag? The McValue Meal. For $5.79 plus tax, you can get your choice of Junior Chicken, McDouble, or Chicken Snack Wrap, plus small fries and a small fountain drink. So pick up a McValue Meal today at participating McDonald's restaurants in Canada. Prices exclude delivery. Wherever you are in the world, and in grief, welcome to All There Is. I'm Anderson Cooper. Look, here's a big one. Whoa!

I took a week off and was with my kids on vacation. Wyatt, you're doing so well! Wyatt is four and Sebastian almost three. It was amazing to swim with him in the ocean, play with Wyatt in the pool for hours. Good job! You're like a minnow. You're like a minnow.

And listen to Sebastian squealing with delight when I tickle him I was reminded of something my dad, Wyatt Cooper, wrote about my brother and me as kids I must see that they do not lose their gift of laughter, he wrote There's more music in the laughter of one child than in all the poems of all the poets who ever lived More sunshine than in a century of summers He died two years after he wrote that the poems of all the poets who ever lived, more sunshine than in a century of summers. He died two years after he wrote that, and with him gone, I did lose that gift of laughter. I buried it along with my sadness and fear and anger. I've realized lately how much I've used work to avoid all those emotions, to avoid grief. While I was away one night when my kids were

asleep, I listened to the most recent podcast episode with Francis Weller, and I want to play you something he said that really struck me. We don't have much knowledge in grief, as Rilke would say, and so consequently, we push back against it, and we don't know how to engage it, to write, to dance, to talk, to share, to bring it to ritual. We are so passive around grief so that when it comes, we are basically caught off guard and unawares of how to respond. So it's how do I get out of this as fast as possible? And we have so many ways to do that.

All the distractions, the busyness, the alcohol, the drugs, anything you need is available to get us away from the depth of those places. I think what happens as we begin to become less avoidant and resistant to it is that we begin to develop a companionship with it. A companionship with grief. Yes, this is what I call the apprenticeship with sorrow.

We begin to stop fighting it and begin to see that it's actually the way in which my deepest self comes fully present. I've definitely used work to distract myself from the depths of those places, as Francis said, and I know some of you listening have as well. But what does it all amount to, all this work and striving and stress? I'm grateful for the career I've had. It's been and continues to be remarkable and interesting to me. It's given me stability and a sense of accomplishment and purpose. I'm grateful. But in the end, does any of that matter? I think about the last week of my mom's life,

spending time with her, just talking, holding her hand, being with her. Are you scared? No. I'm not either. I'm not either. I'm not afraid. She lived an epic life, but all those famous people she knew, all the things she achieved, in the end, what mattered to her was the people sitting around her bed, holding her hand, telling her, I love you. I love you very much. I know you do, darling, and I love you very much. You know that, don't you? I do.

Always and forever. Me too. I know when I'm old and sick and dying, it won't matter to me what I did. What will matter is what my kids think of me and what kind of person I was in their eyes. Is all this striving just a distraction from that? Am I brave enough to focus instead on building that companionship with grief that Francis talks about, and a greater companionship with my kids? All of this brings me to my guest today, Alex Van Halen. Alex and his younger brother, Eddie, were founding members of Van Halen, one of the

most successful rock bands in history. Alex was on drums, Eddie on guitar. David Lee Roth became the first lead singer, and Michael Anthony was the bassist. Eddie, or Ed as Alex called him, died in 2020 after a long battle with cancer. He was 65 years old and is considered to be one of the best guitarists to ever play. Alex is now 71, and he's just written a book called Brothers about his life with Ed. How has grief been for you? I always thought of myself as kind of a stoic kind of guy, you know, tough. I was the elder in the family, so I had a certain role to play. You were the protector. Yeah.

Do you feel like you are grieving? I'm grieving all the time. I'm not trying to put it aside. I'm not saying I'm running from it, because that doesn't solve the problem. It's there. You feel it. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. It's just, times can be overwhelming. And the more I dwell on it, the more complicated it becomes.

When I'm alone and I put on a piece of music and I hear him play, I just break down. That's it, you know, uncontrollably. But knowing what I know about the human body, you just let it happen. Otherwise, it'll happen in the line at the grocery store. That wouldn't look so good. None of us thought he was going to die. He'd always bounce back. He had the most incredible DNA that I've ever seen. He could do more drugs

than anybody and still wake up the next day and perform. I don't think anybody really thought he was going to die. So when he passed, it was really a shock. Did he know? I don't think he knew. Being human, you think you're going to go on one more day, one more day. You keep going forward, but then one day you don't. So up to the very end, we were still making music, and we talked about what are we going to do next year, but it was clear that he was going downhill. There's a song that you guys were working on. Yeah. We usually recorded almost everything you guys were working on. Yeah. We usually recorded almost everything in the studio

while they were playing. I just want to play a little bit of the song. So there are a lot of fragments of pieces. This is one that I really liked because having just Ed and me in the studio was always the way to let things breathe. You have four people in there, everybody starts throwing in ideas,

nothing gets to become... You have to wait till it grows into fruition, you know? Give it time, give it space. Let it breathe a little bit. It's how you communicated with each other. Yes, yeah, exactly. Music was the way he spoke to the world. I think his soul is in the music.

