Wolfgang Van Halen recently spoke to Total Guitar magazine and told them that he used some of the equipment belonging to his late father, VAN HALEN guitarist Eddie Van Halen, during the making of the MAMMOTH WVH debut album.
“I played the original Frankenstein on the solo on ‘Mammoth’ and on ‘Feel’,” he said.
“You feel the history. It’s kind of terrifying holding it, just because arguably it is the most famous guitar in musical history. It’s definitely quite the thing to hold it.
“When we were pulling it out of its safe, Dad picked it up and he was just noodling with it for a second,” Wolfgang continued. He’s, like, ‘Yeah, feels about the same,’ and he tossed it onto the couch. Everyone just gasped when he did that. To Dad, it’s just a little piece of junk that he built himself, but to us, it’s the most famous thing in the world.”
Wolfgang did note that he made a conscious decision to differentiate his tone from his father’s when choosing amplifiers to use for the album.
“That was probably the one area that we made a collective effort to not replicate Pop,” he said. “We did use a bunch of 5150s mostly, but there were also Marshalls — a red early-’70s 100-watt Superlead, and a ’72 Superlead metal-panel 1959 model. All the Marshall heads were modified with extra gain stages. We used a lot of cabinet variations, with Celestion G12H-30s, G12M-25s, and G12-EVHs just to contrast the sound.”
MAMMOTH WVH’s self-titled debut album will be released on June 11 via Explorer1 Music Group/EX1 Records. Wolfgang wrote all of the songs and performed all of the instrumentation and vocals on the LP.
