The oldest Van Halen recording ever put out officially is a 1974 demo called “Glitter“, and it is coming out on a seven-inch picture disc packaged with Alex Van Halen‘s signed limited-edition book.
Genesis Publications confirmed the track’s identity this week, having previously announced the vinyl without naming what was on it. The disc was pressed exclusively for the limited edition and carries artwork adapted from the band’s 1984 tour design. Alongside the song, it holds a spoken-word passage from Alex Van Halen, taken from the interviews he gave Genesis during work on the book.
“Glitter” documents a version of the band that never made a record. It features Alex and Eddie Van Halen with David Lee Roth on vocals and Mark Stone on bass, the lineup that existed in the months after Roth joined and persuaded the group, then operating as Mammoth, to rename itself Van Halen.
Stone had played with the brothers since 1972, first in a band called Genesis and then in Mammoth, and left later in 1974 when Michael Anthony took over on bass. His playing survives on a handful of demos from 1973 and 1974, none of which has ever been issued officially. Stone died of cancer in September 2020, ten days before Eddie Van Halen‘s death.
That makes the seven-inch the only sanctioned release carrying the work of the band’s first bassist, four years before the Van Halen debut album arrived in February 1978.
Written, curated and signed by Alex Van Halen, “Van Halen” is the band’s official chronicle, published by Genesis in a run of 1,500 numbered copies worldwide. The Deluxe copies, numbers 1 to 350, have sold out. Copies 351 to 1,500 remain as Collector boxed sets. The edition ships from November 2026.
The 312-page book draws on Alex Van Halen‘s private archives, opened for the first time for the project. It follows the brothers from their childhood and the family’s move from Holland to California, through backyard parties in Pasadena and the club years on the Sunset Strip, to the 1978 debut and the release and world tour behind 1984.
The contents mix well-known photographs with unpublished images, correspondence, tour memorabilia, album artwork, press material and equipment. The photography runs from the band’s earliest days through their first Japanese dates in 1978 and takes in the US Festival in 1983 and Monsters Of Rock in 1984.
The spine of the book is an original manuscript by Alex Van Halen, assembled from new interviews conducted for the project and described as his longest and most detailed account of the band’s formative period. Archival writing from Eddie Van Halen appears alongside it, together with contributions from other musicians, friends and artists.
Each Collector copy is quarter-bound in black vegan leather with silver page edging and carries a silver-debossed Van Halen logo taken from the 1978 world tour. It sits in a black clamshell box bearing the band emblem inside Alex Van Halen‘s burning-ring design.
The set also holds a group of replicas and keepsakes pulled from the band’s archive:
- A 1979 Van Halen Productions keychain
- Three Eddie Van Halen guitar picks reproduced from his stage-used designs
- Six 6″ × 4″ art postcards
- The exclusive 7″ picture disc containing “Glitter”
Pre-orders are open at VanHalenAnthology.com.
Alex Van Halen started playing with his younger brother Eddie in 1972, in the Pasadena outfit that would become Van Halen two years later. With Roth and Anthony completing the lineup, the band spent roughly five years grinding through the Sunset Strip circuit and Southern California backyard parties before their debut landed.
Born in Amsterdam and raised in Pasadena, Alex trained on classical piano before moving to drums. He became known for oversized kits and for a playing style built to match the band’s stage energy across the run of multi-platinum albums that followed, among them Van Halen, Fair Warning and 1984, home to “Runnin’ With The Devil“, “Panama” and “Jump“.
Before headlining on their own, the band opened for Journey, Ronnie Montrose and Black Sabbath. Van Halen ended in 2020 following Eddie Van Halen‘s death. Worldwide sales are reported at more than 75 million records, and the band entered the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in 2007.
Genesis Publications was set up in Britain in 1974 as an independent house specialising in fine printing and bookmaking. Its titles reach readers in 90 countries, and its authors have included George Harrison, Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page and Eric Clapton, with more recent books from Bon Jovi, Ronnie Wood, Yusuf/Cat Stevens, Def Leppard, Chuck D, Paul Weller, Lenny Kravitz, The Beach Boys and The Doors.