He died during COVID. Yes. It was difficult because his immune system was down, so the last thing he needed was to get infected by anything. So there was always a distance between us. At his house, we had to watch him from outside in the driveway from the window. You couldn't sit by his bedside? No, no, no.

The last time we did that was when I took him to Switzerland to have some treatment by some unbelievable doctors. But he was in a lot of pain most of the time. Most people have no idea what kind of pain he was in. Physical, emotional, mental, you name it. Then he started to lose the function of his extremities. It all compounded, and every day it was something, some other part that's not functioning anymore. It was cancer that went to his brain? Yes.

And they did something called a gamma knife operation where they cut the cancer out, which was successful, but in the process it caused a swelling in his brain. So they put him on steroids and you, you know, typical... I'm only laughing about it because even in a life and death situation, the decision was, well, two's good, 20 must be better. So he took handfuls of steroids

and it made him Superman temporarily. But we got him off to Switzerland to get him off that stuff. You were able to be with your brother at the end. He had a stroke? Yes, he had a massive stroke. We were in the room with him when he actually took his last breath.

We just sat there. Everybody was in their own headspace. All I know is that when he stopped breathing, I didn't hear anything. I didn't see anything. There were no bells. There were no angels. It was just, it stopped.

And then the room was empty. That was it. And then they pulled the plug because he was on a ventilator. And because of COVID and the restrictions and the rules, they immediately carved the body off and that was it. Then we didn't see him anymore. A very uneventful ending to an eventful life but you know what he fought until the very end that's

i want to think of as life in terms of that he never gave up you wrote in the book i watched you take your last breath in that moment all the stuff that you did or made in this world you can't take it with you we travel through time or we travel through existence and you come and then you go it's part of the natural order of things i think the real problem is that when it happens out of what is the norm which is a full 75 or 80 year life and to have it be shorter than that it doesn't make sense am i angry at it yeah there were times when I have a jealous scream. Ed, what the fuck is wrong with you? What are you doing? Ed, if you stop doing all them damn drugs, you know, you can't do this to your body and expect to live a full life. So it's anger at him for... Had he stopped, he might still be here. The emotional part of me just says, Ed,

you're not done yet. That'd be nice to have you hanging around. My kids don't have an uncle anymore. Your son doesn't have a father. I don't have a brother. Ed's whole life was searching for something. I don't know what it was. Because musically, we could play anything. Ed, come on.

Maybe you could have been here a little longer. But then you realize, I have no control over that. Maybe it's not my place to tell him to be here longer. Maybe he knows intuitively that this is it. I'm done. I'm leaving. He was never satisfied. There was always that itch to do something else. So I don't know. I'm still grappling with some of those things because to me, it doesn't make any sense. Can I mention Billy Bob Thornton had this little clip. It just popped on my computer, and it really was very articulate and succinct, and it was just completely right on the spot.

Well, let me actually, I'm going to play what Billy Bob Thornton said. My brother, Jimmy, you know, he was a young guy. In 1988, he died suddenly of a heart problem that they didn't know he had. I've never been the same since my brother died. There's a melancholy in me that never goes away. I'm 50% happy and 50% sad at any given moment. And the only advice I can give people for when you lose someone like that is you won't ever get over it. And the more you know that and embrace it, the better off you are.

I don't want to forget my brother, and I don't want to forget what it felt like when he died because he deserves it. That's how important he was to me. So if I have to suffer, and if I have to be sad for the rest of my life, and if I have to be lonely without him, without his particular thing, his sense of humor and what he brought to life, then that's the way I honor him. You know, I'll be sad and

melancholy about that forever and I know it and I accept it and I live with it. I think Billy Bob Thornton's answer was probably the most articulate and accurate in the sense of you're going to have to live with it for the rest of your life. And I'm more than happy to do that. If that's how I pay my respects to you, Ed, that's how I shall do it. We're going to take a short break.

