Some bitter Van Halen fans used to accuse Wolfgang Van Halen of being a nepo baby — until he earned a Grammy nomination for his first solo album.
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00:00Some bitter Van Halen fans used to accuse Wolfgang Van Halen of being a nepo-baby,
00:06until he earned a Grammy nomination with a song from his first solo album.
00:11Given that his father was one of rock's all-time greatest guitar heroes,
00:15it shouldn't come as a surprise that Wolfgang Van Halen began demonstrating musical aptitude
00:20at a young age. It may be a surprise, though, that his first love was the drums. He posted
00:25a photo on Instagram of himself as a toddler sitting at his Uncle Alex Van Halen's drum kit,
00:30writing,
00:32"...sneaking in a quick jam sesh on Uncle Al's kit with my drumming uggs
00:36and drumsticks that are almost the same size as me."
00:40Wolfgang told The Washington Post that when he was just eight or so,
00:43his dad placed a stack of magazines on a table and instructed him to bang on them,
00:47as if they were a snare drum, saying,
00:50"...if you can do this in time, this is what playing drums is."
00:54Soon, Wolfgang grew serious and graduated from stacked periodicals to a legit drum set. He said,
01:01"...I started playing drums when I was nine-ish. It was the only thing my dad
01:04actually sat down to teach me. So once he saw that I could do it, he was like, yes!"
01:10It's a testament to the parenting of Eddie Van Halen and Valerie Bertinelli
01:14that Wolfgang Van Halen grew up unaware of their respective fame. He told People magazine,
01:19"...my mom did a really good job at grounding me in my childhood.
01:23It felt completely normal. It wasn't lavish or insane."
01:27Wolfgang told Guitar World that the first time he could recall noticing that people acted
01:32differently around his parents was when the family flew back from a trip and were besieged
01:36by photographers at the airport.
01:38"...I just remember a bunch of flashing lights because paparazzi were following us.
01:42That's the only memory I have that was unusual."
01:45Wolfgang told Ultimate Classic Rock that he learned the truth at age six or seven,
01:50when Eddie Van Halen was remastering his band's early albums. He said,
01:55"...I found a box of all of them. And I saw my name on it and a picture of my dad.
01:59I said, Dad, what's this? And he said, oh yeah, uh, this is what I do.
02:03And he kind of introduced me to everything."
02:06As he got older, Wolfgang began developing an interest in guitar. Surprisingly, though,
02:10his father didn't really teach him how to play. Wolfgang told Louder Sound,
02:15"...my dad wasn't the best teacher. I would ask him to play something, but
02:18he would just proceed to be Eddie Van Halen. He would look at me and say,
02:22do that. To which I would laugh and reply sarcastically, sure thing, no problem."
02:27"...he's like, well, do this. And I was like, f—k you."
02:32As a result, Wolfgang mostly taught himself how to play, declaring that because his father
02:37was self-taught, he wanted to develop his own guitar technique in a similar fashion. He told Spin,
02:42"...it was important that I develop my own skills and my own sound.
02:45That's helped me, or else you'd be listening to some s—t Van Halen cover band."
02:50By 2006, Wolfgang Van Halen's skills had progressed to the point that his father
02:55brought him into Van Halen as the band's new bass player, replacing longtime bassist
03:00Michael Anthony. While naming his son as a full-fledged member of Van Halen at age
03:0515 may have seemed like an act of nepotism, Eddie Van Halen insisted that it was on merit.
03:11When his dad ultimately asked him to join, Wolfgang accepted,
03:14but only under the condition that he didn't have to do any bass solos.
03:19While the decision initially generated skepticism, Wolfgang proved the doubters wrong
03:23during the band's 07-08 reunion tour with original Van Halen frontman David Lee Roth.
03:29However, some old-school Van Halen fans felt he was a nepo-baby interloper. Wolfgang told
03:36Louder Sound,
03:37It was tough. It was something I didn't know how to handle. That did a lot of damage to me."
03:42By 2013, Wolfgang had become a Van Halen veteran,
03:46having performed numerous shows with the band. That year,
03:49he announced that he was joining another band as well, Hard Rocker's Tremonti. Speaking with
03:54Billboard, Van Halen insisted that he was taking his role with Tremonti as seriously as he was
04:00his other gig. He said,
04:02Van Halen is definitely the priority, but whenever Van Halen isn't doing anything,
04:07I treat this as another band I'm legitimately in."
04:10Wolfgang told Rock Street Journal that his involvement with Tremonti
04:14came about organically, as he'd been a friend of Creed guitarist Mark Tremonti for several years.
04:19As he recalled, he happened to be in New Jersey, where Tremonti was based,
04:22at the same time they were in dire need of a bass player for a tour. He said,
04:27So I went over one night, at midnight, and learned the entire set. And the next day,
04:31we were on tour."
04:33In 2001, Eddie Van Halen confirmed that he was undergoing treatment for cancer on his tongue.
04:38He subsequently revealed that he'd beaten the disease, and had been declared cancer-free in
04:432002. Sadly, his cancer returned, and in 2020, he succumbed to the disease. He was just 65.
04:50Wolfgang had been close to his father, and the elder Van Halen's death
04:54hit him particularly hard. He told Carson Daily,
04:57It's really tough. Some days are better than others. It doesn't seem like the pain is ever
05:02really going to go away. You just kind of figure out how to carry it a bit better."
05:06How you doing, man?
05:07I'm terrible. I'm trying to stay positive, but man."
05:12While the world lost a rock icon, Wolfgang Van Halen lost so much more. He said,
05:18He was still my dad. And he was incredibly loving. And he was my best friend in many ways.
05:24Wolfgang told People that his father continued to inspire him from beyond the grave,
05:28compelling him to push past his grief and fully engage in living.
