Eddie Van Halen’s Dark Final Days Video

Eddie Van Halen’s dark final days are summed up in a new video with comments from his brother Alex.

Alex Van Halen recently stated that he and his brother Eddie both felt that “Spinal Tap” perfectly summed up life in rock ‘n’ roll. However, he noted how neither of them liked the movie for it.

Alex Van Halen opens up on ‘Spinal Tap’

There’s a good reason why “This Is Spinal Tap” has endured as the definitive rock ‘n’ roll parody to this day. For many, it is even one of the definitive rock flicks. In addition to generations of fans flocking to the antics of the fictional English headbangers, it seems like the 1984 mockumentary left no actual rock stars indifferent either.

The Van Halen drummer noted that this was also the case for him and his late brother, even though they both fell under the category of those who felt the movie was too close to comfort. In his memoir “Brothers”, he wrote (via LAist):

“That wasn’t funny at all. Ed and I saw it and we said, ‘That’s what we experienced!'”

“That is really how things happen. It’s mind-bending. The public doesn’t really have any idea what goes on behind the scenes. And I’m certainly not going to burst the bubble. But that movie, there were a lot of elements that were more true than they were parody.”

Bass icon Billy Sheehan also stated that he didn’t find “Spinal Tap” funny, as he “lived” through most of the things in the movie during his tour with UFO ahead of the film’s release. Geezer Butler, who, alongside the rest of the Black Sabbath in their short-lived Ian Gillan era inspired some of the gags (such as the “Stonehenge” scene), loved it. He said a couple of years back:

“It was lovely, it’s brilliant. I used to play it every day on the bus on tour.”

A couple of months back, the English musician, producer, and composer Thomas Dolby stated that Eddie’s life was like “Spinal Tap” and recalled how the late guitar icon said as much while Van Halen was recording 1991’s “For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge” (via Van Halen News Desk):

“We’re in a control room, and I played him the track [to play on]. He had, like, 12 guitars around him on a stand. And anywhere in the world, you can break the ice with another musician by quoting ‘Spinal Tap’… I said, ‘Did you see that film ‘This Is Spinal Tap’?’ He said, ‘Yeah, man. We went to see that and it’s like somebody followed me around with a camera and put it up on the screen and everybody fell about laughing.'”

“And I realized, after spending a few days with him, that every day of his life was like a scene from ‘Spinal Tap.'”