Wolfgang Van Halen recently blasted an article when he posted a screenshot with the caption:
“Out of context headlines and social media sure are a fun little mix 🥰
(PS: I hope your daughter forgives you, Joe 👊)”
Michael Anthony commented, “Tell ‘‘em Wolf!!”
During the interview, when asked about his Taylor Hawkins tribute show shredding taking people by surprise – even leading to accusations of using backing tracks – Van Halen replied, “You never know… hell, half the people live, it’s tracks nowadays. It’s just a f***ing bummer.
“Everybody else draws their own line with what tracks are acceptable or not, but it’s like, if you’re pumping in the main guitar riff and the lead vocals and actual f***ing drums – like, pre-recorded drums – that’s a problem. You should be able to play your sh*t.”
Echoing his earlier comments, Van Halen went on, “I can understand [if] you don’t have a keyboard player so [you] need the pad, that’s fine, you can’t carry around a 60-piece orchestra, so you’ve got the strings – that’s fine. But lead vocal, main guitar, main bass and the drums… you should be playing that.”
The topic turned to the question over whether over-production in modern music has lead to an over-reliance on backing tracks to recreate certain songs, but Van Halen’s approach remained rooted in traditional approaches.
“I never do anything in the studio that I can’t do live,” he asserted. “Sure, there are tricks that you can do to do stuff you wouldn’t normally be able to do, but why would you want to do that? It’s about creating music that you’re capable of doing and you could do live.
“I got to a concert to see bands play the fuck out of their music. That’s what we try to do with Mammoth. First and foremost, we are playing everything and we’re doing it to the best of our ability.”
