A LOT OF BIG DREAMS FOR THE NEW BEGINNING OF VAN HALEN

Alex and Eddie Van Halen are back with David Lee Roth and Eddie’s son, Wolfgang, rounds out the new beginning of Van Halen. Find out the bands longterm plans.

As the shockwaves of Van Halen’s reformation continue to reverberate around the musical communtiy, clearly many fans around the world are eagerly awaiting Van Halen’s long overdue reunion tour with David Lee Roth. David Lee Roth, perhaps one of the most charasmatic and captivating front men in Rock history, last performed with Van Halen on their classic album ‘1984.’ After Roth and Eddie Van Halen parted ways due to creative differences, Roth took his act to the solo stage and Van Halen recruited Sammy Hagar to be their vocalist. After over two decades and over 80 million albums sold and a brief stint with Gary Cherone on vocals, Van Halen is back to their roots, although it’s a whole new beginning. Joining the band is Eddie Van Halen’s 16 year old son, Wolfgang, who will be playing bass guitar and singing background vocals in Michael Anthony’s former position on this upcoming tour that kicks off September 27th in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Our cameras where on hand for Van Halen’s press conference announcing the tour to talk about all their big dreams of touring the world and getting back into the studio to capture the new beginning of Van Halen.

“(Roth) Saving the world is Bono’s job, we just want to save a hundred cities. Just know this. Then we want to save Europe, then we want to save Japan, Australia and I want to talk to you about Hong Kong, Wolf you don’t know what you’re missing. Then we make an album. Lots of big dreams here, lots of ambitions and that’s a good point that we’ve already talked about. (Eddie Van Halen) Know this, we are a band and we’re going to continue. It’s a whole new beginning.”

In what has definitely been a much talked about and controversial move, Van Halen will carry on with Eddie’s son, Wolfgang on bass and David Lee Roth admitted the vocals are better than ever as Wolfgang brings a young energy and spirit that wasn’t there before.

“(Roth) I’ve done more rehearsal in the last four months than I’ve done in the last 20 summers. We started this approximately last October and the whole sound is better than it’s ever been. Wolf brings young energy and a spirit to this that will knock you out of your socks. (Eddie) He’s kicking all of our asses. (Roth) The vocals are better than ever. He’s a task master. It was Wolf who picked the song list and we’ve got close to twenty five of your greatest hits. All the favorites that you’ve been hearing tearing out of the back of a pickup truck at The Burger King drive thru for how many Summer times. It’s all very well in tact. The same shitty attitude but with a whole new look.”

Alex Van Halen even went a little further and explained Wolfgang has a very deep sense of musical timing and rhythm, that obviously runs in the family.

“He (Wolfgang) wasn’t asked, he just forced his way in. He was the only one who had no choice. (Wolfgang) We just started playing one summer and I just sort of slipped in. (Alex) Wolfies groove is very deep. He has a very deep rhythmic sense and I think that comes obviously from his father. I can describe Wolfie in two words. DNA! (Roth) That’s a musician joke.”

At the press conference Alex and Eddie also talked about performing with their father at teenagers as well, even remembering having to sneak into the clubs since they weren’t old enough to drink, yet they were both good enough to perform. So performing live at an early age is certainly in the blood of Van Halen. Van Halen will embark on the first leg of their North American tour at the end of September with dates extending until December 11th in Calgary, Canada. The band already has plans of taking the tour overseas with dates in Europe and Japan to be announced for 2008. After the tour, which will be one of the biggest in rock history, the band will undoubtedly head into Van Halen’s Malibu, California studio to work on an album of all new material.