There will never be another guitar player that will come close to what Eddie Van Halen did.
Rock and roll shifted once ‘Eruption’ was recorded, and Eddie continued to share his love of music with future generations with his EVH models of guitars. He also passed down a love of rock n’ roll to his son, Wolfgang Van Halen.
In a recent interview talking about his father’s legacy, Wolfgang mentioned that his father did not want to“slap his name on a product and call it a day” when making his brand of guitars, looking more to make an instrument that would be easy to work with, saying,
“That’s the thing about my dad. He never half-assed anything. That particularly goes for the brand.”
Eddie’s brand is now operated by Wolfie and Matthew Bruck, who are doing their best to innovate the brand in the same way Eddie did when he was here, saying,
“Everybody takes it as serious as serious gets. It’s been two years since we’ve lost Ed, we’ve worked our assess off and personally I feel that we’ve done a good job. We’ve done a job that Ed would be proud of and approve of. It’s important to have that peace within yourself.”
Wolfgang also applies that same no-nonsense approach to his own music, releasing his first solo record last year and telling SPIN,
“It’s exciting to be my own person. I would love people to get into me and be like, ‘Oh, shit, that’s his dad’ instead of it being like ‘Oh, it’s his son.’”
Just like his old man, Wolfie isn’t really ready to rest on his laurels and make something for the hell of it. The Van Halen DNA is still alive and well, and Wolfie is still trying to make something no one has ever heard before.
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