During his appearance on Billy Corgan’s The Magnificent Others podcast, Wolfgang Van Halen mentioned what type of Van Halen fans Eddie would have hated.
Some fans who think they’re protecting the Van Halen legacy wanted Wolf to continue the band. Still, he wanted to form his own group. He explained, “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]…”
The rocker added, “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,” Wolfgang further shared about her approach to playing Van Halen.
The musician also stated, “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.”
“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,” Wolf lastly noted about the fans.
So, in his career, Wolf wanted to separate his own style from his father. “I guess it all comes down to how we approached the recording process way back in 2015, which is when I started doing the initial guitar tracking for the debut. There was a bunch of experimentation to try and figure out my tone. It was an intentional move to not sound exactly like my dad,” he revealed in 2023.
The guitarist spoke about what else he did to create his own style, “I wanted to be my own person with my own sound. That’s what drove me to semi-hollow guitars, embracing a different kind of vibe. But I also enjoy the modern approach, so basically, it’s the classic sound of a 335 or semi-hollow merged with what the brand is known for: high-performance, shreddy types of guitars.”
Eddie died in October 2020 after battling cancer. Wolf played in Van Halen with him as a teenager.
