Wolf Van Halen Names The VH Song David Lee Roth Let Him Take The Leads

Mammoth WVH founder Wolf Van Halen talked about the creation and recording process of a track from ‘A Different Kind of Truth’ during his recent interview with Ultimate Classic Rock. He stated that former Van Halen frontman David Lee Roth showed his trust by letting him determine some parts of the song.

Eddie Van Hallen announced that his son Wolf Van Halen would be Van Halen’s new bassist replacing Michael Anthony in 2006. Also, in the same year, the band reunited with their original frontman David Lee Roth for the second time, and their longtime dedicated fans got very happy and excited about his return. Then, the band started working on their first work featuring Roth since 1984 and their newly recruited young bassist.

Van Halen released their twelfth and final studio album named ‘A Different Kind of Truth’ on February 7, 2012, after giving almost four years of a break following ‘Van Halen III.’ Wolf recalled the times when the band focused on writing, composing, and playing for the album, saying that he made a big contribution to one of the album’s songs, ‘Stay Frosty.’ He didn’t forget to highlight that it was originally Roth’s song, but the vocalist allowed him to give some ideas and add structure to it.

Wolf described the song as ‘Ice Cream Man 2’ because its process and structure reminded him of Van Halen’s classic ‘Ice Cream Man.’ Rather than the other songs in the album, the musician unveiled that Eddie, Alex Van Halen, David Lee Roth, and himself were in the studio simultaneously, so ‘Stay Frosty’ became a collaborative work because usually, Roth came after their recordings for the vocal parts. He expressed his gratitude to Roth and the producer John Shanks for giving him a chance to take the lead.

Wolf shared the details, saying:

“‘Stay Frosty’ was a brand new track, and it was all Dave. It was his original song, but I’m the one who added structure to it. It was just that original, that beginning, and we didn’t know where to go with it. I thought, What if we treated it, obviously, as a sort of ‘Ice Cream Man?’ It’s called ‘Stay Frosty.’ It’s Dave acoustic at the beginning, it just makes sense. I’m not trying to sound like, “Oh, it was all me,” but literally constructing that song, it was all me, the idea to do the stabs into it and come into it, with Dad doing the little slide part and then the solo and stuff.

It’s pretty much like ‘Ice Cream Man 2’ in a way. That was sort of the vibe we were going for in the studio. That was one of the main collaborative experiences when it was all four of us in the studio together figuring that out. Because usually, Dad, Al, and I were in the studio during the day recording stuff, and then Dave would come in later by himself to do the vocals.

However, that was the one where, ‘Hey, we need to figure this out,’ and all four of us were in the studio together, and that was a really fun collaborative effort. I’m, in a way, really honored that Dave and the producer at the time, John Shanks, gave me the time of day to actually lead a bit. That was, it showed that they trusted me or at least wanted to give me a chance. That was nice.”

You can listen to the song below.