Brian Hiatt of Rolling Stone reports:
Before Eddie Van Halen’s cancer took a turn for the worse, his son Wolfgang Van Halen said he convinced him to consider a “kitchen-sink tour” that could’ve included bassist Michael Anthony for the first time since 2004, with Sammy Hagar and David Lee Roth each taking turns on vocals. They even talked about bringing back Gary Cherone, who sang with the band on one album, Wolfgang told Howard Stern Monday (11/16).
That said, they never got as far as discussing the idea with Roth, Wolfgang said, because Eddie turned out to be too sick to go out on the road. Sometime in the last few years, Eddie had a motorcycle accident, and they learned that he had a brain tumor. “If only things had been better,” Wolfgang said, “it would have been amazing…”
…Eddie had countless tapes of jams, riffs, and songs spanning decades in his 5150 Studios vault, but in the wake of his death in October, there are no immediate plans to start sorting through them for possible release, Wolfgang said.
“There’s a s–t-ton of tapes that will take a very long time to go through,” Wolfgang told Stern as part of an interview debuting his first solo single, Distance, released under the name Mammoth WVH. “That’s not the priority right now. I can’t put a timeline on it. There will be a time we go through it. Not for the foreseeable future.”
Wolfgang also made it clear that his father’s band is over. “You can’t have Van Halen without Eddie Van Halen,” he said.
Read more at Rolling Stone.
3 Responses
As always, Howard did a great, classy interview. Wolf’s “Distance” is terrific song (although the lyrics are gut-wrenching). Making it all the more poignant is that Wolf said his dad heard the song before his passing. The video is also an absolutely moving tear-jerker. The other song he previewed, which had a RATM vibe, was also very cool. I’m certainly looking forward to the release of the Mammoth WVH album!
As for the “kitchen sink” tour, it’s another “What Might Have Been…” Hopefully, Wolf will go through his dad’s musical vaults at some point in the future…
Roth, Hagar, Cherone, Anthony, and all the Van Halens, that would’ve been some tour! Ticket prices probably would’ve been sky high, but it also would’ve been worth every penny! I wonder how many times Roth would have said ~ “now look at all of the people here tonight!” 😉
In the words of DLR – a kitchen sink tour “would have been stellar.” The question is could all those egos coexist for long……if so that would have been amazing.
As for “Distance” – blown away by Wolfie’s vocals – was not expecting that. Wishing him all the best.