When we come back, more of my conversation with Alex Van Halen. a no monthly fee RBC Advantage banking account and we'll give another $100 to a charity of your choice. This great perk and more only at RBC. Visit rbc.com slash get 100, give 100. Conditions apply. Ends January 31st, 2025. Complete offer eligibility criteria by March 31st, 2025. Choose one of five eligible charities.

Up to $500,000 in total contributions. More now with Alex Van Halen. The bond that you and your brother had and have was particularly close because it wasn't just the first 18 years of your lives and then you guys went your separate ways, which is how it is with many siblings. You were in the band together your entire lives. 65 years together. Yeah. Almost every day, if not physically, at least mentally and spiritually, if you will. Yeah.

And we had conflict every moment of the day. That's how I was taught to make art, is that you don't want to all agree on the same thing. You've got to have some friction, so to speak. Ed talked about when you guys would play, in the earphones that you had on, he could hear others, but he had to hear you. It was the connection between you two that was essential to making the music. Ed said, all I had in my monitors when we played live was Al's drums, a little bit of Dave's vocals, a little bit of mine, a little bit of Mike's vocals,

but all I hear is myself and my brother. It seemed to me like such a metaphor of your relationship that even in success, with all the stuff swirling around you and all the personalities and the record executives and David Lee Roth, in the end, when push came to shove, it was you and him. Yeah. You know, it started off as a two-piece,

Ed and I were the original, the guys who put the band together. But at the end of the day, when there's a disagreement in the band, I'm taking his side and vice versa, because we protect each other. That was the most important thing that we were taught. Stick together. There was a day when you guys were teenagers. You heard your brother playing Going Home.

Alvin Lee. Alvin Lee. I just want to play a little bit of that and then ask you about the importance of it. When Ed played that, it just blew me away. And he was playing it just from listening to it. Yeah. That was the moment you realized he was a virtuoso on the guitar. Oh, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. There was no doubt about it.

Your dad was a musician. Yes. Your mom was from Indonesia. Your dad had met her in Indonesia, lived there for several years, and then ultimately you guys came to the States. Even at the height of your success, your mom was still disappointed. That's a mild way of putting it. We never quite measured up to what she wanted.

That's incredible. Yeah. For your brother, you think that weighed more heavily on him, her attitude? Ed was really very sensitive in that sense. Your dad had a heart attack in 1986 and died several months after. Yeah. He was only 66, is that right? 66, yeah. You described yourself as being devastated. Beyond. It was just, I can't even put it into words.

Whether it's because we're all conditioned to believe a certain how it's supposed to end and that this particular instance, it contradicted everything I was aware of, or the fact that he's no longer here. We've related to him, not just musically, but in his sense of humor and his expertise. I mean, you can go anywhere in the world with him, and he could find his way. And that confidence gives you confidence. I have a piece of footage of us leaving Holland as we get on the boat,

and the four of us look like a duck. There's four ducks walking in a row, and we're waving. We have no idea where we're going, what we're walking into, but as long as the boss is row and we're waving. We have no idea where we're going, what we're walking into, but as long as the boss is leading, we're good. That's the confidence he inspired. Your dad struggled with alcohol.

Oh yeah, my dad struggled with it. He loved it. Okay, all right. That's his all. But my grandfather died from it. My dad's brothers died from it. My dad died from it. I came very close.

And Ed, he battled it his whole life. And people don't respect or appreciate what kind of battle you're going through when you're trying to slay that dragon, if you will. I mean, it's an ugly, ugly monster. You gave it up finally. I wouldn't call it giving it up. I had to quit because I thought I was going to die.

And so I went to rehab, and it was a painful process. Was that after your dad died or before? Two or three months after he died. So that was a really motivating factor for you to give up alcohol? Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. I thought that maybe by not dying from alcohol, it would absolve his sins, so to speak. So I thought I owed it to him. Before he died, he actually played on one of your albums. You brought him into a recording studio. Yeah. It was actually, it was Dave's idea. It was David Roth's idea. Yeah, and I gotta say thanks to Dave, because that was really a cool thing for him to do.

I'd never seen my dad get so nervous because he knew that his capabilities had really diminished. But the moment we started playing, it took like three or four takes, and that was it. We're done. Let's go out and have a couple beers. Is it okay if I play a little bit of your dad playing? Absolutely.

He will love it. This is Jan van Halen on the clarinet, and the song is Big Bad Bill is Sweet William Now. Afterwards, I think he had a great time with it, you know. When your dad died, your reaction was that you and your brother went into the studio and you just played music. We just played for hours. It's the only way we could deal with the overwhelming, we didn't even know what to call it. You know, it wasn't referred to as grief back then. We were tough guys, you know, have a couple of beers and let's go on with

it. So did you talk with him about your dad or was it just, no, let's go play? Let's go on with it. So did you talk with him about your dad, or was it just, let's go play? Let's go play. Yeah. We just played, whatever it was. It didn't matter. I just want to read several paragraphs from the book. You said, talking to Ed, you said, you never stopped. The real problem isn't that you drank alcohol.

