By Jim Barber
We’re way past the point of measuring the ability, the passion for creation, the quality of musicianship and songwriting chops through the filter of Wolfgang Van Halen’s last name. The only child of legendary American guitarist Eddie Van Halen, arguably one of the most important influential guitarists in the history of popular music, there will always be inevitable comparisons between the creative output of the son to that of the father.
Some are valid. Wolfgang is a remarkable musician, who may even outdistance the old man in terms of his proficiency on multiple instruments. As good as his dad was, and may have been the best of his generation, Van Halen was a construct of four component parts, each having an influence on the band’s sound from original frontman David Lee Roth, through bassist Michael Anthony and of course the integral rhythmic component provided by Wolf’s uncle Alex.
Mammoth, the name of the band, or brand if you will, under which Wolfgang writes, records and releases music, is not copy or extension of Van Halen in either tone or type of song. The melodies are more haunting and memorable, the instrumentation is just as virtuosic, but is more self-contained and services the song. It is rock, it is heavy, but Mammoth’s sound, especially in recent years, has a more demonstratively personal lyrical tone, enveloped my dynamic musical choices that stray occasionally into the early 2000s’ alternative rock sound, or step backwards into the groove-oriented AOR sound of the 1970s.
Wolf Van Halen is his own man, his own artist and has carved his own path in the music industry, creating a compelling story in his own right, as he continues to ascend both the charts and the popular imagination with a fulsomely independent musical spirit imbuing his recorded works with a sense of deep, resonant authenticity, memorability and relatability.
The End, coming out Oct. 24 on BMG Music, is Van Halen’s third full-length album under the Mammoth banner (which was the name that his dad Eddie and uncle Alex’s band performed under before changing their monicker at the suggestion of Roth) and, once again, all the songwriting, instrumentation and much of the production was done by Van Halen himself. He said it’s his preferred method of creation, although if another project came along, one different than Mammoth, he would be open to collaboration with other artists.
“When it comes to Mammoth, I think that’s what it’s been since its inception. It’s always been this sort of thing of mine that I’ve experimented with, like a solo project, but more along the lines of how Foo Fighters or Nine Inch Nails started. I wouldn’t say no down the line if I was ever bored by the process or felt like not doing drums one year or something. But I think the whole process is something I really enjoy, but it’s also what makes it Mammoth. If it was something else, maybe, but right now this is the way it is. I mean Paul McCartney did it, Lenny Kravitz does it, Dave Grohl did it for the first Foos album.”
For those listening closely, there is a noticeable difference in the vibe and tone of The End compared to the first two albums, the self-titled Mammoth WVH in 2021 and Mammoth II in 2023. While the musicianship, song craft and arrangements are as sharp, melodically intoxicating and brilliantly badass as ever, there is a more insistent, frenetic (in a good way) energy to the recordings. Van Halen attributes this to the way he did the actual demoing and recording of the instruments for the album, literally hopping from one instrument to the other, keeping a sort of dynamism and creative momentum going as he tore through each take.
“It was as live as it could be when it came to recording. I’ve always played everything, but when it came to the demoing process, It was only ever really something I did by myself on my laptop, like on Logic or something, just to make sure the parts kind of meshed together. But this time around, we finally have a good place in the studio [his dad’s 5150 Studio] and we’re not as focused on fixing stuff and making them perfect. We were set up early enough that we just did everything in the studio. So, it felt really live and it was really, quickly gratifying. Like, you could tell if something was working on both an emotional and a musical level rather than being on your laptop for four hours and not really sure where you were with a demo,” he explained.
“So, I think the confidence of just being in the process yet again, but having something where you could really throw stuff at the wall and quickly see if it worked or not, I think allowed me to take more chances. There are a lot of songs on this record that wouldn’t exist the way they did had the process not been what it was. I would ask my engineer to set the tempo on the click and then I would just play guitar to it, and then I’d run right out and play drums to that, and then I’d come back into the control room and play bass to that. It was a really, really fun environment, where it was as live as it could be with one guy and just being able to try things and see, ‘does this work? Where should this go?’ It was a really fun process. And I think it’s how we should do it moving forward.
