Wolfgang Van Halen recently recalled how his father, Eddie Van Halen, would say that he’d rather fail on his own than succeed performing someone else’s music. Wolfgang told Cody Tucker in a recent interview that this is also why he doesn’t want to make a living out of playing Van Halen.
Wolfgang Van Halen says he’s won’t perform dad’s songs
Since focusing on Mammoth after his father’s passing, Wolfgang Van Halen has been determined to stay away from Van Halen. Three Mammoth albums down the line, Wolfgang has kept to his promise, having shut down any possibility of writing new music with Van Halen alumni Sammy Hagar and Michael Anthony late last year.
“I could easily just shack up and be like, ‘Hey, I’m the only place where you can hear ‘Panama’ being played by Van Halen.’ But I would never want to do that. You know, my dad had a really good quote back in the day when they were doing a lot of covers on the album ‘Diver Down,’ [1982]. He didn’t like that, and he said, ‘I would rather fail on my own than succeed with somebody else’s material.'”
“And that’s exactly how I feel about playing Van Halen stuff. It’s like, I can do it, and I have done it on a special occasion, for the Taylor Hawkins thing. But overall, I would rather fail doing Mammoth stuff than succeed playing ‘Panama’ every night. It’s just not in the cards for me.”
While the three Mammoth albums released so far, not to mention opening for heavyweights such as Metallica and Guns N’ Roses, provided ample proof of Wolf’s musicianship, he told Cody Tucker that there is still a perception that his success is owed to his famous father:
“Well, people like to think that my dad is somehow pulling strings with me going through the business. And it’s like, sure, the name can open doors. But if I couldn’t play and nobody liked what I was doing, those doors would close right away.”
