Brothers

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of substance use and addiction.

Alex Van Halen eulogizes his brother, Eddie, who passed away in 2020. The brothers were connected in every way: genetically, artistically, financially, emotionally, and even spiritually. Eddie was often regarded as “the world’s greatest guitarist,” but to Alex, this is not going far enough: He thinks this praise implies that “there were many more like you” (2), but he knows that there was only one Edward Van Halen. The brothers shared more than a last name and a band—they also shared “a depth of understanding that most people can only hope to achieve” (3).

Alex and Eddie were born in Amsterdam, Netherlands, to Indonesian mother Eugenia and Dutch father Jan Van Halen, a musician who played in orchestras and jazz groups all over Europe. Although Jan was a musician, Eugenia was the driving force behind the boys’ dedication to music. She thought classical pianists were respectable and “was hoping for concert pianists playing Carnegie Hall, not Van Halen with the Monsters of Rock” (7). In 1962, when Alex was eight and Ed was six, the family immigrated to the United States and settled in Pasadena, California, where one of Eugenia’s sisters lived.