Wolfgang Van Halen sits down this week on The Magnificent Others with Billy Corgan, discussing his drive to forge his own clear identity in the shadow of his late guitar icon father, Eddie Van Halen.
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During their candid and far-reaching chat, Wolfgang tells Billy that throughout his career, he has striven to earn every opportunity given to him and his band Mammoth WVH based on his own musical abilities, rather than resting safely on his famous last name.
“I could very easily shack up and do ‘Wolf does Van Halen’ and probably make a decent living at it,” he tells The Smashing Pumpkins' frontman. However, “It’s very hollow and astoundingly creatively unfulfilling. I feel like it’s kind of selling out,” Wolf adds, “and I could never do that, that’s not satisfying to me. I would rather bomb on my own than succeed with what my dad laid before me.”
"I want to earn this," Wolfgang says clearly "I don't want to be given anything." Corgan agrees with that sentiment, adding "I don't know why people aren't willing to give you that opportunity. I find that annoying."
"It's a really funny put down of 'You'll never be your dad,'" Wolf says. "It's like, 'No, I'm not and nobody else ever will be.' I would rather make my own name. Unfortunately, when I have the name Van Halen, it's a bit tough to do."
"Don't you think it's kind of weird that people expect you to sound like Van Halen?" asked Corgan. "Yeah, they want me to either sound like Van Halen or they want me to play Van Halen," Wolf says. "They want me to be like my dad, but if I was, I'm riding coattails, but I'm not, but I am. I'm just doing what makes me happy."
“I think when I did the Taylor Hawkins tribute where I played those two Van Halen songs for Taylor and my dad, it was a big moment for me because it was, one, proving that I could do it, and two, showing that I choose not to,” he explained. “My dad actually had a quote… When [Van Halen] ended up doing a lot of cover songs on ‘Diver Down’ -- there was a lot specifically on that album -- and he said, ‘I’d rather bomb with my own material and succeed with someone else’s,’ and I feel very much that way.”
Wolfgang says his late father, Eddie Van Halen, truly enjoyed taking the stage with him. “That was one of his favorite things,” he revealed, adding “It was a big reason why the years of Van Halen where I was involved happened at all.”
Looking back at early criticism he received, “Nobody ever believed I was playing anything,” he says, adding people had accused him of “faking” and ”playing to tracks or something.”
“It’s a funny thing when you see the people who are the strongest Van Halen fans outwardly acting in a way that my dad would be disgusted with, and they don’t see that,” he said of the detractors. Dispelling any doubt, “It's very important for me that we don't use tracks,” he says. “The only thing we play to is a click track."
"It just kind of keeps it together. It's just more fun. Sometimes it's fun to not,” he explained. “There's a metal band, Meshuggah, I love very much, and sometimes they just go into a song where you don't even hear a count-off, and I think that's really cool. But I don't know — it just kind of holds it together."
“I personally think there shouldn't be any lead vocal tracks, there shouldn't be any background tracks, there shouldn't be any main guitar, no drums," he continued. “For us, what you're seeing is us, and it's different. It's not the album, it's a live thing, and I think what we've been doing the past three years is working on being the best performance kind of band that [we] can. We don't have a show. The show is us. You come to see us play our songs as well as possible."
Listen to the full episode with Wolfgang Van Halen -- now streaming -- plus, follow along with Greatest Guitarists, Van Halen Radio, The Smashing Pumpkins Radio, and more on the free Audacy app.
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