Wolfgang Van Halen is a happy man. On a warm summer’s day, he has just performed an acoustic set with his band Mammoth WVH for the very first time – for a select audience at the new Fender headquarters in London’s West End. “I think it went well!” he grins, tying his hair back to uncover his eyes. “I usually write things on acoustic, so that’s kinda where all my ideas start. It was different but also a bit familiar.”
There is, of course, a lot of gear in this place, which houses showrooms for Fender’s other music brands – from Jackson, Squier and Gretsch to Charvel, PreSonus and EVH. Here, you can find instruments and amps of all shapes and colours, catering for just about every kind of guitar sound you can possibly imagine, from vintage-style semi-hollows through mini tweeds to seven-string war machines via high gain stacks. But as a laidback, easy-going guy, Wolfgang tells TG: “Today I was just using whatever guitar they gave me. I wasn’t too fussy; whatever works!”
The three-song acoustic set began with Another Celebration At The End Of The World, the lead single from new album Mammoth II, which saw Wolf executing a second-string tapping lick on the third, fifth, eight and tenth frets to spell out the E b minor pentatonic scale on the Fender Paramount acoustic in his hands, tuned half a step down. He then led the four-man band through another new single, Like A Pastime, before closing with a cover of the Foo Fighters hit My Hero in tribute to the late Foos drummer Taylor Hawkins, whose life was celebrated with two star-studded concerts last year, where Wolfgang joined forces with Dave Grohl, Justin Hawkins and Josh Freese to perform some of Taylor’s favourite Van Halen tracks.
Wolf laughs as he describes one moment in the acoustic set – his solo in. “Having to play that first solo was funny,” he says. “I’m doing this double-tappy thing with my finger while moving the root note. It’s almost more about the rhythm of it all because it keeps repeating and going over and over
