“It’s as live as it can be with one guy,” Wolfgang Van Halen says of The End, his third album as the one-man-band Mammoth. “That’s the sound we were striving for.” And the truth is, his latest collection of ferocious hard rock sounds pretty damn live, to the point where you easily forget it’s just one guy on guitar, bass, drums, vocals, and a couple of keyboard parts.
On the latest episode of Rolling Stone Music Now, Van Halen digs into the stories behind his new album, (reluctantly) touches on the feud with David Lee Roth that he addresses in his song “I Really Wanna,” talks about his uncle Alex Van Halen‘s aborted plans for an Eddie Van Halen tribute tour, reveals his weight-loss journey, and much more. A few highlights follow; to hear the whole episode, go here for the podcast provider of your choice, listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or just press play above.
A traumatic panic attack on the way to a Metallica show became the inspiration for the album’s title track and overall themes. Wolfgang was preparing for what would be the highest-altitude show he’d ever performed, opening for Metallica in Mexico. “Being a singer, anytime I’ve been in a place that has a really high-altitude elevation, it’s very tough,” he explains. “I was super nervous. I’m really good at psyching myself out anxiety-wise, and I didn’t get a lot of sleep before the flight. I already hate flying to begin with. I’m just a very anxious person.” Then, on the plane, the panic attack hit. “My vision started closing. I thought I had had a panic attack before. If you think you’ve had a panic attack, you probably haven’t. It’s like your body betrays you. My vision closed up. I felt like I was gonna throw up. I started sweating profusely, but I was freezing. I’d never been aware of how badly that could happen. That feeling of feeling like everything was over and ending — when I saw the album art by [collage artist] Moon Patrol, I was like, ‘Oh my God, that’s that feeling perfectly artistically represented.’”
Wolfgang kept his father’s priceless Frankenstrat guitar in his car for three weeks during the L.A. fires. “There were multiple fires within a mile of the house, so I rented a U-Haul and filled it with as many of my dad’s guitars as I could,” he says. “I couldn’t even worry about my own stuff, ’cause I had to worry about my dad’s legacy. I had the Frankenstein in my car for about three weeks… That anxiety and stress really bled into my lyric writing.”
The pre-production process for The End was completely different from his previous albums. “Instead of just doing demos on my laptop, we did them up in the studio,” Wolfgang says. “I’d ask Jeff, our engineer, to put the click at a certain tempo and I would play guitar to it for about a minute and a half. Then I’d run out and play drums, and then I’d run back and play bass. You’d realize if something was working pretty quickly, rather than being on your computer for three and a half hours going, ‘Eh, the EQ on this doesn’t sound good.’”
Wolfgang says David Lee Roth (whose name he doesn’t utter) started their feud without provocation in the video where he referred to Wolf as “this fucking kid.” “I didn’t put a two-hour-long YouTube rant of completely unfounded lies about said person out of nowhere,” Wolfgang points out. “I don’t know what I did, but that’s certainly where I sit. I’ve always been a punching bag. It is just whatever…. I’m a 34-year-old married man with a third album. I’m not a kid.” He adds that the song represents his newfound confidence: “No matter what you do, you’re gonna piss somebody off. So you might as well have a sense of humor about it and enjoy yourself and just kind of move forward.”
Wolfgang has lost 60 pounds over the past year and a half. “I’ve just been focused more on just trying to eat healthfully and just take care of myself,” he explains. “My job is a very active job. Touring is a very active job, and I’ve found that if you just kind of perfect your diet — that’s the stuff that people hate to hear. But in terms of getting healthier, it really starts with diet, more even than exercise. I think I’m down like 60 pounds over the last year and a half, two years, just from really locking in.” He’s stunned at people’s willingness to comment on his appearance, especially the commenters on a People magazine social-media post about his wedding: ”The amount of, like, at-home mothers just lambasting me by the thousands. It’s just like, what the fuck is wrong with you? It was really insane to have one of the happiest moments in my life be put up for every Karen on the planet to just share whatever they felt. It’s not, you know, metal bros. It’s fucking moms, just showing you how awful they are on the inside.I was like, ‘Wow, OK, cool. You guys do that and I’m gonna go over here and, you know, feel better about myself.’”
Wolfgang was in favor of Alex Van Halen’s aborted plans for an Eddie Van Halen tribute tour — but a “certain person” wasn’t willing to put ego aside. Wolfgang confirms that he was aware that, as Alex Van Halen revealed to Rolling Stone last year, Alex had been rehearsing with David Lee Roth for a potential Van Halen tour in tribute to Eddie. And if asked, he says, he would’ve been happy to play on the tour. “I was going to be there in whatever capacity Al needed, for whatever Al needs,” Wolfgang says. “He’s the proprietor when it comes to what Van Halen is and what it will be. If he needs me, I’m there. I’d be open to do whatever he wanted me to do.” Alex said the tour didn’t happen after he clashed with Roth, which Wolfgang confirms: “Unfortunately, some people just can’t get it working.”
Alex Van Halen wants to use AI to complete unfinished Van Halen songs, but Wolfgang isn’t a fan of the technology. ”Al is free to do whatever he wants,” he says. “He’s obviously the proprietor of what Van Halen is and where it goes. But I think generative AI is fucking stupid. I don’t like it. I think it’s dumb. I think we should be using AI to put mufflers on cars, not paint paintings and make songs. It should be doing the stuff that we don’t wanna do, so we can focus on the creative stuff.”
Download and subscribe to Rolling Stone‘s weekly podcast, Rolling Stone Music Now, hosted by Brian Hiatt, on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or go here for the podcast provider of your choice. Check out nine years’ worth of episodes in the archive, including in-depth interviews with artists including Mariah Carey, Bruce Springsteen, Questlove, Halsey, Missy Elliott, Dua Lipa, Neil Young, Snoop Dogg, Brandi Carlile, Phoebe Bridgers, Rick Ross, Alicia Keys, the National, Brian May, Roger Taylor, Ice Cube, Taylor Hawkins, Willow, Keith Richards, Robert Plant, Killer Mike, Julian Casablancas, Sheryl Crow, Johnny Marr, Scott Weiland, Liam Gallagher, Alice Cooper, Fleetwood Mac, Elvis Costello, John Legend, Donald Fagen, Charlie Puth, Phil Collins, Justin Townes Earle, Stephen Malkmus, Sebastian Bach, Tom Petty, Eddie Van Halen, Kelly Clarkson, Pete Townshend, Bob Seger, the Zombies, and Gary Clark Jr. And look for dozens of episodes featuring genre-spanning discussions, debates, and explainers with Rolling Stone‘s critics and reporters.
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