Alex Van Halen Talks “Brothers”

In his recent book, Brothers, Alex Van Halen makes it quite clear that nothing was more important to him and his guitar hero brother, Eddie, than their relationship. The only thing that seemed to outweigh it was their passion for music.

Alex opens the book by stating, “We were connected in every way- genetically, artistically, financially, emotionally, and though neither of us stuck with Catholicism, I’m going to go ahead and say spiritually.” This sets us up for an emotionally charged ride that the two brothers would share, achieving a level of success neither would have predicted. By the book’s close, Alex makes it obvious that a piece of him went with Eddie when he passed in October 2020. It’s a great read.

The continuous theme in this story is of an immigrant family from the Netherlands whose two young boys were the weird kids who landed in their Pasadena, California school. Unable to speak English, the only two things that made their daily existence tolerable were their ability to make music (their father, Jan, was an accomplished woodwind player who could only find steady work in America as a janitor) and their constant clinging to each other.

Alex paints a loving picture of his role as protector of little brother Eddie (18 months between them). Even at a young age, Alex understood Ed’s prodigy-level talent, along with his sensitivity. Alex pauses from time to time in the book to talk directly to the departed Ed: “You weren’t just younger. You were more introverted, more impressionable, and more sensitive than I was, always.” In some of the most endearing parts of the book, he explains this role in a ‘no-regrets’ style: “Ed got into his own trouble. He was expelled from our school system when he was sixteen or seventeen after he got busted for possession….I went out and beat up the guy who ratted Ed out. I felt like I had to!”

The boy’s Indonesian mother, Ottie, was the driver of their life’s mission, encouraging them to “wear a suit and be professional” in everything they did. Sizing up Eddie as the sensitive brother, Alex rhetorically asks, “I guess I was the tough one?” His mother’s quote answers that question: “You made a living beating things with a stick, what do you expect?” She forced them to take piano lessons and to study hard in school.  “My dad, who was a musician, didn’t push us at all. My mom was the one pushing us.”

Both boys became fluent on nearly every instrument they touched, with Alex happily falling in with the drums and Eddie soon to be known (according to Frank Zappa) for “reinventing the guitar.” Alex goes to great lengths to describe their father’s musical influence on the brothers. “My dad, the King Solomon of Pasadena, was remarkable in the way that he would teach us. It was just little tidbits, here and there, and after maybe a couple of years, you realized, Oh, so that’s what he meant! And the most important thing he taught us was to stick together.”

Their hard-scrabble climb started in high school, always gravitating to other kids as obsessed with music as they were, and always the leaders of the various bands they cobbled together. Playing parties and cheap clubs as a cover band (Alex notes this cover band era was the forerunner to them doing old hits on their first album, such as “You Really Got Me” by The Kinks, although he emphasizes that it’s intro – the iconic instrumental “Eruption” – was the song that put Eddie on the world guitar map). It was during these times that they eventually “discovered” a local character named David Lee Roth.

The singer of a rival local band (“His band was nowhere near as good as ours musically, but he was already ‘Diamond Dave’!”), Roth was also a member of a local Jewish temple that let the brothers’ band rehearse there. “We’d see him there, and at backyard parties around Pasadena. And Dave would see us.”  Alex describes in detail that Dave had “always been desperate for an audience. He was like an emcee, a clown. He was like a carnival barker. He was great at what he did. Dave didn’t fit anywhere; the guy was too out-there.”

Roth tried out for the brothers’ band twice, being rejected at first, as the brothers recognized that he had singing limitations (“In terms of singing, he had no sense of time, but he had an interesting drawl…”). But Alex and Ed learned that “Dave could talk! He was just yakking and yakking about anything and everything, and he can be very charming, very persuasive. His desire to attract as much attention to himself as humanly possible was everything we were missing. We did just sort of stand around and jam.”  Knowing they were bred to be musicians, not entertainers, they figured out that “…the audience could watch Dave while they listened to us play. He knew that role, and he liked it.”

Alex’s writing takes us through their ascent and the platinum-level success that would follow. This is where the book seems to turn into a story that includes a third “brother” of sorts. David Lee Roth now becomes an additional voice within their musical family (and a hell of a lot more significant to Alex than fourth band member, bassist Michael Anthony). As the book delivers the fun story lines of drugs, sex, and rock and roll, Alex returns to his continuing relationship with Dave, its constant tension, contradictions, creativity, and love.  In fact, in the later part of the book, Alex spends just as much time musing on his views of the saga of the Roth relationship as on his connection with Eddie.

But it was clear that the one thing both Alex and Dave could agree on was that they both saw Eddie as someone who needed guidance and protection, but perhaps for different reasons. Alex submits that Dave’s zeal for constant publicity was damaged when Eddie married actress Valerie Bertinelli. Roth boycotted the wedding, causing Alex to suspect that the tabloid-level marriage had trumped anything Roth could come up with to be the center of attention.

But these suspicions only went so far. Both Alex and Dave came together when Eddie was contemplating a call from producer Quincy Jones asking him to play on Michael Jackson’s “Beat It.” “I said, “NO! Use your head: they want you so they can broaden Jackson’s appeal.” Alex was dominant in his views. “It’s not in Van Halen’s interest for you to be playing with other acts.” Then, shockingly, Eddie did the Jackson recording anyway without letting Alex know. “I was furious! We had a huge fight. I couldn’t understand what he was thinking!”

This was looked upon as a betrayal by Roth as well, and although Alex took his brother Eddie’s side, he was honest with the situation. Suddenly, Dave became obstructive about anything Eddie wanted to do musically. He began telling Eddie, “Enough of solos. Fuck the guitar hero shit, you know, we’re a band.”  According to Alex, Eddie’s “Beat It” appearance gave Dave a leg to stand on when he wanted to do things without the rest of the band. It amped up the game of tit for tat between my brother and Dave.” Soon, Roth would reject the beginnings of their future mega-hit “Jump,” fighting against its keyboard orientation.

Alex states that all of these issues, contrived or not, are what gave Dave enough oxygen to leave the band in just a few years.

The book then goes abruptly from the 1984 era and Roth’s departure (with Alex trying to manage his deep depression), to Eddie’s untimely death in 2020 (skipping right over the subsequent singer Sammy Hagar years, even though, as he notes, they were more lucrative for the band).

This struck me as odd, but the final chapter brings it all together in dramatic fashion. That is, we learn that the first-person Alex calls with the news of Eddie’s passing was the “other brother,” David Lee Roth.

-Steven Valvano

Photo: Van Halen, 1984 (public domain)