Wolfgang Van Halen Finally Responds to Those Less Than Positive Remarks David Lee Roth Made About Him

Back in January, David Lee Roth released an audio clip via his official YouTube channel which found the former Van Halen frontman launching into a tirade about his late-era Van Halen bandmate Wolfgang Van Halen – son of guitarist and band co-founder Eddie Van Halen and actress Valerie Bertinelli – for his behavior during some of Roth’s final shows with the band. Roth offered no explanation for why he’d suddenly decided to make his remarks, and if Wolfgang had anything to say about them at the time, he chose to keep quiet.

That changed this week when Wolfgang sat down for an interview with the radio show The Morning X with Barnes & Leslie and was asked why he thought Roth would make the remarks that he did.

“I guess I’m honored even thinks of me as much as he seems to,” Wolfgang replied. “I guess you have to take what he says with a grain of salt, considering he also said that he wrote [Eddie’s iconic instrumental track] ‘Eruption’ and came up with the Frankenstein [Eddie’s red-white-and-black-striped guitar pattern]… He said he wrote all the solos that [my] dad wrote.

“I guess that’s all I can say,” Wolfgang continued. “I seem to have been born into this Van Halen drama that has come way before me. And I guess now that my dad isn’t here to be a target, I guess he went to the next best thing.”

Wolfgang first joined Van Halen as bassist in late 2006, replacing Michael Anthony first in a touring capacity, then in the studio when the band recorded their 2012 album A Different Kind of Truth. He remained with the band through their final tour in 2015. In addition, he also served as a member of Tremonti in 2013, playing on the band’s 2015 album, Cauterize, and the follow-up LP, Dust, released in 2016.

Following his father’s death in 2020, Wolfgang released his self-titled solo debut under the name Mammoth WVH, an LP which led to his first Grammy nomination for Best Rock Song for “Distance.” His second album, appropriately named Mammoth II, was released in August 2023 and climbed to No. 29 on the Billboard 200 and topped the US Top Hard Rock Albums chart.

"With Van Halen, I learned a lot of how I didn’t want things to be with Mammoth," he told Rolling Stone in 2023. "Why do we need to be walking around on eggshells? Why is there a problem all the time? Like, why can’t we just get along and play music? Don’t we all love music enough to put our bulls--t aside and actually have a good time having this be our livelihood? Shouldn’t it be easier than this? That was one of the main things with Mammoth, was to build this healthy core of people on the inside. That can’t be swayed and that can weather any storm, throughout anything we need to."

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