Alex Van Halen recently revealed that he is about to begin work on a new album with Toto guitarist Steve Lukather.
Alex Van Halen talks about Steve Lukather
The Van Halen drummer spoke to Iron Maiden’s Nicko McBrain on the “Metal Sticks” podcast.
“I’m getting ready to do this record with Lukather and a couple of other people. It should be exciting.”
Last March, Lukather had snubbed reports that he would play guitar on a new Van Halen album.
De Telegraaf, which is the largest Dutch daily morning newspaper had reported that Alex was working on a collection of previously unreleased, unfinished Van Halen recordings, with Lukather helping him to finish it. The Van Halen drummer said of the project in a paywalled article: “Ed and Steve Lukather were very good friends and they often worked together. There is no one who can do this process with me as well as he can.”
Lukather, seemingly surprised about Alex’s comment, is quoted in the same article as responding: “Did Alex say that? Oh, in that case the news is true. Ed, Alex and I were very close for years. It is true that we worked on it together.”
On March 15, 2025, Lukather took to his Instagram to clarify his possible involvement in a new Van Halen album, saying: “For the record: Ever since Alex Van Halen dropped some we were gonna work together I think there is a huge misunderstanding.
“I will NOT EVER play a guitar note on a VH song ever!.
“Al asked me to help him go thru a ton of unfinished recordings of Al and Ed writing and recording that never saw the light of day. As of now thats all I got.
“The fact that ANYONE would think for even a second that I would play anything on this is ridiculous. I have too much love and respect for that and … I play nothing like Ed.. more as a co-producer or something. I am honored Al would ask me though.
“Lets see …”
Alex had previously said that there was enough Van Halen material in the vaults for another “three or four records”.
Speaking on an episode of Chris Jericho’s “Talk Is Jericho” podcast, Eddie’s brother said: “I’ve talked about it loosely, and I am rather superstitious, but I can say a couple of things that I’ve mentioned before. We’re gonna go through the ‘vault’ and go through some of the musical ideas that were there.”
He added: “There was some good stuff in there. And you have to remember, when in the thick of it, sometimes the really great stuff kind of passes you by. And it’s not until you revisit it going, ‘Whoa, I forgot about that. This kicks ass.’ But that takes time. And you wanna do it right. I wanna do it right.”
