"There’s so much that I can’t share with him. There’s just this black hole.” Wolfgang Van Halen on life without Eddie and how his grief pushed him into a new chapter

"Empty." That's how Wolfgang Van Halen described his life after his father, Eddie Van Halen, died in 2020.

The Van Halen offspring played his part in Van Halen’s legacy when he replaced long-standing bassist Michael Anthony for their 2006 reunion with David Lee Roth. It was a period that he said couldn’t have happened without him, as he recently commented on the backlash his presence had caused among fractions of the fanbase.

Not wanting to have his career overshadowed by his dad’s music, Wolfgang began working on his own solo music with his band, Mammoth WVH, as early as 2015 . But he put the record on hold when Eddie’s health began to deteriorate.

“I spent 2015 to 2018 making the first record, but then when my dad got sick, I kind of put everything on hold,” he tells Billy Corgan’s The Magnificent Others podcast.

Eddie Van Halen had battled tongue cancer in the six years prior to his death, and was hospitalized in 2019.

“It wasn’t until he passed in 2020 that I was like, My life is completely empty, and I need something to give me purpose,” he continues. “That’s what I’m still doing to this day.”

Wolfgang Van Halen | The Magnificent Others with Billy Corgan - YouTube

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During the pair’s conversation, Wolfgang talks openly about the grief he felt losing his dad, saying: “In the absence of my father, which is a heavy absence that I’m dealing with to this day, his pride in me was so large that, in its absence, there’s just this black hole sitting there.”

Mammoth WVH, a project in which he performs all the instruments and vocals. He has become a valuable outlet for himself and has produced two full-length albums so far, and has gigged extensively alongside his work with the EVH brand.

The multi-instrumentalist has repeatedly expressed his desire to be viewed and judged on his own merits as he tries to emerge from under his father's sizable shadow. However, he understands the scale of the challenge, telling Corgan, “I would rather make my own name. Unfortunately, when I have the name Van Halen, that’s a bit tough to do. I want to earn this. I don’t want to be given anything.”

That’s why, stylistically, Mammoth WVH sits far away from the brazen technicality of Van Halen and shares greater DNA with modern rock and progressive metal artists like Intervals’ Aaron Marshall, who he has called his favorite guitar player.

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That’s not to say his music forsakes his father's influence. His solo on “Take a Bow,” for instance, oozes an unmistakable EVH flavor, but it’s done in a way that feels like a tip of the hat to his father, rather than a cashing in on the family name. It comes from the heart, not a craving for success.

But his dad’s influence will always be a huge part of him, and last year, he spoke about how one key lesson he received from his father on guitar solos has continued to resonate with him since.

“I approach guitar playing more as a producer and more as a drummer than a guitar player,” he explains. “Rhythm is always the first thing for me, and melody is the second.

“It's more about songwriting when it comes to Mammoth,” he continues. “Not every song needs a solo.”

Van Halen - Unchained (Live at the Tokyo Dome 2013) [PROSHOT] - YouTube

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However, while a musical distance between his father’s legacy and the one he’s trying to carve out in his own right is welcome, the void left by his father is far greater in other aspects of his life.

Just months after Mammoth II was released in 2023, Wolfgang married his girlfriend, Andraia Allsop, who walked down the aisle to a song Eddie Van Halen had written for his only child. He said it was “a nice way to include my dad,” but that was as much as he could do on such an important day.

“There’s so much that I can’t share with him,” he says to Corgan, candidly. “He never got to see what happened with Mammoth. He never got to see me get married. He never got to see me have kids eventually. Those are tentpole moments that will always have a tinge of sadness no matter what.”

Sensing his interviewee's sadness, Corgan smiles and replies, “I know he’d be proud. He’d be losing it,” and it’s hard to see how his father would have reacted in any other way.

Eddie Van Halen was intensely passionate about music, his guitars, and his family. Wolfgang even says that playing live with his son on bass was one of his “favorite things” to do, so to see him thriving as a songwriter would have filled him with an unfathomable joy.