Eddie Van Halen had a brain tumor & stage IV lung cancer, his son says

Van Halen co-founder and guitar icon Eddie Van Halen passed away in October after a long battle with cancer. In a new appearance on The Howard Stern Show on Monday (11/16), Eddie's son Wolfgang Van Halen shared more details about his father's health struggles. "At the end of 2017, [Eddie] was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer," Wolfgang told Howard. "And the doctors were like, 'You have six weeks.'"

Defying that dire prediction, Eddie received alternative treatments for the cancer in Germany. "Whatever the fuck they do over there, it's amazing because I got three more years with him," Wolfgang said.

It wasn't long before he was hit with more bad news, however; he had a motorcycle accident in 2019, and found out he had a brain tumor. After that, Wolfgang said, "shit kept stacking up and stacking up. It just never let up."

In the same interview, Wolfgang said that, as teased, a Van Halen reunion tour was being considered, with Michael Anthony, Sammy Hagar, David Lee Roth, and even Gary Cherone all involved. The "kitchen-sink tour," as Wolfgang called it, would've been "fucking awesome," but for Eddie's health. "By that time, Dad wasn't able to," Wolfgang said. "Things started getting really bad at the beginning of 2019."

Wolfgang also talked about the "shit-ton of tapes" of unreleased material his father left behind, saying they'd "take a very long time to go through." "That's not the priority right now," he continued. "I can't put a timeline on it. There will be a time we go through it. Not for the foreseeable future."

Watch the video for Wolfgang's new solo song, "Distance," where he pays tribute to Eddie, below, along with a few video clips from the Howard Stern episode. You can stream it in full on SiriusXM.