During a recent conversation with Rolling Stone magazine, Wolfgang Van Halen clarifies that he never hated Van Halen, despite the accusations about him where it is said that Eddie Van Halen’s son ”hates his father’s band”.
Below you can read what Wolfgang said regarding this:
“I don’t have a problem. I feel like my stance on Van Halen has been telephoned so hard, as in the game telephone. People are like, “Oh, don’t mention Van Halen. He hates Van Halen!” It’s like, ‘It’s my f*cking name! Why would I hate it? It’s my dad! I love my dad! I was in the f*cking band! I don’t hate it at all.
“All I’ve ever said is I don’t want to play Van Halen music at Mammoth shows. I’d rather bomb with my own stuff than gain attention for playing dad’s.
We covered ”Them Bones” (by Alice In Chains). And before playing it, I would kind of tiptoe into it and be like, 2OK; we’re gonna do a cover right now.’ And everybody in there is going ”Van Halen”!
”And I was like, ‘And I’m not gonna play a Van Halen song,’ and you’d hear people go like, ‘Awwwww.’ And it kind of turned into a dialogue, and I’d be like, ‘What, you don’t think I love Van Halen?’ I would always say that expecting to hear Van Halen at a Mammoth show is like expecting to hear Nirvana at a Foo Fighters concert. And getting pi**ed off that they didn’t play Nirvana!”