Van Halen Taught Wolfgang What Not To Do (2024 In Review)

11-29-2024

Wolfgang Van Halen earned a top 24 story of January 2024 when he shared that his experience while a member of Van Halen taught him things that did not want to "carry over into" his solo band Mammoth WVH.

Here is the report in our look back in the Year In Rock: He made the comments during a new interview with The Messenger after he was asked what he learned from performing with Guns N' Roses and Metallica and his friendship with Foo Fighters' frontman Dave Grohl.

Van Halen responded, "That it's important to love what you do. Especially hanging with Grohl, he just loves music, he has such a respect towards music in general and to everybody who partakes in it. It's just fun to see that untainted love, where other bullsh*t doesn't get in the way.

"The stuff I did learn from being in Van Halen was the stuff that I didn't want to carry over into Mammoth - why can't we just play music and have fun doing it and that's it? Why do we need to be walking on eggshells around certain people in order to get anything done? Shouldn't this just be easy and fun? Because music is so great.

"And I think that's what I've done with Mammoth, this wonderful core of people that can weather the storm together and make music and support each other and have a great time doing it."

In a follow-up question he was asked "Was it tough to shed the idea that being in a band meant that there was all this other attendant nonsense attached?", and Wolfgang responded, "Yeah, maybe that was part of a desire for me to just play everything. I think on top of wanting to prove to the world that I could play - from being told since I was 15 that I wasn't good enough or was faking it or whatever - there was another, very equal desire to not have the bullsh*t, because if I'm the whole band, the only person I could argue with was myself. And I certainly do that, but it's better than it being the other way."