Wolfgang Van Halen recently shared with Planet Rock a memory with his father Eddie Van Halen. Wolf reminisced about his father’s AC/DC ultimatum when he was just learning how to play the drums. He recalled:
“AC/DC started [for me] with me and my dad, that’s actually where I learned how to play drums. He had a couple of magazines on a table, and with one he had my right hand as if it was a hi-hat another, my left hand as if it was a snare drum. He’s like, ‘If you use your foot and do the kick in between, if you do that then you’re playing ‘Highway to Hell’ by AC/DC.'”
Wolf also shared his father’s reaction when he was able to play the track. The rocker expressed:
“When he saw that I could do that, he was like, ‘Yes.’ He got me a drum kit for my birthday. So AC/DC has always been very close to my heart. It was one of one of the bands with my father that we enjoyed most.”
Besides learning to play the drums with ‘Highway to Hell,’ AC/DC was also the band that Wolf got interested in since his father was a fan of the band. Wolf expressed to Classic Rock the album that his father favored more than any other album. He said:
“The band that I was probably first obsessed with was AC/DC. My father introduced me to them with ‘Powerage,’ and I was thinking of picking that one because it was his favorite album. But a little bit more than that, ‘Highway To Hell’ is probably my favorite album of theirs.”
You can listen to Wolfgang Van Halen’s interview with Planet Rock, AC/DC’s ‘Highway To Hell’ and ‘Powerage’ below.
