Wolfgang Van Halen. A name that carries the weight of rock royalty. The son of the legendary Eddie Van Halen, and a musician who has carved his own path with Mammoth WVH. But now, some critics are throwing a new challenge his way—accusations of lip-syncing and playing to pre-recorded tracks.”
So, where did this all start? In a recent interview, Wolfgang Van Halen opened up about the biggest criticism he’s faced. Some skeptics claim that what fans hear during a Mammoth WVH concert isn’t all live—that pre-recorded tracks are secretly backing up his performances.”
According to Wolfgang, those claims are nothing more than noise. He insists that Mammoth WVH does not use pre-recorded vocals or instrumentals. The only thing they play to? A simple click track.
Regarding Mammoth WVH’s live performances, Wolfgang said: “A big criticism that I was given, because nobody ever believed I was playing anything, was that I was faking and I was playing to tracks or something… It’s very important for me that we don’t use tracks. The only thing we play to is a click track.”
Asked why he and the rest of Mammoth WVH play to a click track, Wolfgang said: “It just kind of keeps it together. It’s just more fun. Sometimes it’s fun to not… There’s a metal band, Meshuggah, I love very much, and sometimes they just go into a song where you don’t even hear a count-off, and I think that’s really cool. But I don’t know — it just kind of holds it together.”
Circling back to the use of backing tracks at rock concerts, Wolfgang said: “That’s a big debate on tracks. I personally think there shouldn’t be any lead vocal tracks, there shouldn’t be any background tracks, there shouldn’t be any main guitar, no drums. For us, what you’re seeing is us, and it’s different — it’s not the album. It’s a live thing. And I think what we’ve been doing the past three years is working on being the best performance kind of band that you can [see]. We don’t have a show. The show is us. You come to see us play our songs as well as possible.”
