Eddie Van Halen & Brian May’s 1983 Teamup Set For Box Set Reissue

Coming on July 14th is Brian May's box set, Brian May + Friends' Star Fleet Project – 40th Anniversary Edition, according to Loudersound. The material is culled from his brief side band with the late, great Eddie Van Halen.

In April 1983, over two days at L.A.'s Record Plant, the band — featuring Queen drummer Roger Taylor on backing vocals, Rod Stewart bassist Phil Chen, REO Speedwagon drummer Alan Gratzer, and Alice Cooper keyboardist Fred Mandel — recorded a long-out-of-print EP, that's the center of the new major, expanded box set.

Brian May wrote in the collection's liner notes:

We are going to give you everything — every take of every song, the things that went wrong, the laughing, the finding new things to do. But it won't be just a remaster — we've rescued everything from the original multi-tracks, every detail magnificently remixed and more! You'll hear every take from the historic 1983 sessions plus fragments of conversations, outtakes and musical experimentation.

It's been very exciting to open up the vault to find these tapes where, in the blink of an eye, I'm trading licks with my friends, including the fantastic Ed Van Halen. It's highly emotional, especially since Ed is sadly no longer around. We have since also lost Phil, so the rest of us cherish these fleeting moments together.

Roger Taylor told us a while ago that Brian May probably has most likely kept every scrap of session tape he's ever been involved with: “Brian is the hoarder in the band. I'm not (laughs). I've got probably a copy of most of what we've done in the past, but I don't have, y'know, a massive archive. Brian does — he loves to collect! He's a collector. So he's got buildings full of this stuff, and it's amazing.”