Jason Bonham admits that he’s asked his current bandmates about certain “awkward” moments in Van Halen’s music.
He came across these “weird” constructions in some of the band’s tracks while preparing for the ongoing tribute tour with Sammy Hagar, Michael Anthony and Joe Satriani, dubbed “Best of All Worlds.”
Bonham says Anthony, Van Halen’s former bassist, told him the arrangements were a result of Eddie and Alex Van Halen being brothers.
READ MORE: Top 10 Van Hagar Songs
“Me and Joe were talking about this,” Bonham said on SiriusXM’s Trunk Nation. “There’s the way they play certain parts as if they’re having a go at each other. It’s as if one of them is making it so awkward that the other one feels awkward doing it.”
So, “there was definitely some weird stuff that goes on where I’m going, ‘That’s not natural … to push there,’” Bonham added. “And Mike would say, ‘It’s Eddie screwing with Alex. … He’s making him play something that’s weird.’”
Bonham added that it had been an “eye-opening experience” to “really dig in there and go, ‘Hold on – why, why does it push there? It’s not meant to. That doesn’t feel right!’ And it’s the brothers. … That’s all [Anthony] says: ‘It’s the brothers. It’s their thing. It’s just the way they were.’”
Listen to Jason Bonham Discuss Van Halen’s ‘Weird’ Music
Is a Book Deal Behind Alex Van Halen’s Silence?
Meanwhile, Hagar previously reported that he tried several times to make contact with Alex Van Halen, in hopes that he’d take part in the Best of All Worlds tour. He’s now speculating that a book deal is behind Van Halen’s silence.
“I’ve asked him to meet me under any conditions – any circumstances, anytime, anyplace, anywhere,” Hagar says in a new interview with the Las Vegas Review-Journal. “It’s not like, ‘Well, let me think about it.’ It’s like, no answer – zero.”
Hagar confirmed that Van Halen could have taken any role he liked: “Just play a couple of songs, or if you want to be the drummer the whole night, or be the executive producer. What do you want to do?”
Van Halen’s Brothers is set for publication in October. “I’m sure when he made his book deal, they said, ‘You cannot talk to [David Lee Roth], and you cannot talk to Hagar,” he added. “I guarantee you, that that was part of the deal.”
Sammy Hagar, Joe Satriani, Michael Anthony and Jason Bonham Live in 2024
Hagar and Anthony revisit their Van Halen years with help from their friends.
Gallery Credit: Matthew Wilkening
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