Alex Van Halen, “Brothers.”

Alex Van Halen certainly understands how to keep an audience wanting more.

Rendering: Adam Pardee/STAFF.

His new book, “Brothers” lasts 226 pages. Sammy Hagar, the guy who came along and likely saved the band when David Lee Roth left in 1985 and increased Van Halen’s record-buying popularity, is mentioned maybe twice by name. Bassist Michael Anthony, a criminally underrated player and all-around good guy, is hardly mentioned.

In fact, AVH ends the book at the point Roth quit, the period he said ended the band’s magic. No argument here, and I was personally thrilled someone named Van Halen agreed with me. Alex acknowledges there were still good times and good songs, but one walks away from the book thinking they missed quite a bit.

Well … yeah. It’s called “Brothers” And it’s Alex Van Halen’s book.

It’s part long-eulogy, part explanation, with a bit of getting things off his chest. Reading about a couple violent incidents between Alex and the boys’ father, Jan Van Halen, was a little shocking, but basically blown off as normal—which it was for many in the 1950s and ’60s.

But as much as it’s about the Van Halen brothers, who came to this country from Holland with nothing, took their immeasurable talent and work ethic and became the U.S. version of Led Zeppelin, there’s a surprising amount devoted to explaining the chemistry with Roth and why it worked.

Roth was like a half-brother who was either embarrassing or brilliant, depending on the day. Family gets away with doing and saying things we don’t tolerate from anyone else. And it’s clear Alex Van Halen still feels that way about Roth, who was the first person Alex called when Edward Van Halen died in 2020.

Despite the generous use of previously published accounts and interviews (some unattributed, about which some writers have complained publicly since the book release last week), “Brothers” is absolutely fascinating for Van Halen fans. AVH has kept quiet the four years since his brother’s death, and he wasn’t chewing up interviews the previous four decades, either. So whatever he has to say is like a novelty.

But it’s the quality of what he says that matters in “Brothers.” He’s obviously an extremely intelligent, wise and philosophical guy.

The first part is a classic immigrant story about leaving the gray skies of northern Europe for the sunshine of Los Angeles. “American culture was brain-bending and completely absorbing,” he writes. The family was poor and their father was an alcoholic musician, traits his sons inherited.

The boys spoke no English, learning much of the language from the cartoons they didn’t have in Holland. “Music was what smoothed it all over for us,” Alex writes. The story includes their strict musical upbringing influencing their creative need, and lack of lessons.

Both became piano prodigies who discovered Cream and Jimi Hendrix, then Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin. The story is sweet; even the parts about a strict mother and the father who sometimes ended up in jail were written with truckloads of love. AVH comes off like a guy you want on your side.

They were introduced to clubs by their dad, sometimes sitting in with his bands. As a Van Halen superfan, I always wanted to hear more about Jan sitting in with his sons’ band on “Big Bad Bill (Is Sweet William Now),” and I got it in this book. Alex embraced the romanticism of music and working his ass off. That’s refreshing to hear. He fondly name-drops many of their first bandmates, which shows a lot, considering Hagar was only lumped into the idea they played with a lot of other singers after Roth.

We’ve all heard the broad brush story, but it’s the details that make you want to keep reading. For example, we know the brothers switched instruments, but what we didn’t know how Alex heard Eddie play Alvin Lee’s solo on “The Going Home” note-for-note perfectly on Alex’s guitar, which was when big brother decided the switch was permanent.

The book really gets fun once the boys decide to become rock stars.

Roth was the ying to their yang, demonstrated by the first song the Deep-Purple-loving brothers played with him, The Isley Brothers’ “It’s Your Thing.” But the mixing of musical flavors blended into something all their own.

“I thought Dave was an odd duck,” Alex writes. “But what I respected was that he was willing to do the work, the same way we were. He understood it’s audition, play, practice, audition, play, practice. Go, go, go, twenty-five hours a day. I don’t think people grasp that to make it as a band, you have to work your ass to the bone.”

The drummer has been sober for a few decades and is known as a dabbler in Eastern religion, none of which stops the romanticism he still shows for the band’s early days. The stories live up to the legend: guys getting stabbed as they play seedy clubs, a drunken John Bonham taking a swing at Alex, Eddie being pronounced dead after sniffing a line of PCP after a gig, believing it was cocaine … it’s not a tell-all, but it’s juicy enough.

We hear about getting kicked out of Scotland, Ozzy Osbourne’s backyard shotgun use, Valerie Bertinelli’s impact on the band (Roth refused to show up for the wedding reception) and Alex’s belief that his brother’s guest shot on Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” helped eventually break up the band.

And the story about the Japan tour where a father came looking for his daughter in Alex’s hotel with a sword and demanding the drummer marry his daughter … these are things a person can’t make up.

Alex also discusses the brother’s use of chemicals as a way of them getting out of their own heads and filtering out all the noise of those around them. Parts of the book are written directly to Eddie, with love, admiration and nostalgia.

There’s lots of space for more details, but Alex gets his point across. He paints a loving and realistic portrait of his musical genius brother without getting himself and his own considerable abilities in the way. And for those of us who can’t help devouring details about all things Van Halen, there’s still about 35 years of untold stories. Alex Van Halen did his band a historical service. I hope he’s not done.