While speaking to Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan during an appearance on Corgan’s new podcast “The Magnificent Others,” Wolfgang Van Halen spoke briefly about how he doesn’t think his late father Eddie Van Halen would approve of negative fans gatekeeping the band’s legacy.
“It’s a funny thing when you see the people who are the strongest Van Halen fans outwardly acting in a way that my dad would be disgusted with, and they don’t see that,” he said.
Despite many of those demanding fans wanting Wolfgang to play Van Halen material, when the musician started his own music career he made a rule for himself that he wouldn’t play songs by his dad and uncle’s iconic band. “I honor my dad by existing and doing what I do every day. I’m not f*ckin’ playing ‘Panama’ for you guys,” he tweeted in 2021, addressing those nagging fans.
The only exception to this rule was when Wolfgang performed at the Taylor Hawkins tribute concerts in 2022, where he played “Panama,” “Hot for Teacher,” and “On Fire.”
Wolfgang previously said that those performances provided him with a sense of closure. Now, in his interview with Corgan, he added that it was important to him to prove to the fans who often criticize him that he could play those songs – even if he chooses not to.
“[My dad] enjoyed playing with me, that was one of his favourite things and it was a big reason why the years of Van Halen where I was involved happened at all,” he said.
“I think when I did the Taylor Hawkins tribute where I played those two Van Halen songs for Taylor and my dad, it was a big moment for me because it was, one, proving that I could do it, and two, showing that I choose not to [do it more often]… My dad actually had a quote when they ended up doing a lot of cover songs on ‘Diver Down’, there was a lot specifically on that album, and he said, ‘I’d rather bomb with my own material [than] succeed with someone else’s’, and I feel very much that way.”
“I could very easily shack up and do ‘Wolf does Van Halen’ and probably make a decent living at it. It’s very hollow and astoundingly creatively unfulfilling. I feel like it’s kind of selling out, and I could never do that, that’s not satisfying to me. I would rather bomb on my own than succeed with what my dad laid before me.”
