Alex Van Halen / Selena Gomez

Fresh Air

NPR

Tv & Film, Arts, Society & Culture, Books

4.4 • 34.4K Ratings

🗓️ 2 January 2025

⏱️ 50 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

We continue our series featuring some of our favorite interviews from 2024, this time with Alex Van Halen and Selena Gomez. Alex Van Halen talks about his life and the career he built with his late brother Eddie, and the formation of their band Van Halen. From growing up as immigrant kids in California, to the wild antics of life on the road as rock stars and some of his stunts, like setting his drums on fire.

Selena Gomez talks about her role in the Spanish-language musical film Emilia Pérez, where she stars as the wife of a brutal drug cartel boss. We talk about the evolution of her career, from a Disney kid to a pop star.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	What's in store for the music, TV, and film industries for 2025?
0:04.9	We don't know, but we're making some fun, bold predictions for the new year.
0:09.4	Listen now to the Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast from NPR.
0:13.7	This is Fresh Air. I'm Tanya Mosley.
0:16.8	Today we continue our series featuring interviews from 2024, this time with Selena Gomez and Alex Van Halen.
0:28.3	Along with his late brother Eddie, Alex is a founding member of the rock band Van Halen.
0:37.9	Known for their extravagant high-energy performances,
0:41.4	Van Halen is credited with being one of the most influential rock bands of all time.
0:45.8	I get up and nothing gets me down.
0:52.9	You got it tough
0:54.6	I've seen the toughest around
0:57.0	And I know
1:01.8	Baby just how you feel
1:05.6	You got to roll
1:09.2	With the punches And get to what's real In a memoir published this year called
1:15.9	Alex charts both he and Eddie's life and music career, from their arrival to the United
1:21.7	States from the Netherlands as kids, to the influence of their father, who was a Dutch jazz
1:26.9	musician, and the formation of the rock band their father, who was a Dutch jazz musician,
1:30.5	and the formation of the rock band in 1974,
1:35.1	after meeting vocalist David Lee Roth and bassist Michael Anthony.
1:39.8	But mostly, Brothers is a love letter to the music they created,
1:45.0	and to Eddie, who has been called for decades one of the greatest guitarists of all time.
	...

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