“Man, it is a fucking tight rope to walk, with the shadow I’m under and the expectations,” Wolfgang Van Halen explained during a Q&A in New Jersey on May 11th about dropping the ‘WVH’ from his band Mammoth‘s name, “I wanna be able to have the opportunity to reference my lineage, but not copy it and just put a flag in it and sit there and play “Panama” for everybody every night. I wanna be able to be my own person.”
The Q&A session took place at WDHA‘s event “Mammoth For Ya Mama,” where Eddie Van Halen‘s son, Wolfgang Van Halen, opened up about his music career with his band, Mammoth, and the inevitable ties to his father’s own legendary career in Van Halen.
“It was supposed to be a direct reference,” Wolfgang explains of his band Mammoth. Inspired by his father and uncle’s – Alex Van Halen – first band with David Lee Roth with the same name, Wolfgang confirms the obvious link between the band names. He even asked his father for permission: “I think we were on that last [Van Halen] tour. And I was like, “Hey, Pop, is that cool if I call my band Mammoth?’ And he was like, ‘Fuck, yeah.'”
Wolfgang had the first demo for Mammoth in 2013, but couldn’t build up the courage to ask his father to use the band name until 2016 – “I don’t know why I was so nervous to ask him because, God, he was the most supportive person other than my mom in my life.”
And now Mammoth is on their third record. And it’s not going to be the same as previous material Wolfgang Van Halen had written. He found himself challenged this time, “I think what I recognized during this past recording for what may or may not be coming soon, was I was uncomfortable, and I thought that was a cool thing because I was starting to tread ground that I don’t think I would normally just be doing the same thing. I was enjoying the comfortability of going, like, ‘Is this what I would do? Or is this something new or something more mature?”
Mammoth dropped their first single, “The End,” off the unannounced, vaguely-referred-to, upcoming record two weeks ago while the band was on tour. And, they’ve already announced another tour for their upcoming record. You can check out their tour dates below.
11/1 Las Vegas, NV House of Blues
11/4 Dallas, TX House of Blues
11/5 Houston, TX House of Blues
11/7 Lake Buena Vista, FL House of Blues
11/8 Atlanta, GA Tabernacle
11/9 Charlotte, NC The Fillmore
11/11 Silver Spring, MD The Fillmore Silver Spring
11/12 More info coming soon
11/14 Montclair, NJ The Wellmont Theater
11/15 Pittsburgh, PA Roxian Theatre
11/18 Cleveland, OH The Agora
11/19 Detroit, MI The Fillmore Detroit
11/20 Columbus, OH KEMBA Live!
11/22 Onamia, MN Grand Casino Mille Lacs Event Center
11/23 Green Bay, WI EPIC Event Center
11/25 Chesterfield, MO The Factory at The District
11/26 Chicago, IL House of Blues
11/28 Oklahoma City, OK Diamond Ballroom
11/29 More info coming soon
12/2 Kansas City, MO Uptown Theater
12/3 Denver, CO Ogden Theatre
12/6 Tempe, AZ Marquee Theatre
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