05:32What really helps me keep going is my dad. Because if I just gave up and stopped and
05:36crawled in a hole — which I feel like doing every day — I know he'd be really pissed off at me.
05:42He's the only thing that keeps me going.
05:44When he wasn't on the road with Van Halen or Tremonti, Wolfgang was spending time in
05:49the recording studio, working on the tracks that would come together for his 2021 debut album,
05:54Mammoth WVH. The album represented years of work, with Wolfgang playing every instrument
06:00and painstakingly recording his parts. He told NPR,
06:04It's 100 percent all me playing everything, writing everything,
06:08so it's a lot more pressure. But it's also much more creatively freeing.
06:12When he first began to work on the album, Wolfgang had no vision of what it would become.
06:17Modeling his efforts on the first Foo Fighters album, in which frontman Dave Grohl similarly
06:22played all the instruments, he was far from confident that he'd be able to pull it off.
06:27A year after the album's release, Wolfgang took to social media to reveal
06:31how monumental that album had been for him, writing,
06:35It was a culmination of years of work, trial and error, loss, self-doubt, and anxiety.
06:41It began a new chapter in my life that I'm not sure I was even ready for. But I jumped in anyway.
06:47With the release of his first album, the next step was to go on the road and play his music
06:52to live audiences. So Wolfgang formed his band, Mammoth WVH. The name Mammoth was taken from the
06:58moniker of a three-piece group that his dad led prior to forming Van Halen. Wolfgang told NPR,
07:04I always loved that name whenever he would tell me that story,
07:07so I always told myself that when I grew up, I'd name my own album and my own band.
07:12Being the lead singer of his own rock band was uncharted territory for Wolfgang, though.
07:17During an appearance on the Walking the Floor with Chris Shifflett podcast,
07:21he said that he wasn't trying to imitate David Lee Roth or any of the other musicians he had
07:26worked with and explained, I'm very much myself, to a certain degree. I don't know, maybe it's
07:31boring, but I'm just being unabashedly myself, and I think being honest is a nice thing to be doing.
07:37Wolfgang Van Halen's debut album garnered him his first-ever Grammy nomination,
07:42earning a nod in the Best Rock Song category for the single,
07:46Distance. Wolfgang commemorated the moment on Instagram, sharing a photo of himself with his
07:51mother, Valerie Bertinelli, and then-girlfriend Andrea Alsop. He wrote,
07:55We came, we saw, but we did not conquer, and that's okay. Such an honor to be nominated for
08:01the first song I ever released on my own, in a category with artists I've looked up to my entire
08:06life. I don't know if that'll ever fully set in. He also pointed out that his dad, Eddie Van Halen,
08:12didn't win the Grammy the first time he was nominated,
08:15so he was just following in his old man's footsteps, and his mom was thrilled.
08:19Could I be more proud of my boy?
08:21Wolfgang opened up about his feelings even more in an interview with Noise11.com, saying,
08:26I just think, taking away from that, to be treated as an equal in a category about songwriting,
08:32I think that was enough of a win for me, to take that home and to be Grammy-nominated alongside
08:38people I've looked up to my whole life, from Weezer to Foo Fighters to the Beatles.
08:43Wolfgang and Alsop, a photographer, met online and went on their first date on October 15,
08:482015. Eight years later to the day, the couple tied the knot in a ceremony held at their Los
08:54Angeles home. According to People magazine, they were joined by about 90 guests. Alsop said,
09:00Our goal was just to bring all of our closest family and friends together.
09:04We wanted to create this wedding as a celebration,
09:06not only just for us to get married, but a celebration for the people we love.
09:11Wolfgang honored his late father by having 316, an instrumental Van Halen number that
09:16the guitarist wrote for his son, playing while they walked down the aisle. Bertinelli was simply
09:22thrilled that her son had found the one with which he could share his life. She told People,
09:27They really get one another. Their humor is very similar. They like similar things,
09:31they know how to give each other space, and they're just so comfortable together.
09:36With his own album, a successful concert tour, and a Grammy nomination under his belt,
09:40Wolfgang Van Halen's profile was on the rise when he was tapped to play on the soundtrack of
09:452023's biggest movie, Barbie. In fact, he contributed guitar to Ryan Gosling's
09:51signature musical number in the film, I'm Just Ken, performing alongside Guns N' Roses' Axeman
09:56Slash. When Ryan Gosling whips out his abs, there's a guitar-tapping solo that happens,
10:03and that's me. Wolfgang and Slash reunited to back up Gosling when he performed the song at
10:08the 2024 Oscars for a worldwide television audience. He told The Morning Call,
10:13It was very crazy, but an exciting thing to be a part of. That is not my normal place to
10:18hang around in or operate from, so I felt a little like a fish out of water.
10:22Looking back on the experience, he had a sense that Barbie was going to resonate with audiences,
10:27but had no idea just how big it would be. He said,
10:31To have a small part in something like that was a really cool thing.
10:34I loved playing on it and being a part of the movie.
10:38Shortly after the release of Barbie in August 2023, Wolfgang Van Halen released his second album,
10:44Mammoth 2. Like his debut, he was a one-man band on the project,
10:48playing all the instruments on each song. While comparisons to Eddie Van Halen are inevitable,
10:53Wolfgang has been heartened to see their lessening, as appreciation for his abilities
10:58as an artist in his own right grows. He told Guitar.com,
11:02Luckily and thankfully, it's starting to happen. I see people being a fan of the music first,
11:07and then, only then realizing, oh s***, I had no idea you were Eddie Van Halen's son.
11:12It's really flattering to see people view me as my own person.
11:16He was super proud, and I just wish I could show him this album. I know he'd be going nuts.