During his conversation at the Smithsonian on Thursday (Feb. 12), Eddie Van Halen took fans through his life’s journey. But there was one very important question that was left out: When will Van Halen make another record?

Fortunately, Rolling Stone was on hand and ran it by him after the event. However, Van Halen’s answer suggested that there hasn’t been much recent contact between the band’s two main creative forces. “I’d love to make a studio record," he says. "Depends on everybody’s timing. I don’t know what Dave [Lee Roth] is up to now. I don’t know if he’s living in New York or Japan or wherever he is."

Roth has kept a fairly low profile since the end of the tour in support of 2012’s A Different Kind of Truth. He surfaced (sort of) towards the end of 2014 to unveil a surreal Christmas song and, a month later, sat in with Foo Fighters on Dave Grohl’s birthday, at which time he revealed that he has shaved his head.

But even if the next Van Halen record is on the back burner for now, at least its namesake guitarist can revel in his son’s creative output. During the chat, he revealed that Wolfgang Van Halen has been working on a solo album, which could possibly be out by the end of the year. “Wait until you hear his record,” Eddie gushed. “This is not [his] pop talking, this is real talk, it blew my mind.”

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