“The physicality of it, running from instrument to instrument, you really get in the moment, that sort of eureka moment and you can’t wait. You’re just kind of running to that next instrument to make sure you don’t forget the idea you had, you know, rather than just doing it really quickly on the computer and getting bogged down by the software. I don’t know, I just found it to be a very fun process, and very productive.”
Overall, Van Halen said it’s his confidence that’s evolved most since the first Mammoth WVH album dropped in 2021 (this time out, he dropped the WVH part of the band name). It’s not only confidence in his musical chops and songwriting skill, but confidence in his own choices, his own judgement and his own instincts.
“Confidence, I think, is probably the most important defining factor between where I am now and where I was five years ago. I think I’m more comfortable. Obviously, the more you do something, hopefully you get better at it, which is a factor too. But I’m certainly in a place mentally where I care less about what others think and what they feel I should be doing. I’m more following what gives me purpose and doing what makes me feel happy and makes me feel satisfied,” he said.
“I think I’ve reached a really healthy place with this record. And I think knowing who I am as my own artist has allowed me to challenge that a bit more, and through that whole process, I’ve grown even more.”
As such a self-contained creative entity, one is naturally curious to dig a little into just how the fertile musical mind of Wolfgang Van Halen works when he is hard at his craft.
“Since we are kind of a guitar-centric hard rock band, usually the idea starts with something on guitar. If it’s maybe a more fleshed out idea, like where I have a melody that I’m very sure of or a drum part that I know needs to be there, or like a fill, I’ll get that down first. But more often than not, 90 per cent of the time, it originates with a guitar riff or part that then inspires me enough to just kind of keep digging,” he explained.
“In terms of lyrics, I think the way that we found we do our work best is spend the first bit of time getting the songs crafted. And then we record that and we take some time away from it. For this record we took time off for the [Christmas] holidays, for December and the beginning of January for me to write the guitar solos and for me to write the lyrics and the melodies and all that. Then we went back and finished everything. The way I write vocals is I usually do melody first because I think the melody is one of the most important things in a song. Because I do it that way, I prefer to not try and shoehorn words into the melody and I really pay attention to the meter and the flow of the words because I hate when people try to shove too many words into the meter of a vocal and it kind of disrupts the flow of it all. I think maybe that’s just me being a drummer [he played drums before he played guitar as a precocious young musician] and coming from a rhythmic perspective. So usually that’s why I’ll go melody first and then that melody will, in the song itself, inform where the lyrics go.
“The whole thing, and not to sound really douchey or pretentious, but I think with a song, you’re just uncovering it rather than writing it. You have an idea and it just kind of shows itself to you eventually. For me, there’s not really any intention where I say I’m going to write this song about this, or this is going to sound like that. It eventually reveals itself as to what it is and you then just follow that intention until it’s completion. Writing is a really therapeutic thing for me, where I work through a lot of stuff. For this record, I think I realized the through line of the concept of The End and what that could mean and all its interpretations seem to really be something that connects the material, be it a positive take, or specifically with this record, a mostly negative take on what that could mean. On top of the writing process being an evolution, I also finally got the full copyright on Mammoth so dropped the WVH, it being the title of the first record. The name itself is almost meta in a way where it reflects the current state of the band as well as the material.”
The ‘material’ of which he speaks is as masterfully melodic as it is explosively kick-ass. It is as pleasing to the guitar aficionados as it is to the fist-pumpers in the crowd, and to those who want to sing along to anthemic choruses and heartfelt lyrical constructs. In the press material accompanying the album release, Van Halen talks about how the title track has come to embody both the musical tone, and the more organic and intensive process behind its 10 songs. ‘The End’ features a veritable tapping clinic, which is completely apropos of his own magical six string wizardry and the inherited pedigree from his inimitable father, Eddie.
