First published 2024
Alex Van Halen opens his heart about losing his younger brother Edward, the guitarist who changed rock music forever. At seventy, the drummer looks back on a shared journey that began in the Netherlands and continued through working class Pasadena, where two immigrant boys learned to navigate America with their Indonesian mother and musician father. Alex recalls their cramped 800 square foot house, the record player they shared, and their mother's advice to always wear a suit no matter how famous they became. He chronicles the musical politics and infighting that marked their band's rise, along with the wild behavior that came with success. Yet the story returns again and again to brotherhood itself. The two men shared tour buses, studio sessions, struggles with alcohol, and the experience of becoming fathers. Alex wants readers to understand Edward as he really was, not the myths that surround him. Written with Ariel Levy, this memoir serves as both tribute and correction, setting the record straight on Edward's life and death through never before seen photographs and the voice of someone who knew him from day one.
Genres: family, 20th-century, autobiography, biography-memoir, music, 21st-century, musicians
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family
Setting: Netherlands, Pasadena
Period: 20th-century, 21st-century
240 pages · Hardcover · Harper
Content warnings: addiction, alcohol-abuse