Wolfgang Van Halen spoke about his current relationship with Van Halen singer David Lee Roth. During an appearance on the latest episode of the Rolling Stone Music Now podcast, he referenced the fact that Roth posted an audio clip to YouTube in January 2024 in which he blasted Wolfgang for allegedly engaging in unpleasant behavior and making poor decisions during Van Halen’s final tour.
Wolfgang Van Halen opens up on David Lee Roth
Wolfgang said: “I didn’t put a two-hour-long YouTube rant of completely unfounded lies about said person out of nowhere. So I don’t know what I did, but that’s certainly where I sit.”
As for being called a kid by Roth in the YouTube clip, Wolfgang added: “I’ve always been a punching bag. So, it’s just whatever… I’m a 34-year-old married man with a third album. I’m not a kid.”
David Lee Roth had claimed that Wolfgang Van Halen spent much of the tour complaining that Roth wasn’t giving him enough attention on stage, reportedly voicing his frustrations to several crew members, including the business manager, security, and wardrobe staff.
In the YouTube clip, Roth stated about Wolfgang: “This f**kin’ kid, he’s complaining the entire tour like I’m not paying enough attention to him on stage.” Roth continued: “He’s complaining to everybody around me — the business manager, the security guy, the clothing lady — ‘Dave’s not paying enough attention to me.’
Roth claimed that during the New York stop of the tour, Wolfgang had people remove two women Roth had invited as his guests. Roth added that the women actually worked for Wolfgang’s own accounting firm and accused Wolfgang—like his relatives—of failing to provide them with tickets.
“In fact, you aren’t gonna believe this sh*t. This fuckin’ kid, what he doesn’t know is that these two dames work for the accounting firm that represent him, not me. But as usual, he, just like his uncle and his uncle’s brother, stiffed them for tickets.”
Back in August 2024, Wolfgang was asked by the “WTF With Marc Maron” podcast if he gets along with David. He responded: “Not really, at least as of recently. I thought we were on good terms, and he actually made a couple YouTube videos about me, about how much he doesn’t like me, which was, like, ‘Okay, cool man.'”
Asked what Roth’s justification was for making those videos, Wolfgang said: “He basically just said a bunch of stuff that was true to him, I guess. It doesn’t matter if it’s not true because the people that are going to listen to it will believe it and use it to hate me anyway. So you’ve just gotta move forward.
“I think the big thing, one of the bigger things is that my dad isn’t around,” Wolfgang explained. “So I think he just went for what’s still there to kind of point at.”
