It was September 2024, and Wolfgang Van Halen was flying out for his first-ever live shows in Mexico, opening for Metallica, when it hit him. Something was not right. It was a panic attack, a big one, and he had never experienced anything like it.
The experience left such a mark on him that it would inform the lyrics for Mammoth’s latest studio album, The End – a recording shaped by panic, anxiety and dread.
Speaking to the Rolling Stone’s Music Now podcast, Van Halen elaborates on exactly how bad it was. He was already wound up pretty tightly before they took off. These shows were a big deal and they were being played at altitude. Mexico City is 7,350 feet above sea level. That got into Van Halen’s head big-time.
“Being a singer, anytime I’ve been in a place that has a really high-altitude elevation, it’s very tough,” he explains. “You’ve always got to prepare yourself, like, for a show in Denver stuff like that. And after looking at the elevation and seeing it was going to be the highest show I’d ever played, I was super nervous just for a show of that magnitude, obviously on that crazy stage.”
He had good reason to be nervous. Performing at altitude is not easy. It’s harder to breathe up there. The air is drier. Singers, in particular, have to be meticulous with their preparation. It didn’t help that Van Halen is a nervous flyer.
“I’m really good at psyching myself out anxiety-wise, and I didn’t get a lot of sleep before the flight,” he continues. “I already hate flying to begin with. I’m just a very anxious person.”
On the plane, Van Halen tells Rolling Stone that it was everything, everywhere all at once happening to his body.
“My vision started closing,” he explains. “I thought I had had a panic attack before. If you think you’ve had a panic attack, you probably haven’t. It’s like your body betrays you.
“My vision closed up. I felt like I was gonna throw up. I started sweating profusely, but I was freezing – and it was really crazy. I’d never been aware of how badly that could happen. That feeling of feeling like everything was over and ending.”
He has learned to use this anxiety in Mammoth’s songwriting. Speaking to Guitar World, he says writing is “therapeutic” – a release for all those tensions.
When writing for The End, he not only had the panic attack as source material, he had the Los Angeles wildfires of January 2025, when he had some of his late father, Eddie Van Halen’s most-sacred gear packed up and ready to go at a moment’s notice. All of that was weighing on his mind.
“With the way I write, it’s very much a therapeutic release. Working those thoughts out is a way of calming the voices in my head and subduing my anxiety,” he said. “I was working through a lot this time around. The vocals were recorded in January while we had everything in 5150 packed up and ready to go at any moment, because of the Los Angeles fires.
“There’s a lot of nerves, stress and anxiety there. I was thinking about all of my dad’s instruments and all of his belongings before I could even think about mine. We had a U-Haul truck filled with everything. It was tough to be creative in that environment.”
Wolfgang Van Halen's full interview with Guitar World is available to read online.
