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Undone by the loss of his brother Eddie, Alex Van Halen looks back in a new memoir

When guitarist Eddie Van Halen died of cancer in 2020, his older brother Alex was overwhelmed by grief. Only 20 months apart in age, they had grown up together as "a yin and yang ... the two halves of a whole," Alex says.

Raised by a Dutch father and an Indonesian mother, the brothers immigrated to the U.S. from the Netherlands when Alex was 8 and Eddie was 6. In California, they learned to play music — mostly classical and military marches — but their focus switched to rock once they started listening to The Beatles and The Dave Clark Five. In 1974, they formed the band Van Halen, with vocalist David Lee Roth and bassist Michael Anthony.

Initially, Alex was the guitarist in the family, but he discovered that he had "no connection with the instrument," he says. "I just wasn't feeling it." His brother's link to the guitar, on the other hand, felt like fate. "The fact was, when Ed played, he made that instrument sing. It was unbelievable. [I said,] 'Ed, you're playing guitar. I want drums.' "

Known for their extravagant, high-energy performances, Van Halen would go on to produce 12 studio albums and singles that included "Runnin' with the Devil," "Hot for Teacher" and the 1983 anthem, “Jump." The band went through some famous lineup changes (mostly singers) through it's career, but Eddie and Alex are the only members of Van Halen who played on all of those albums.

In the new memoir, Brothers, Alex looks back on his relationship with Eddie and the decades they spent playing music together. "We left a lot unfinished," he says. "Obviously, every time I hear some of our music, that puts me right back there."