WOLFGANG VAN HALEN On MAMMOTH WVH’s Live Performances: ‘It’s Very Important For Me That We Don’t Use Tracks’

Wolfgang Van Halen, son of late VAN HALEN guitar legend Eddie Van Halen and frontman of MAMMOTH WVH, is the latest guest on Billy Corgan’s new podcast, “The Magnificent Others”. Corgan and Van Halen sit down for a candid and far-reaching conversation about music, identity, and forging a creative path in the long shadow of one of rock’s greatest legends. Wolfgang opens up about his drive to earn every opportunity on his own merits, reflecting on the dual realities of carrying a famous name and longing simply to be recognized as a credible musician. He talks about his musical foundation — from pounding out BLINK-182 drum fills to honing a powerful and versatile lead vocal style — and how those early passions shaped the sound of MAMMOTH WVH. He dives into the band’s whirlwind experiences supporting METALLICA, the importance of maintaining a rock-solid live show without backing tracks, and the reality of navigating public scrutiny in the hyperconnected era of social media. Along the way, Wolfgang shares personal memories of his father, explaining both the encouragement and quiet expectations that fueled his ambition and helped him endure the commentary and comparisons that inevitably follow him and much more.Regarding MAMMOTH WVH’s live performances, Wolfgang said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “A big criticism that I was given, because nobody ever believed I was playing anything, was that I was faking and I was playing to tracks or something… It’s very important for me that we don’t use tracks. The only thing we play to is a click track.”Asked why he and the rest of MAMMOTH WVH play to a click track, Wolfgang said: “It just kind of keeps it together. It’s just more fun. Sometimes it’s fun to not… There’s a metal band, MESHUGGAH, I love very much, and sometimes they just go into a song where you don’t even hear a count-off, and I think that’s really cool. But I don’t know — it just kind of holds it together.”Circling back to the use of backing tracks at rock concerts, Wolfgang said: “That’s a big debate on tracks. I personally think there shouldn’t be any lead vocal tracks, there shouldn’t be any background tracks, there shouldn’t be any main guitar, no drums. For us, what you’re seeing is us, and it’s different — it’s not the album. It’s a live thing. And I think what we’ve been doing the past three years is working on being the best performance kind of band that you can [see]. We don’t have a show. The show is us. You come to see us play our songs as well as possible.”In recent years, more and more artists have been given a pass for relying on pre-recorded tracks, drum triggers and other assorted technology that makes concerts more synthetic but also more consistent. For better or worse, pre-recorded tracks are becoming increasingly common for touring artists of all levels and genres and they’re not just used in pop music — many rock artists utilize playback tracks to varying degrees.Wolfgang previously talked about some rock acts’ reliance on pre-recorded tracks during a June 2023 appearance on “Coffee With Ola”. Wolfgang said at the time: “Hell, half the people live, it’s tracks nowadays, which is such a huge… It’s just a fucking bummer, man.”Look, I think everybody else draws their own line with what tracks are acceptable or not, but it’s, like, if you’re pumping in the main guitar riff and the lead vocals and actual fucking drums — like, pre-recorded drums — that’s a problem,” he explained. “You should be able to play your shit.”I can understand [if] you don’t have a keyboard player, so [you] need the pad. That’s fine. You can’t carry around a 60-piece orchestra, so you’ve got the strings. That’s fine. But lead vocal, main guitar, main bass and the drums — you should be playing that. [Laughs]”When host Ola Englund brought up the question of whether over-production in modern music has led to an over-reliance on backing tracks to recreate certain sounds, Wolfgang said: “I never do anything in the studio that I can’t do live. Sure, there are tricks that you can do to do stuff that you wouldn’t normally be able to do, but why would you wanna do that? ‘Cause it’s about creating music that you’re capable of doing and that you can do live.”I go to a concert to see bands play the fuck out of their music,” he continued. “Like MESHUGGAH — that was my favorite concert I’ll ever see. Because they just kill it. They just stand there and they just play the fuck out of their music. I don’t go to a concert to see a guy going around and be, like, ‘How are you feeling tonight?’ That’s not my shit. Like TOOL — they stand there and they destroy. That’s what I love about music. And that’s what we try to do with MAMMOTH, is that first and foremost, we are playing everything and we’re doing it to the best of our ability.”MAMMOTH WVH’s second album, “Mammoth II”, was released in August 2023 via BMG. The 10-track record was recorded at the legendary 5150 studio and was produced by Wolfgang’s friend and collaborator Michael “Elvis” Baskette.MAMMOTH WVH’s touring lineup features Wolfgang on guitar and lead vocals, Frank Sidoris (SLASH FEATURING MYLES KENNEDY AND THE CONSPIRATORS) on guitar, Jon Jourdan on guitar and vocals, Garrett Whitlock (TREMONTI) on drums, and Ronnie Ficarro on bass.In November 2020, Wolfgang confirmed that he asked his father for permission to use the MAMMOTH WVH band name for his solo project. MAMMOTH WVH is a nod to family history — Eddie Van Halen and Alex Van Halen’s band was called MAMMOTH when singer David Lee Roth first joined it in 1974.[embedded content]