The late-Eddie Van Halen is the latest rock legend to have their death examined by the Reelz network. Blabbermouth reported Autopsy: The Last Hours Of Eddie Van Halen will premiere on Sunday, June 5th at 8 p.m. ET. Van Halen died on October 6th, 2020 at age 65 after years of battling throat cancer.
According to the show's official description, “He was a workaholic often pushing his body to the limits in order to perform while secretly battling illness. . . But if caught early Eddie's disease had reasonable survival rates so what exactly happened? Now renowned forensic pathologist Dr. Michael Hunter will analyze every detail of his life in order to piece together what else may have been going on in his body, ultimately leading to his untimely death.”
Slash — a close friend and longtime fan –– believes that although Eddie Van Halen has been lauded for his groundbreaking physicality — a lot of the guitarists that followed in his wake, failed to pick up on the subtleties that made him so unique: “I don't think anybody's had as much an influence. Every kid on the block was learning Van Halen licks. In between all the technical prowess that Eddie had, there was a killer blues thing. Everybody that emulated it, nobody ever got that part. They had the hammer-ons, they had the tremelo bar stuff, and all that kind of crap — but they never got the most important was all the really tasty stuff that was in-between. And just, like, the melodic stuff where all the soul was coming from.”