Alex Van Halen Auctioning Off All His Instruments

Alex Van Halen Auction Site is LIVE

Van Halen co-founder and brother of Eddie Van Halen, Alex Van Halen recently announced that he was auctioning off his personal collection of memorabilia, instruments, and accoutrements. This apparently came as a surprise to other former bandmates like Michael Anthony.

Ultimate Guitar interviewed Anthony recently and unfortunately it seems like Alex has gone into recluse mode since the passing of his brother. We’re with you, Alex…that’s a blow to the industry.

Apparently Anthony tried to reach out to Alex on his birthday and didn’t get a response. But Anthony was quoted in Ultimate Guitar as saying “Somebody had sent me the link to it [the auction], and it appears like he’s selling everything right down to his last drumstick.”

Anthony says he thinks it’s because he’s grieving the loss of his brother, which is understandable. Anthony says “I never really knew Alex to be a person to go out and jam with other people or other bands. Unless Eddie was a part of it,…Maybe he feels that … Since his brother’s gone, he doesn’t feel the desire to go out and play anymore. But I can only speculate.”

As an avid drummer and guitarist, this lowly blogger gets it. We lost a musical ICON in Eddie Van Halen, and a figure who many of us grew up idolizing. Losing someone like that even to us normies is traumatizing.

Alex has released a new memoir about his brother Eddie Van Halen, so maybe this means that he’s working his way through the grief process. I sure hope so, as good of a guitarist as Eddie was, Alex was an equally great drummer, and an Alex Van Halen project would sure make me JUMP.

Alex goes over the band and its history, but Anthony adds: “I think that he might be focusing more on just his and Eddie’s relationship growing up and moving here with their family to the States. And just the relationship that he had with his brother.”