BROTHERS

The new 2024 intimate music memoir by rock legend Alex Van Halen is like nothing you have ever read before. In the first accurate account of the brothers and the band, Alex sets the record straight on Edward's life and death. In his rough-yet-sweet voice, he recounts the story of their childhood, first in the Netherlands and then in working-class Pasadena, California, with an itinerant musician father and a very proper Indonesian-born mother. A woman who was both proud and practical, and nonchalant about taking a doggie bag from a star-studded dinner, she would tell her boys to 'always wear a suit' no matter how famous they became. Alex shares tales of musical politics, in-fighting, and plenty of bad-boy behaviour, but mostly his is a story of brotherhood, music and enduring love. 'We shared the experience of coming to America and figuring out how to fit in. We shared a record player, an 800 square foot house, a mom and dad, and a work ethic. Later, we shared the back of a tour bus, alcoholism, the experience of becoming famous, of becoming fathers and uncles, and of spending more hours in the studio than I've spent doing anything else in this life.' The book shares the mystery of genius, Eddie's paradigm-shifting approach to the electric guitar, and the role of the immigrant in America with all its related issues of race and class. Covers the years to 1984 through the band's break up with Dave Roth, these stories from the early years are told with warmth and humour and lots of rock snippets. 230pp, colour photos.