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Wolfgang Van Halen appeared on BBC Radio and said that fans expecting him to play Van Halen covers will be sorely disappointed. The latter-day Van Halen bassist will be out on the road this summer with his band Mammoth WVH opening for Guns N’ Roses while promoting its self-titled debut set.
Wolfgang said the show will not feature any of his late-dad Eddie Van Halen‘s music: “No, that’s gonna be all original material. As my dad said when criticized over the amount of covers on (1982’s) Diver Down, I’d rather bomb with my own material than succeed with someone else’s.”
When asked about his father’s reaction to his debut album, which was in the can long before Eddie’s death last October, Wolfgang said, “He was the only other person than myself to have all the ideas on his phone. He even had the ideas that didn’t make it to the album, He’s heard probably potentially the next album or two.”
Wolfgang first performed live with Van Halen during the band’s 2007-2008 world tour, which also marked the return of original frontman, David Lee Roth. Wolf made his recording debut on the band’s 2012 album A Different Kind Of Truth. He looked back on recording the final Van Halen album with his dad: “It was great, being able to just go to work with my dad every day was a really fun experience. We’ve been playing for a while at that point, but it was a different space with me involved. And looking back at earlier ideas to kind of recall that energy, it felt like a renewed experience for them, and it was new for me, so it was a really fun time.”
Around the time of the release of 2011’s A Different Kind Of Truth, Wolfgang told us he was confident the material on the set could fit naturally alongside the band’s older classics: “I’m really, really proud of the record. I think it’s a great record, and I think it really captures the old Van Halen sound because they’re from demos of the older days, y’know? I kind of wanted to put Dad, Al (Van Halen) and Dave into the mind space of when they wrote, like, ‘Runnin’ With The Devil’ and ‘Dance The Night Away’ and stuff like that, y’know? And I think we did a pretty good job.”