It would be safe to assume that if your dad was one of the greatest guitar players who ever lived, your own guitar-playing journey would be in safe hands. But that, surprisingly, wasn’t the case for Wolfgang Van Halen – his dad was a “terrible” teacher.
The Mammoth multi-instrumentalist is on the promo trail for his third album, which has already given us a cheeky Hot For Teacher tribute and tapping licks that Ola Englund daren’t try to imitate; now, he’s revealed that he has Paul Gilbert to thank for his earliest six-string skills.
“My dad was a great guitarist but a terrible guitar teacher – he’d tell you that himself,” Wolfgang reveals to Guitar.com. “He even called Paul Gilbert one time and asked him if he would give me a lesson, and he laughed his ass off.”
Aside from his exemplary shredding in Mr Big, Racer X, and across his multi-faceted solo career, Paul Gilbert has got plenty of teaching experience under his belt. He had a column in Total Guitar, spanning 30-plus issues, had previously done likewise for Guitar Player, and has taught the likes of Buckethead and Satchel from Steel Panther.
“That just shows you how he felt about being a teacher,” Wolfgang continues. “And, yeah, he was right. He’d be like, ‘Just do it like this.’ ‘Well, how?!’ You’re at such a different level, you’re just not even thinking in the same way.”
That doesn’t mean his pop didn’t impart any knowledge to his son. Speaking with MusicRadar last summer, he said the biggest guitar solo lesson he ever got was from his dad, who instilled the need for melody over virtuosity to make them stand out.
“Not every song needs a solo,” he had said. “You can play a solo that's one note that can be way more impressive than a solo that's 2000 notes. It's not really the speed at which you play.”
He pointed to Intervals’ Aaron Marshall – whom he recently gifted his new signature guitar – as an example of a player taking his dad’s philosophy on board. He had called him “a singer as a guitar player.”
Elsewhere, Wolfgang has spoken of the risk of covering Van Halen songs live, and why recording Mammoth songs with Eddie's infamous Frankenstein Strat makes him feel “closer to Pop.”
