Wolfgang Van Halen launched his career around the age of 16 when he was tapped (no pun intended but acknowledged) by his father Edward to become the bassist in the family business: legendary rock band Van Halen. Following the 2012 release A Different Kind of Truth, he began to record with various bands. Later, he worked under the name Mammoth WVH, which ultimately became simply Mammoth, one of Van Halen’s early band names. Wolf has since released three records as Mammoth, most recently 2025’s The End. Music Connection spoke with him between legs of his tour, the latest of which will take the band to Europe and, for the first time, South America.
For any artist, there’s often a creative pursuit that exacts its price. For Van Halen, his most challenging song sprang to life after a protracted creative crisis. “The final track on the record ‘All in Good Time’ was the last song we did,” he recalls. “It’s not a ballad but it’s close and was really important for the record because it needed that vibe. We’d just been through all of the fires and it was the first day of torrential rains so there was a lot of relief. I was kind of losing myself and I stood outside in the rain for an hour as I tried to will it into existence. I had writer’s block and you do anything you can to shake up your brain in a different way. This was the first record where I felt unsure when I recorded the vocals because I’d stepped outside of my comfort zone, lyrically and vocally. Luckily, I was wrong. When I went back inside, I unlocked what I was searching for and finished it, which was a huge relief because then I knew we had the record.”
Eleven years ago, Van Halen began to work with producer Michael “Elvis” Baskette, who’s helmed all three of Mammoth’s records. His partnership with Baskette has proved pivotal. “Elvis and I have worked together since before Mammoth existed,” he says. “We have a great friendship and partnership and don’t feel weird about challenging each other’s opinions so it’s a healthy work environment. Not having a band in the studio [could be] weird if I didn’t have anybody else there challenging and pulling stuff out of me. That’s what the process needs. He provides creative friction and is a key part of what makes Mammoth Mammoth. He sees the bigger picture and knows the right moves.”
Van Halen played all of the instruments and performed vocals on each of his three records. That’s a bold move especially in addition to writing everything. How he arrived at that choice is quintessentially rock and roll. “I’ve always been a big fan of the Foo Fighters,” he observes, “and I wanted to see if I could do what Dave [Grohl] did with [1995’s] Foo Fighters where he recorded the whole thing on his own. I wondered if I was capable of writing and recording a record that way and not have it sound like it was one person; that it could sound like a full band. That was the driving force behind the first record [2021’s Mammoth WVH] and it grew from there.”
Edward Van Halen began work on his home studio 5150 in 1983. It’s where Van Halen (the band) recorded all of its records from 1984 onward. It’s also where Wolfgang does all of his work. Like any crossroads of creativity, it constantly evolves, grows and changes. “It’s been important for me to make sure that its overall vibe remains the same,” he explains. “I even sourced the exact parquet flooring to make sure that when we move stuff around I can have it be the same. Other than little things like a flat-screen TV, it’s still very much the same studio.”
Artists often have a favorite piece of studio gear or a go-to instrument. For Van Halen, he relies heavily upon guitars that he designed and developed alongside Fender’s EVH brand. “With my second record, I did ninety-five percent of the guitar tracking on one of the prototypes,” he recollects, “and with The End I did about the same with the SA-126, one of my newer ones. But I also like to use one of my dad’s old guitars to have some of his energy mingled with mine. I bring out the Frankenstein [Edward’s iconic, cobbled-together guitar] once per record. For this one I used it for the tapping intro to the song ‘The End.’”
Van Halen is a decided detractor of using A.I. to make music. “I read recently that some people use it when they write,” he shares. “That’s not only insulting to the process but it’s incredibly lazy. It shows how much music means to you if that’s where you stoop to create. Whenever I’ve been stuck and am losing my mind, I step away. Then I come back to it the next morning refreshed and either find it or I realize that what I’d done was good enough. I understand the benefit of convenience but at a certain point it’s trying to bring efficiency to something that isn’t necessary and we’ll start to lose the human experience.”
Mammoth returns to the road on March 5, will remain there through the summer and resume in the fall. Van Halen is excited to open for stalwart metal outfit Iron Maiden for the first time. Although Mammoth’s latest release is titled The End, it seems likely that Van Halen won’t reach that point for quite some time.
Contact mammoth.band; Instagram @mammothwvh; @wolfvanhalen