“I’ve had the tapping idea on the intro since before Mammoth,” he said, or the part of the song where he actually used his dad’s famous ‘Frankenstein’ guitar. “I was able to fit it into this world. It’s still over the top and shreddy, but it’s also melodic and controlled. Overall, I was doing some different things on the record, and I knew this was going to be a big step. Once we finished, ‘The End’ it felt really special to me. I knew it had to be the title of the album. It has duality. It can be a good thing or a bad thing – the end of good times or the end of bad times.
“Writing is a therapeutic experience, as I said before, and it helps me deal with many things emotionally. I had a bad panic attach that f***ed me up last year. So, ‘The End’ represents how it feels like the world seems like it’s over in my brain during any moment of trial or tribulation. Even if it seems like the end, there’s always a way to get through it and a light at the end of the tunnel. It’s not a concept album, but all of the topics are closely related.”
In his interview with Music Life Magazine, Van Halen talked about the 1970s groove that marks out ‘The Spell’ as another killer track on the album.
“That where I came through with that riff right away and from the start it started to feel very 1970s – a vintage sort of vibe. And it was fun trying to chase that sound and where it would take me, or where it would go through a Mammoth lens. That’s actually one of my favorite choruses on the record, melodically. That song is sort of the take on what the end could mean when it comes to somebody being influenced by something, and you’re trying to sort of bring them back. So, I really do like the sort of duality of having poppy or catchy melodies along with a more serious or darker lyrical content. I’ve always kind of liked that,” he said, before moving on to talk about the rather in-your-face, get the hell out of my way, shout it out loud track, ‘I Really Wanna’ which is a tad sweary … but with a point!
“That one was just emblematic of the concept of this record and the confidence of where I am today mentally. I think it’s about dealing with the realization that no matter what you do, somebody is going to be pissed off at you, so you might as well try to find a way to enjoy it and just move forward,” he said.
Before the conversation ended, the topic turned to the sudden death of Kiss guitar icon Ace Frehley. Van Halen said he never met him, and in fact of the original Kiss members, has only interacted with Gene Simmons, but understands fully the impact the band, and Ace has had on rock music over the last 50 years.
“It’s terrible because I feel like there’s not too many more musicians out there where you may not have been inspired by them directly, but you are most certainly inspired by somebody who was inspired by them. And that’s a type of legendary that I don’t think is as prevalent as it was, you know, 20, 30 years ago. So, yeah, it’s very sad and a very sobering sort of thing to see where we are right now in terms of our history and music history being lost,” he said.
Speaking of history, personal history, Van Halen’s super cool, super supportive, super famous in her own right mom Valerie Bertinelli has managed to balance her role as advocate and number one fan with also allowing becoming the stereotypical ‘stage mom.’ Of course, she became a celebrity at age 15 when she starred in the hit TV sitcom One Day at a Time, and understands the pitfalls of notoriety at an early age.
“I think just being there to support me has been her approach to a certain extent – not so much to push or guide, but just kind of be there and make sure I don’t make maybe the same mistakes that she did. I think that my dad was the same way in terms of me moving to the music business and just kind of having that care, but also allowing me to make some mistakes and learn from them on my own at the same time, as long as it’s not too bad. But having her as a support system in more ways than one, in terms of being a fan and supportive in that way, but also emotionally supportive and working on giving me a grounded sort of childhood amongst the chaos, I think was something she was very good at,” he said.
Mammoth is currently on tour in the U.S., but Van Halen said he’s already booked a solo headlining tour for next year, with dates in Canada expected. In the interim, he said he is excited for folks to hear The End, which comes out this Friday, Oct. 24 in both physical and digital formats.
“There’s always a little nervousness when you put out a new record. But I think that most people out there are excited to hear it. And I think that excitement and anticipation from fans is a really cool thing, that I don’t take lightly. I feel very lucky, and I’m excited for people to get it, because I think the people who enjoy our music will really be happy with it. I think it’s our best record yet,” he said.
For more information, visit https://mammoth.band.
- Jim Barber is a veteran award-winning journalist and author based in Napanee, Ontario, Canada, who has been writing about music and musicians for more than 30 years. Besides his journalistic endeavors, he works as a communications and marketing specialist and is an avid volunteer in his community. Contact him at bigjim1428@hotmail.com.