It's that you drank the Kool-Aid. People telling you you're a genius, that you're the greatest guitar player who ever lived. All true, but you ate it up and then you were overwhelmed by the burden of it. Our dad told us from the beginning, don't believe your own bullshit. Just play. And if you're playing a wedding, wear a tux. Give everything you got. Fulfill your obligations.

You're the head of the family. Do your job. But love stays. That's the truth. We still communicate. You're still with me, Ed. Because we live in a Western society, people want to. But love stays. That's the truth. We still communicate. You're still with me, Ed. Because we live in a Western society, people want to dismiss that as projection. But ask any physicist, energy can be neither created nor destroyed. When a cloud dissipates,

what happens to the water? It isn't gone. It's just changed form. The same thing goes for you, Ed, or any other human being on this planet, so I'll never say goodbye. Now I'm getting a lump in my throat. But you feel that? You believe that? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Can you talk about that? In a lot of different cultures, death is not the end, and I prefer to believe that. This is going to sound a little out to left field, so to speak,

but he communicates in different ways with me. And I can't really go into that because the moment you mentioned it, it breaks that bond. It's kind of a really thin thread of signs. There's a lot of people who feel signs and see signs and it gives great comfort. And it's only recently that I've begun to, excuse me if I voice cracks, it's uncontrollable. I've recently begun to actually feel my brother and my dad who died long ago. But I've actually started to sort of feel them inside me in a way that I never have before, and it's an extraordinary feeling.

The first real direct communication, if you will, was more of a smell. His unique fragrance was everywhere, and I couldn't figure out rationally where is this coming from? Is it the closet? Is it the closet? Is it the clothes? Is it the stuff that he washed with? Or maybe it's just my mind wants to smell that. I don't know. But it was there. And lately, it's been fading a little bit.

But the feeling it leaves you with is positive. Oh, yeah. Yeah. There are other dimensions of existence. My dad explained that it's all about frequencies. If you had a receiver and an amplifier and you modulate it between the different frequencies, you can go from KLOS to KMET to whatever radio stations there are. It's all there. It's all there in the airwaves, but you have to be in tune with it. Then you'll understand what it is. He's around here somewhere. I think he thought he was done here,

and that's why he left. That's my mental way of dealing with it. One of the things you write about is your rise and the early club days, you know, when you didn't have a record deal, you know, just trying to make it. And you say, what we didn't know at that time was that there was a way in which the club days

were the pinnacle of our experience on planet Earth. That's when we got the highest highs because the potential of being great was still out there. That's when the dream of Van Halen was the most magical because it was still a dream. Because that's when you're alive, you know? It's just human nature. I think that when you've reached a certain goal, the air leaves the room, so to speak. But I'm wondering if in your

secret heart, when you think of your brother, is it those days you think of? Now that you mention it, yeah, it's the most prominent in my memory because being in the basement with the leaking pipes and there was no heat down there and it didn't smell great. We didn't care. Load up a couple more, let's play. But you have a common goal and you have something because you're hungry. I still have the piano that we came over here with. It's in the hallway and the cigarette, for when Jump was written, it's still on there. Those kind of, those little things bring back the memories

and it brings back the smells, the feeling, the touch. Is there a song that when you think of your brother, this is the song you think of? I can think of several different ones, but we all used to bring pieces of music into the basement. And I remember when Ed brought in Running With The Devil. That chord structure and that whole deal, the moment I heard that, I said, OK, you're writing all the songs from now on, because we can't compete with that.

And it had nothing to do with speed. it had nothing to do with articulation, had nothing to do with the devil. It was really lovely talking to you. Anderson, thank you, man. And that's all there is. You can watch a video version of this interview on YouTube or at our online grief community at cnn.com forward slash all there is online. You can also listen to voicemails there from other podcast listeners about their experiences with grief, leave comments of your own,

and listen to all the seasons of the podcast as well. I'll be back with another edition of All There Is next week. I hope you find something in these podcasts that help you in your grief, and I hope they make you feel a little less alone. Thanks for listening. I'd love to hear your comments at cnn.com forward slash all there is online. All There Is is a production of CNN Audio. The show is produced by Grace Walker and Dan Bloom. Our senior producer is Haley Thomas. Dan DeZula is our technical director,

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