Wolfgang Van Halen Is Convinced Roth Doesn’t Like Him Anymore
via The Howard Stern Show / Youtube
Wolfgang Van Halen is convinced that David Lee Roth no longer likes him, following a series of YouTube videos released by the Van Halen lead singer in recent months.
Wolfgang appeared on a recent episode of the WTF with Marc Maron podcast, where he discussed his time playing bass in the band. Maron asked about his relationship with Roth, to which Wolfgang replied:
“Not really. At least as of recently, I thought we were on good terms, and he actually made a couple of YouTube videos about me, about how much he doesn’t like me.”
Earlier this year, Roth shared a story on YouTube about Wolfgang supposedly having the band’s accountants thrown out of the backstage area at two shows. Wolfgang refutes Roth’s claims, saying much of what Roth says about him in the videos isn’t true. Wolfgang told Maron:
“He basically just said a bunch of stuff that was true to him, I guess.
“It doesn’t matter if it’s not true because the people who are going to listen to him will believe it anyway and use it to hate me. So you just kind of move forward.”
Wolfgang believes much of Roth’s anger towards him can be traced back to the early days of Van Halen when Roth and Eddie Van Halen had “difficulties.” Wolfgang feels that Roth is now targeting him since his father is no longer alive.
“I think one of the bigger things is my dad isn’t around, so he just went for what’s still there to kind of point at.”
Fan Backlash After Wolfgang Van Halen Joins Van Halen
The backlash began when Eddie Van Halen announced in 2006 that his son would take over for Michael Anthony on bass, which immediately sparked anger among some longtime fans. Wolfgang explained that a lot of the frustration from both fans and Anthony was directed at him, even though he was there to support his father during his sobriety journey. Wolfgang said of Anthony:
“That’s between my dad and him.
“I was just there to kind of make sure my dad stayed on the sober path that he was on.”
Wolfgang eventually grew into his role as the band’s bass player and even started making the band’s setlists after they began touring in 2007. “I started putting in B-sides that I don’t think Van Halen ever played back in the day,” he said. When Maron asked if this was to keep the band engaged, Wolfgang responded:
“Yeah, I just wanted to give fans something because why can’t we just make music and have a good time doing it?”
