Wolfgang Van Halen Reveals Why Performing His Father’s Songs With Dave Grohl Terrified Him
· Vice
Back in 2022, Wolfgang Van Halen performed some classic Van Halen tunes with a group of big-name artists, including Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl. Now, opening up about the experience, Wolfgang has confessed that it was “terrifying.”
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In an interview with The Garza Podcast, hosted by Suicide Silence guitarist Chris Garza, Wolfgang—the son of Eddie Van Halen—spoke candidly about those big performances, which were part of the Taylor Hawkins tribute concerts that took place roughly four years ago.
Over the course of the two tribute concerts, Wolfgang played three Van Halen songs: “On Fire”, “Hot For Teacher” and “Panama”. Dave Grohl joined on bass, Josh Freese (A Perfect Circle, ex-Foo Fighters) played drums, and The Darkness singer Justin Hawkins handled vocals.
“[It was] terrifying. Terrifying,” Wolfgang said. “I would love to see my heart rate spiking at that. That was a crazy thing. It was a really out-of-body experience.”
Wolfgang was a member of Van Halen, playing bass, from 2006 until his father’s death ended the band in 2020
“It was emotional for me ’cause I don’t wanna play Van Halen stuff,” Wolfgang went on to admit. “I don’t wanna do that without Dad. So it just felt like it was my one moment to just kind of play it and be able to have that moment of having a tribute to my dad. And I know Taylor would’ve f**king loved it. And so, yeah, that was really cool.”
“The Wembley [show] was crazy,” Wolfgang later shared. He added with a laugh, “That’s the most people I’ve been in front of, like, probably for the rest of my life. I think it was, like, 80,000 people, but then you think of who was livestreaming it at the time. That number must be ridiculous.
“But you just couldn’t even think about it,” he continued. “I was just trying to play and not mess up, ’cause I knew if I messed up, my life was over. That’s how I saw it. Like, ‘If I f**k this up, I should just dig a hole and live there.’ But then it came to a point where some people were like, ‘He’s not doing it.’ It was so good to some people that they couldn’t believe that I was playing it, so I guess that’s a good problem to have at the end of the day.”
After his dad died in 2020, Wolfgang Van Halen and his uncle Alex effectively ended Van Halen. Wolfgang is now focused on his own band, Mammoth WVH.
Photo by Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for Solters
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