QUIET RIOT

On his third Mammoth album, Wolfgang Van Halen raises his playing, singing and songwriting game, in the process channelling recent tours with A-listers, meeting legends and years of personal demons.

- Polly Glass

Wolfgang Van Halen has the words 'play play' written on his right arm. One in blue, one red, scrawled as if in biro. Slicker tattoos of Moon phases and the logo of his band, Mammoth, are positioned more prominently, but that scratchy little message carries a special weight. It's his father's handwriting, transferred from a Christmas card and now a permanent reminder to his son. An expression of joy, from one musician to another. Words to live by.

“He was being silly, and he wrote it with both markers to almost make it like it was a 3D effect,” the 34-year-old grins, looking down at the words. “So I just use it as kind of a life lesson, so that if I’m playing guitar I can always see that, just to make sure I keep following it.”

Sitting next to me on a sofa at Fender’s HQ in Covent Garden, Wolf (as he introduces himself) comes over remarkably normal for someone with such A-list parentage. Black jeans, band T-shirt (Canadian prog-metal instrumentalist group Intervals, who opened for Mammoth last year), wedding ring, gentle laugh, no rock-star pretensions. Serious about music and his father’s legacy. Comparatively less fussed about everything else.

It’s easy to imagine him fitting in with the Alter Bridge/Slash ‘family’, of which he’s now very much a part. In his twenties he played bass for Mark Tremonti’s solo band. His touring guitarist in Mammoth, Frank Sidoris, also plays in Slash’s Conspirators. Michael 'Elvis' Baskette (Alter Bridge’s go-to guy, and two-time Slash collaborator) has produced all the Mammoth records. As we go to press, Myles Kennedy is on tour with them in the States – as the support act.

“That’s insane, man,” Van Halen shakes his head. “I’m gonna have to be on my A-game, because when you have fucking Myles Kennedy singing and playing guitar before you go on, you got to make sure you're good.”

There are moments, though, when the ‘ordinary guy’ curtain is lifted – just a little.