Eddie Van Halen took a whole bottle of steroid pills shortly before he died because he liked the “superhuman feeling” they gave him.
The legendary guitarist passed away in October 2020 following complications from throat cancer at the age of 65.
Now, his brother Alex, who played drums with Van Halen, has revealed in an interview with Rolling Stone that Eddie took the pills not in an effort to harm himself, but to chase the feeling he thought they would give him.
Alex explained that Eddie had the pills as medication to combat swelling after surgery to remove a brain tumour. “Common sense was not Ed’s strong point,” he said. “If two’s good, twenty’s better. That was our mantra.”
“I didn’t see the bottle,” he added. “But the bottle had, like, a thousand pills in it.”
This week, the full six-minute version of ‘Unfinished’, the final song Eddie wrote with Alex, was unveiled. It is being shared as part of the audiobook version of Alex’s new memoir Brothers, and you can hear it below.
“This is my tribute to my brother; my way of saying goodbye,” Alex has said of the track. “Ed, I love you and miss you. When I see you again, I’m gonna kick your ass!” Brothers is out now via HarperCollins and you can buy your copy here.
Van Halen disbanded in 2020 following Eddie’s death. They entered the Rock & Roll of Fame in 2007, and had released 12 albums in the period from their 1977 signing to 2020, with the Van Halen brothers the two constant members of the band throughout their career.
It was recently revealed that Ozzy Osbourne, Chris Cornell, and Joe Satriani almost joined Van Halen, with Alex telling Rolling Stone that he and Eddie had met Ozzy with wife and manager Sharon Osbourne to lay out plans for him to record an album with the band.
“When you get a dog, you don’t expect it to be a cat,” he told the publication, noting that the brothers were open to the implications of the former Black Sabbath frontman joining their band. “When you get an Ozzy, you get Ozzy. Play the music, he’ll sing, and it’s gonna be great.”
