There's no end to songs about times being fantastic, or gut-wrenchingly awful. It's rare for one to capture both in parallel — but Wolfgang Van Halen made a whole album of them.
The first tune he wrote for Mammoth II — which landed Aug. 4 — was "Another Celebration at the End of the World." (Naturally, it became the first single.) "A kiss, a casket, and all our rights and wrongs," he sings in the pre-chorus. "We're gonna take it back somehow."
From "Like a Pastime" ("Beat me up like a pastime/ Bring me up to the downside") to "Better Than You"'s dismantling of high horses, Mammoth II is one big yin and yang.
It's even in John Brosio's deliciously witty album art, where a skeleton in a folding chair can't enjoy a fireworks display because he's… well, you know.
"I just thought it was such a somber, dark, but almost sarcastic vibe to it that I just think really, really fit the music, and the album, and the band to a T," Van Halen tells GRAMMY.com of the cover. "I think it really represented my headspace throughout the creation of the album, and just in the last few years."
Which brings us to the elephant in the room: Van Halen's father, guitar titan Eddie, died in mid-2020 of a stroke following a years-long cancer battle.
His old man came up in a Twitter Spaces with GRAMMY.com last year; he said he was handling it terribly, but with a lilt in his voice. When reminded of this, Van Halen chuckles. "Everything's terrible," he admits. "But we're just trying to navigate it."
Within the grooves of his latest creation, the GRAMMY-nominated singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist seems to posit that there's nothing rock 'n' roll cannot heal.
Read on for the full interview with Van Halen about the road to Mammoth II, keeping his arrangements simple for maximum impact, and the band he and his father listened to more than any other.
This interview has been edited for clarity.
The first thing that struck me about Mammoth II is that it respected my intelligence. It wasn't constantly trying to impress me, beating me over the head with grabby moments. Because it's guitars, bass, drums, vocals and not much else, I could simply enjoy the songs.
Yeah, I think overcomplicating for the sake of overcomplicating is really dumb. I think you can have your moments, but it's more about the song. If anything gets in the way of the song, that's a problem. The song comes first.
Can you take me from the last Mammoth WVH album to Mammoth II?
The first album came out after my father had passed. I think, people think I was working through that on that album, and no. I finished recording that album in 2018.
All the things that have happened in my life since 2019, you hear on this album. Which I think is why, in comparison to the first, it's much darker and heavier.
While simultaneously, so many good things are happening. It's this kind of whiplash from left to right, of good and bad, and it's hard to keep track.
What were those good things? Career prospects, everything growing for you?
Yeah, just being able to build this and seeing people's response, which was so far out of my expectations.
People are actually really resonating with the material — I'm finally playing places more than once, and seeing more people show up, and more people singing. It's really crazy to see people sing your lyrics back at you.
I think overall with this album, I came into the process with a bit more confidence. Because, with the first one I was trying to figure out what it was or if I could even sing.
With this, I've been doing it for the last two years, so that desire to get great music out there that will be great to play live, was very much there. I think that's why it ended up being a bit more aggressive as well.
Seems like a lot of these new fans aren't showing up just because of your surname.
Exactly. That's the trip, seeing people when they're singing this stuff. It's like, Wow, you guys actually know it. You're not just here for that. It's crazy.
Can you talk about navigating the competitive modern rock landscape?
It's a tough thing, but luckily, I've built a very wonderful vehicle of management and band.
At every level of operation with Mammoth, there are wonderful people involved, and we're able to weather any storm together. I think that's a really important thing, to have people you trust.
I feel like we didn't hear many stories like that when your dad was on top of the world. I feel like every single act of his ilk was…
Getting taken advantage of.
Every single one, it seems.
Yeah, very common. Just growing up and seeing how things can be when they're bad made me strive more to build something from its inception. To be pure, and focused, and driven as a collective, instead of letting selfish interests ruin a good thing for everybody.
Can you talk about the first tune you wrote, or conceived, for the album?
"Another Celebration at the End of the World," which was the first single that we released, was the first song that came about.
It was sort of driven out of the desire to have some more uptempo, upbeat stuff. I think, compared to the first album, that was a bit groovier; there wasn't really stuff that was super quick.
So, that desire for a kind of punky, quick song came about with that one, and it sort of set the tempo — no pun intended — for the whole album. I think, again, that's what contributed to it being more aggressive and heavy.
What were you checking out at the time? I noticed a tinge of NWOBHM in there.
Oh, for sure. I really appreciate heavier music — things like Meshuggah, or Tool especially. I think on a song like "Optimist" on that album, my inspiration or influences creeped out a bit more, the more comfortable I was.
When you were growing up, what kinds of records did you and your dad check out?
AC/DC was, like, our band. Also, Peter Gabriel, [1986's] So. One of my favorite albums of all time. It was one of my dad's favorite albums as well.
Give me a tune on Mammoth II that bears the influence of either AC/DC or Peter.
AC/DC, for sure. I think the song "I'm Alright" has a throwback-y, sort of classic vibe.
