Wolfgang Van Halen says performing three Van Halen songs at the Taylor Hawkins tribute concerts last month shuts the door on any reunion to pay tribute to his late dad Eddie Van Halen.
He told Classic Rock that the “dysfunctional” nature of Van Halen makes any reunion chances slim and that he wouldn’t take part because “I think I already did it with the Taylor Hawkins tributes. I feel a lot of closure because my part of the show was a tribute to my father.”
During those shows in London and Los Angeles Wolfgang played “On Fire,” “Hot For Teacher” and “Panama” with Dave Grohl on bass, Josh Freese on drums and The Darkness’s Justin Hawkins on vocals.
Wolfgang said that “When it comes to Van Halen and entities surrounding the band it’s unfortunate, certainly compared to Foo Fighters who have their [crap] together with inter-personal relationships. I don’t know what it is with some bands but certain personalities just can’t get over themselves to work collectively for one purpose — that’s been the curse of Van Halen for its entire career. So my playing at the Taylor shows delivered that catharsis without the stresses of dealing with the Van Halen camp, and the players involved.”
A few hours after Classic Rock posted its story about the interview, Wolfgang seemed very unhappy with the way the magazine had used some quotes without publishing the whole interview. He tweeted, “I implore you to read the full interview when it actually comes out. Not this ‘pull quote to get biggest reaction’ [crap] social media is so privy to. Weird thing to pull quotes from an interview that ISN’T OUT YET that talked about many other things, but gotta get those clicks.”
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