He’s always credited his father, whotragically died in 2020, with placing him on a musical path.
“I wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for him.
I think just doing what I do is enough of a reference and tribute.”
Soon, he grew serious and graduated from stacked periodicals to a legit drum set.
“I started playing drums when I was nine-ish.
“So once he saw that I could do it, he was like, ‘Yes!'”
“It felt completely normal.
It wasn’t lavish or insane.”
“Not really,” he responded.
“I didn’t notice until I started picking up CDs and saw his picture on them.”
“I just remember a bunch of flashing lights because paparazzi were following us,” he said.
“That’s the only memory I have that was unusual.”
“I said, ‘Dad, what’s this?’
and he said, ‘Oh, yeah, uh … this is what I do.’
And he kind of introduced me to everything.”
By the time he hit puberty, he began developing an interest in guitar.
However, that’s not actually how it happened.
“My dad wasn’t the best teacher,” he toldLouder Sound.
“I would ask him to play something, but he would just proceed to be Eddie Van Halen.
He would look at me and say: ‘Do that.’
To which I would laugh and reply sarcastically: ‘Sure thing, no problem.'”
“It was important that I develop my own skills and my own sound,” he toldSpin.
When his dad ultimately asked him to join, Wolfgang accepted but under one condition.
“I said, ‘Sure.
I just don’t want to do a bass solo.'”
However, some old-school Van Halen fans felt he was a nepo baby interloper.
“It was something I didn’t know how to handle.
That did a lot of damage to me.”
That year, he announced that he was joining another band, hard rockers Tremonti.
He subsequently revealed that he’d beaten the disease, and had been declared cancer-free in 2002.
Sadly, his cancer returned, and in 2020 he succumbed to the disease.
He was just 65.
“It’s really tough.
Some days are better than others,” he admitted during an interview with Carson Daly for"Today.
“It doesn’t seem like the pain is ever really gonna go away,” he explained.
“You just kinda figure out how to carry it a bit better.”
While the world lost a rock icon, Wolfgang Van Halen lost so much more.
“He’s the only thing that keeps me going.”
“It’s 100% all me, playing everything, writing everything.
“And I wasn’t sure if I could do it,” he admitted.
This led him to assemble a band, which he named Mammoth.
“So I always loved that name whenever he would tell me that story,” he said.
Recording an album is one thing playing bass with Van Halen on tour is another entirely.
“I don’t know,” he used.
“We came, we saw, but we did NOT conquer and that’s ok!”
he wrote in the caption.
He opened up about his feelings even more in an interview with Noise11.com, transcribed byBlabbermouth.
“An absolutely ridiculous honor.”
AsPeoplereported, they were joined by about 90 guests.
“It’ll be a nice way to include my dad,” Van Halen observed.
“They really ‘get’ one another,” she said.
“It was very crazy but an exciting thing to be a part of.
“To have a small part in something like that was a really cool thing,” he reflected.
“I loved playing on it and being a part of the movie.”
“Luckily, and thankfully, it’s starting to happen,” he said.
It’s really flattering to see people view me as my own person.”
