As you know, we are huge fans of Van Halen and miss Eddie Van Halen more than you’ll ever know. While looking for more Van Halen to share on the site, we came across Eddie’s son Wolfgang’s new music video for Don’t Back Down. Wolfgang started the band Mammoth WVH as a solo-project while he was still in Van Halen back in 2020. In 2020, he released the first single from the self-titled album called Distance, and it went to number one on the Mainstream Rock charts. The second single, Don’t Back Down, also hit number one on the Mainstream Rock charts.
The coolest part of all the songs on the album is Wolfgang played all the instruments on the album. It truly was a solo project.
In June 2021, Wolfgang described the debut album as “personal” and “therapeutic”, while acknowledging influence taken from his father’s career. In developing the overall sound and style for the project, Wolfgang stated that while “I’ll always be there to champion my father and his legacy…I definitely made a choice to not sound directly like Van Halen…I think that would be boring if I was a carbon copy of my dad.”
via Wikipedia
Regarding Distance, Wolfgang said, “As my pop continued to struggle with various health issues, I was imagining what my life would be like without him and how terribly I’d miss him. While the song is incredibly personal, I think anyone can relate to the idea of having a profound loss in their life. I never intended ‘Distance’ to be the very first piece of music people would hear from me, but I also thought my father would be here to celebrate its release. This is for him. I love and miss you, Pop.” – WVH via YouTube
If you haven’t seen it yet, we thought you’d all enjoy this look at Wolfgang Van Halen’s music videos for both Distance and Don’t Back Down! The Distance music video is so emotional to watch with the home video footage of Wolfgang and Eddie together, and the voice mail at the end of the song from Eddie to Wolfgang will leave you in tears…
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