Alex Van Halen has been knighted – or at least given the equivalent honour – in the Netherlands.
The drummer spent the first nine years of his life in the country, before his family moved to California in 1962. But the Dutch government certainly hasn’t forgotten the Van Halen brothers’ roots.
The honour, the Knight in the Order of the Netherlands Lion (Ridder in de Orde van de Nederlandse Leeuw), is one of the country’s highest civilian honours and is only given to those who have made “extraordinary contributions” to Dutch society and culture.
The 73-year-old was presented with the honour on Tuesday in the town of Nijmegen, where he and Eddie spent much of their childhood. The award was given to him by the city’s mayor Hubert Bruls, who spoke of Van Halen’s role in writing a “remarkable chapter in the history of rock music.”
Alex Van Halen has been knighted in the Netherlands! The legendary Van Halen drummer returned to Nijmegen, where he and Eddie spent their early childhood years, to receive one of the country's most prestigious civilian honors.https://t.co/ALNh49vs92September 2, 2026
Accepting the award, the drummer said: “My cousin organised most of this, but 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 gotta have something to live up to.”
He also signed Nijmegen’s Book Of The City, which is reserved for very important visitors to the Dutch city. Previous signees include Bruce Springsteen and the King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands.
Since the publication of his autobiography Brothers, in 2024, we know a little bit more about Alex and Eddie Van Halen’s early years in Europe. As he wrote in the memoir, it made the siblings unusually close.
“I was with him from day one,” Alex recounted in Brothers. “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 successful, 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.”
