INTO THE SPOTLIGHT

It’s a familiar tale. A 12-year-old kid decides to learn to play guitar, asks his dad if he can have one, and is overjoyed when dad says he can. What makes one particular example of this familiar story less ordinary, and considerably sexier, is when the kid’s name is Wolfgang Van Halen, and the dad in question is Edward Van Halen, the guy who took the perceived limitations of guitar playing as we knew it and tore them up, and completely revolutionised the way the instrument could be played.

The guitar that dad gave the gobsmacked teenaged Wolfgang, at Christmas several months later, was the back-up version of a custom-striped ‘5150’ guitar that he had used in the promo clip for Van Halen’s Panama. Inside the guitar case was also a festive card featuring a Playboy bunny model.

“Play, boy!” Wolfgang says today, chuckling at the memory. “He was really proud of that joke.”

With his soon-to-bereleased debut album (more on that to come), Wolfgang Van Halen is introducing himself to the world. Before our phone conversation we learn that a US publicist and ‘Uncle Pat’ from the Van Halen camp will be listening in, although it’s soon clear that Wolf, answering