Alex Van Halen adds a Knighthood to his heaving collection of awards.
The Van Halen drummer and co-founder was Knighted this week in The Netherlands, the country of his birth — recognition of his remarkable career and influence on musicians around the globe.
Van Halen was appointed Knight in the Order of the Netherlands Lion (Ridder in de Orde van de Nederlandse Leeuw) on Tuesday (Sept. 1) in Nijmegen, the Dutch city where he and his brother Eddie spent a good chunk of their childhood. It’s one of the country’s highest civilian orders, given only to those who “make extraordinary contributions” to society.
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The 73-year-old rocker was on hand for the ceremony at the Berchmanianum, the academy building of Radboud University, where mayor Hubert Bruls presented the royal honor and spoke of Van Halen’s role in writing a “remarkable chapter in the history of rock music.”
Speaking on the sidelines, Van Halen remarked: “My cousin organized most of this. I’m very grateful. I think institutions like this are important in people’s lives because it adds a dignity and a gravity to what we do. Whether it’s actually deserved or not, that’s another question. But we can live up to it. That’s the whole thing, is you got to have something to live up to.”
Alex also signed Nijmegen’s Book of the City, a tome reserved for distinguished visitors, inking his name in its pages alongside Bruce Springsteen and King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands.
“Alex still feels a connection with Nijmegen,” reads a statement from the city, “and Nijmegen in turn honors the band.”
For his 2024 memoir, Brothers (through HarperCollins), Alex Van Halen recounts his upbringing in Europe; the brothers’ relocation to the United States, eventually settling in Pasadena, California, in 1962; and their band’s ascent to the very highest peak of rock music.
Throughout Brothers’ 231 pages, Van Halen discloses the tight bond between him and Eddie, his guitar hero brother who passed away during Oct. 2020 at the age of 65 after a long battle with cancer.
Van Halen was inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame in 2007, won a Grammy Award (hard rock performance for 1991’s For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge), four MTV Video Music Awards, and, for a time, dominated the charts. In the United States, the band scored five No. 1 albums on the Billboard 200 chart and more than 20 hits on the Billboard Hot 100 songs chart, including the 1984 smash single “Jump,” which logged five weeks at No. 1.
