The official blurb for Alex Van Halen's memoir, Brothers, has been made public, and it reads as follows:
"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... 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."
And Alex writes, "I was with him from day one. 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 famous, 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."
Written with New Yorker writer Ariel Levy, Brothers is 384 pages long and will be published by HarperCollins on October 22nd, as well as being available as a 720-minute audiobook and an eBook.
It will be the second book from an original member of Van Halen following David Lee Roth's Crazy From the Heat in 1997, and third overall with Sammy Hagar publishing his, Red: My Uncensored Life in Rock in 2011.