Editor’s note: Mammoth WVH are no longer performing at the Tabernacle after band and crew members tested positive for COVID-19, according to a press release. The band’s remaining tour dates were canceled, though Dirty Honey is still scheduled to perform at the Tabernacle on April 12.
Mammoth WVH’s self-titled debut album has only been out since June, and while the man who made the album, Wolfgang Van Halen, will continue to promote the debut this year, he is starting to look ahead. In fact, Mammoth WVH’s shows this spring co-headlining the Young Guns tour with Dirty Honey may include some of the new material.
“I’m looking forward to maybe experimenting a bit with the set list and maybe trying out some songs that I plan on having on the next album,” Van Halen said in a recent phone interview. “I think it would be fun to expose some new material to the audience to really show them what’s in store and honestly to maybe in a way audition and shop around the idea on what gets a better response and stuff.”
It’s understandable that Van Halen is beginning to think about album number two. To him, the “Mammoth WVH” album isn’t all that new. He essentially finished it in 2017.
But shortly after that, Van Halen put his music career on hold to spend as much time as possible with his famous father, Van Halen guitarist Eddie Van Halen, whose health had started to decline. The guitarist passed away in October 2020 from cancer.
By that time, Eddie’s son was already familiar to the legion of Van Halen fans because he served as bassist (replacing Michael Anthony) for that band’s tours in 2007-08, 2012-13 and 2015.
The tours brought father and son even closer together as Wolfgang Van Halen thoroughly enjoyed performing with his father on the Van Halen arena tours.
“They’re some of the most special times in my life. I wouldn’t trade it for anything else,” he said. “It really brought us even closer. We were together all the time. It was the best.”
The memories of touring with Van Halen are positive, even though Van Halen endured plenty of sniping from Van Halen fans who were disappointed Anthony wasn’t invited back into the band for the tours. But he knew he was up for the task.
“I wouldn’t have been a part of it if I couldn’t do it,” Van Halen said of his tours with Van Halen. “And I think that’s what gave me the confidence. I’m related to Al (Alex Van Halen, Van Halen’s drummer and brother of Eddie Van Halen) and my pop, but it’s like they wouldn’t sacrifice their credibility if they didn’t believe I could do it.”
As it turns out, Wolfgang Van Halen was not only fully capable of playing bass, but by the time he started working on the “Mammoth WVH” album, he also had learned to play guitar and drums. And while Mammoth WVH has a touring lineup with Van Halen joined by guitarists Frank Sidoris and Jon Jourdan, bassist Ronnie Ficarro and drummer Garrett Whitlock, Van Halen made the debut album himself, playing all of the instruments and handling the vocals. It was a challenge he welcomed, and he plans to continue being a one-man band in the studio on future albums.
“I knew I could play the instruments, but I wanted to see if I could actually pull it off and make a cohesive (album) and something that sounds like it’s a band,” Van Halen said.
The sound that emerges on uptempo tunes like “Epiphany,” “Mammoth” and “Mr. Ed,” provides a nice blend of hard rock voltage and strong melodicism, particularly in the vocal melodies sung by Van Halen, who shows a good bit of range and power to his singing. The album also has a couple of slightly poppier tunes (“Resolve” and “Circles”) and a few songs that go a bit heavier (“The Big Picture” and “You’ll Be The One”) that add to the variety of the album. Van Halen is pleased with his first effort as his own artist.
“I think I’ve done a pretty decent job of carving out my own sound. It’s something that’s familiar, yet new,” he said. “I think there are certain songs like ‘Epiphany’ that are like the core of what the sound is. I think when you hear that, that kind of defines what the sound of the band is, and you can find more of that on the album and variations of it.
Fans appear to like what they’re hearing from Mammoth WVH. The album received positive press and has made a strong impact in the rock genre, notching two No. 1 singles so far on the Active Radio chart in “Distance” (which was nominated for a Best Rock Song Grammy) and “Don’t Back Down.”
Exactly how he’ll grow as a songwriter and how the Mammoth WVH sound will evolve on the second album is an open question at this point for Van Halen, who once again plans to play all of the instruments and do the lead vocals himself.
“I really haven’t spent any time in the studio to find what that growth would be, which is why I’m so chomping at the bit to get in there,” Van Halen said. “What I’ve written since (the first album), there are definitely a handful of ideas that I’m really excited to explore. They could be finding another side of the sound.”
CONCERT PREVIEW
Mammoth WVH (canceled), Dirty Honey
7:30 p.m. April 12. $29.50-$90. The Tabernacle, 152 Luckie St. NW. Atlanta. 404-659-9022, tabernacleatl.com.
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