Eddie Van Halen Took Bottle Of Steroids For 'Superman' Feeling Before Death

Alex Van Halen recently published Brothers, a memoir about his personal and professional relationship with his late brother Eddie Van Halen. Ahead of its release, the former Van Halen drummer spoke to Rolling Stone and recalled a story that he believes quickened Eddie's death.

His brother's cancer had metastasized to his brain and doctors performed Gamma Knife surgery to remove a tumor. He was prescribed steroid pills for the swelling that made him feel “like Superman.” Alex explained “if two’s good, twenty’s better. That was our mantra.” So one day Eddie took the whole bottle, not in an attempt to harm himself but to get that superhuman feeling. “I didn’t see the bottle, but the bottle had, like, a thousand pills in it,” he said.

In another recent interview, Alex shared a Brothers excerpt about what he thinks "cost my brother his life."

"You can spend your whole life trying to make what happened before happen again," he wrote, referring to Van Halen's success. "I honestly believe that's what cost my brother his life."

He also divulged that Van Halen was "getting ready to make another record" after playing their final show in 2015, and that his brother kept fighting until his death in October 2020. "I really wanted to emphasize the fact that Ed was brave up until the last minute," he explained about the book. "At the end of the day, he's got nothing to be ashamed of. And I wish that he was here and that I could say, 'Ed, let's try it one more time.' Because I know he had it in him."

Although the album didn't get made, Alex and Eddie were able to record a final song together, titled "Unfinished." The instrumental track soundtracks the audibook version of Brothers.