But really, when it comes to Peter Gabriel's influence, it's melody more than anything, and that seeps through everything that I do. Melody is probably the most important thing to me; no matter how heavy a song gets, like "Right?" or "Optimist" or "Better Than You," melody is very much there, and an integral part and process of my songwriting.
Who are your other favorite melodists?
There's an Australian band called Karnivool that are very Tool-like in their heaviness. But I really appreciate the singer Ian Kenny and the way he's able to navigate the complication of the songwriting — the progressiveness — but inject melody to it.
I think that's a really admirable trait in that band — how he still manages to get sing-along vocals to an eight-minute prog-rock metal song.
When you write a melody, how do you conceptualize it?
For me, it's just kind of following my gut feeling — what wants to come out when you hear the music. Sometimes, I'll pull my hair out trying to figure stuff out and realize that I've had the melody the whole time, because it's what you immediately jump to when you hear it.
There are many, many moments on this album where I was like, "Oh, that's the melody!" because I wasn't even thinking of it.
Sometimes, you'll come up with joke lyrics. It's kind of like how "Yesterday" by the Beatles, was "Scrambled Eggs," when Paul McCartney was writing it. Because it was about the melody first, and sometimes you just have those melodies that come out by themselves before you realize it.
It reminds me of a Mitch Hedberg joke where he's talking about writing comedy bits: "If I think of something funny, I write it down and there you go. But, if I'm too tired or too far away from that pad of paper, I have to convince myself that what I thought of wasn't funny."
Because there's just that sort of vibe where it's like you're in bed and you're like, Dude, is this worth getting up? Is this thing in my head worth getting up and cataloging? And more often than not it is, but you can't really force whenever creative stuff happens.
Give me a song on Mammoth II where it felt like you had a melodic breakthrough.
I think "Better Than You," the last song on the album is a good representation of, sort of, the mission statement of the band as well — that no matter how heavy it gets, melody is still very prevalent.
And, I really enjoy that duality of the song where it's a really driving, heavy, sort of bendy riff, while the melody's incredibly sing-songy and Beatles-esque, kind of sitting on top of everything.
What made "Better Than You" the natural closing track?
With the first song on the album being very heavy, but melodic, it kind of put a period on that for the album. I think it's our first song to have really long fade out; it just fit perfectly for the album.
I think overall, just lyrically, it was an important statement to make. I think in this day and age, everybody thinks that they're so much better than everybody else, when really everyone's just as miserable as everyone else and trying to convince people that they're not.
Can you talk about your producer and engineer on Mammoth II?
It doesn't take much to make a Mammoth album. It's me, my producer Elvis Baskette, engineer Jef Moll, and Josh our assistant. You put the four of us in the studio, and you get a Mammoth album.
I think a lot of people, when they hear that I record everything on my own, they're sort of like, "Well, how do you get that sort of friction, that a collaborative effort with the band gets?" Elvis literally is that; he's sort of the other half when it comes to everything in the studio.
He helps keep me from doubting myself, making sure I'm on the right path, but also presents ideas that may be conflicting to what I'm presenting. It helps breed that creative environment in the best way possible. I couldn't do it without him.
Tell me about your drum thinking on the album.
I started playing when I was nine, so I feel like I'm most comfortable when playing drums. I think with my heavier influences, I just kind of let that take over on songs.
Like right after the solo. It's practically a Meshuggah djent part, through the lens of Mammoth. Which I think is really funny, because we've never done anything like that before.
I just think I have a really, really rhythmic approach to songwriting in general, and I think that's why everything sort of locks up between the guitar rips, and the bass, and the drums.
Extend this to your guitar approach. When it's time to take a solo, which of your heroes steps up to the plate, mentally speaking?
I'm not sure, because with that one, it was such a different thing for me in terms of writing a solo that I felt like I was kind of standing on my own, trying to figure out how to approach something like that. Because I really hadn't before.
Normally, my solos were really, really quick and to the point, and so to kind of explore that in a minute and a half was a really fun, new thing for me.
But overall, considering I played my dad's original Frankenstein guitar, through his original Marshall Head and Cabinet on the solo, it just felt like a right thing to have him there with me on that. I think it was really, really cool to have that be a part of the song.
There's so much history ingrained in it; you can really feel it. It's a very special thing. I thought it was important to have it show up on this.
*Wolfgang Van Halen performing at O2 Academy Edinburgh in Scotland, 2023. Photo: Roberto Ricciuti/Redferns*
To close out, what is Mammoth II a bridge to? What can you do now that you've made this?
I'm really not sure. It's funny; it almost stresses me out thinking about doing the next album, because we have so much going on with this.
But I just think it's important to do what I did with this album compared to the first, which is just to explore and see where else I can take it, while still being underneath the same umbrella.
I do already have some ideas that could be softer, or just a different flavor, and I think that's what this album did compared to the first song. I'm really excited to just keep exploring the sound — and what Mammoth is capable of.
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