Wolfgang Van Halen considers his group Mammoth to be “still very much a new band” — which makes The End seem an odd title for its third album.
“It is,” Van Halen — who plays all the instruments and sings all the vocals on the Mammoth recordings — acknowledges to Billboard via Zoom. “That’s not the meaning, obviously, but it gets people thinking. When they first see it, they’re like, ‘What?!’
“The main reason is I found, lyrically, I was working through a lot in the respect of just exploring what the end could mean in many different possibilities. That was on top of the fact that this is that we dropped the WVH from our name, finally, so it feels like the end of the old and the beginning of the new. It ties together thematically but is also where the band is right now, so (The End) just felt like the perfect, encapsulating title.”
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The band was, of course, known as Mammoth WVH from the time Van Halen began working on his own music in 2015 — eight years after he first toured as bassist in Van Halen with his father, Eddie Van Halen, and uncle Alex Van Halen — until last year, when Van Halen was able to acquire the Mammoth copyright after years of trying. Now, he explains, “It’s exactly where I wanted it to be. I love bands that have a self-titled album and a song named after the band; so now on the very first album (from 2021) we have ‘Mammoth’ by Mammoth, on Mammoth, just like Iron Maiden and Bad Company, It’s a quirky little thing, but I like to be in that club.”
He adds that shedding the WVH also removes some of the baggage that is a frustrating part and parcel of his musical career.
“I’ve wanted to be (Mammoth) from the beginning,” Van Halen says. “There’s a much higher chance of organic discovery when it’s just Mammoth. People have a lot of complicated feelings about me because of my family and how I started out, and I think a lot of people decided how they feel about me and my music before they even heard it. So I think now it’s a nice opportunity to get in that window of people just hearing something and get that unbiased reaction — and then they’ll see who it is and get pissed off, but before that it might be, ‘Hey, it’s actually good, but I still don’t like him,’” he says with a laugh.
Like its two predecessors, The End was recorded by Van Halen and Michael “Elvis” Baskette at the 5150 studio built by Van Halen’s father. The 10 tracks come in at a relatively austere 39 minutes, and Van Halen says that compactness was both organic and intentional.
“I’m all about efficiency, in every aspect,” he notes. “I was definitely trying to not overthink anything. I think you’re always trying for all killer, not filler, and I like the idea you can have something that doesn’t last too long, and if you really enjoyed it you can just throw it on again and keep enjoying it.
“I feel like there’s enough flavor, but nothing overstays its welcome. The longest song is ‘One of a Kind,’ and it’s only just over five minutes. Everything else is pretty short in comparison. There’s nothing like ‘Take a Bow,’ which is almost seven minutes, and ‘Better Than You,’ which is over six minutes, on the last record. It was just about not trying to over-simplify but make sure I didn’t over-complicate.”
The End has already spawned a No. 1 Mainstream Rock Airplay chart hit in the title track, while “The Spell” has climbed into the top 20 in front of the album’s release. On the former and the track “I Really Wanna,” fans have been intrigued to hear Van Halen tapping on his guitar, something that was his father’s trademark but that he’s largely avoided before now. “I was maybe worried about too many comparisons,” he says, “but at the end of the day I’ve realized that’s going to happen either way, so I might as well just have fun and enjoy myself. I think it’s fun to tap; I think it’s just a fun, cool sounding thing for solos. So I don’t care what anybody says, ’cause this is what makes me happy, and I’m having a good time.”
Van Halen — who also heads the EVH Gear instrument company — adds that he found the tapping pattern for “The End” on a 2014 demo, which had been set aside. “I was like, ‘Y’know what; why don’t we write a song around this and see what happens?,’ and this time it worked,” he says. The songs “Something New” and “Selfish,” meanwhile, hail from ideas he hatched while making the first album; the latter, in fact, came from jamming with his father during December of 2014, which Van Halen even has on video.
“It’s just me and him jamming,” he recalls. “I had my camera sitting by my high hat (cymbal), so that’s all you hear. It’s just a complete mess, audio-wise, but it’s nice to see.”
“The End” has also drawn attention for its video, directed by Robert Rodriguez and Greg Nicotero and based on Rodriguez’s 1996 Quentin Tarantino-written horror classic From Dusk till Dawn. In addition to Mammoth’s live lineup it features cameos from Slash, Myles Kennedy, actor Danny Trejo and Van Halen’s mother Valerie Bertinelli, along with plenty of prosthetics and special effects. “It’s important not to take yourself too seriously and just have a good time,” Van Halen says. “That’s what I always love about the Foo Fighters and their videos; I’ve never been shy about how inspired I am by the Foos, and I think the way we do our videos is very much a reflection of that.”
The latest clip, for “Same Old Song,” drops on Friday and is intended as a sequel to “The End,” although admittedly a more modest proposition. “It sort of wraps up the story, so to speak,” Van Halen says. “Obviously a baby band like us only has enough in the album budget for one Robert Rodriguez-directed video, but I think this one sort of ties it up nicely and allows us to move forward into the future.”
As The End comes out, Mammoth’s immediate future is on the road. Van Halen and company — Jon Jourdan, Frank Sidoris, Ronnie Ficarro and Garrett Whitlock — spent the summer opening for Creed, which sadly meant the group had to bow out of the Black Sabbath/Ozzy Osbourne Back to the Beginning concert during July. “I was so bummed,” says Van Halen, who was part of the performances honoring Osbourne at his Rock And Roll Hall of Fame induction as a solo artist a year ago in Cleveland.
“I was happy I was able to do that,” Van Halen remembers. “I was able to sit and talk with him a little bit and bond with him a little bit before he left. So I’m happy I got to see him there. What an unbelievable loss it is.” He adds that Sharon Osbourne “was very sweet and understanding” about Mammoth having to drop out of Back to the Beginning. “There was stuff in the news where she said somebody was rude to them — it was not us. Sharon has been nothing but wonderful to us, and my heart goes out to her and the whole family.”
Mammoth begins a headlining run on Oct. 31 in Rancho Mirage, Calif., with cross-country dates through Dec. 12. Van Halen says he’s sketched out a preliminary long-term schedule that won’t have him back in the studio until the spring of 2027, although he’ll be accumulating ideas along the way.
“I still have so many ideas that need work — they’re missing a vocal hook here or a guitar part here or a drum part here — so in moments of inspiration I’ll maybe just sit there and listen to those old ideas and see what I can do,” Van Halen says. “I think the biggest thing with (The End) compared to the last two is…I was a lot more comfortable and confident in the process, and in who I am as my own artist and what I have to offer. At the end of the day it doesn’t matter what people think I should be doing as long as I’m true to myself, and what I think the purest distillation of Mammoth is.
“I’m proud of the way that I’ve handled myself in this business,” he adds. “I’m not sitting there playing Van Halen songs and trying to shack up in the legacy of my father. I’m trying to set out and do it on my own. Whether I’m successful at that is a subjective opinion, but I’m at least proud that I’m not sitting here going, like, ‘Hey, the only place you can hear a Van Halen play ‘Panama’ is over here.’ I would rather fail on my own thing than succeed on my dad’s legacy.”
