INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER In this intimate and open account—nothing like any
rock-and-roll memoir you’ve ever read—Alex Van Halen shares his personal story of family
friendship music and brotherly love in a remarkable tribute to his beloved brother and band
mate. Told with acclaimed New Yorker writer Ariel Levy Brothers is seventy-year-old drummer
Alex Van Halen’s love letter to his younger brother Edward (Maybe “Ed ” but never “Eddie”)
written while still mourning his untimely death. In his rough yet sweet voice Alex recounts
the brothers’ childhood first in the Netherlands and then in working class Pasadena
California with an itinerant musician father and a very proper Indonesian-born mother—the kind
of mom who admonished her boys to “always wear a suit” no matter how famous they became—a woman
who was both proud and practical nonchalant about taking a doggie bag from a star-studded
dinner. He also shares tales of musical politics infighting and plenty of bad-boy behavior.
But mostly his is a story of brotherhood music and enduring love. "I was with him from day
one ” Alex writes. “We shared the experience of coming to this country 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 successful of
becoming fathers and uncles and of spending more hours in the studio than I’ve spent doing
anything else in this life. We shared a depth of understanding that most people can only hope
to achieve in a lifetime." There has never been an accurate account of them or the band and
Alex wants to set the record straight on Edward’s life and death. Brothers includes
never-before-seen photos from the author’s private archives.
