Wolfgang Van Halen Salutes His Dad With Debut Song & Video

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Wolfgang Van Halen delivered a knockout punch with his debut solo track and video, "Distance." The song, which serves as a heart-tugging tribute to his father, the late-Eddie Van Halen is accompanied by a video showing home movies of him and his dad from the day he came home from the hospital to their years together onstage with Van Halen. "Distance" is billed Mammoth WVH — which tips its hat to Van Halen's pre-fame moniker, Mammoth. The clip ends with a saved voicemail from father to son that simply won't leave a dry eye in the house.

While appearing on Howard Stern's show, Wolfgang explained that there were discussions about a "kitchen sink" Van Halen tour featuring both David Lee Roth, Sammy Hagar, Michael Anthony, and possibly even Gary Cherone. The plans — which were never discussed with David Lee Roth — were scrapped after Eddie was diagnosed with a brain tumor. Wolfgang said: "If only things had been better, it would have been amazing."

He went on to say that the band Van Halen is done: "You can’t have Van Halen without Eddie Van Halen."

Regarding the legendary amount of unheard music recorded by his father over the years Wolfgang said it would be "shameless" top start mining the vaults at this point, explaining, "There’s a s***-ton of tapes that will take a very long time to go through. That’s not the priority right now. I can’t put a timeline on it. There will be a time we go through it. Not for the foreseeable future. (Some of the tapes are) "ideas that probably aren’t out there for good reason. I’m sure there’s amazing s*** in there."

Although he continues to be trolled and mercilessly blasted on social media — primarily due to replacing Michael Anthony on bass in Van Halen, Wolfgang told us that he'll never let naysayers stop him: ["Yes, at first it's definitely intimidating as a 16-year-old to have the world hating on you, but I just kind of do my thing, because I know that I can do it. And when people tell me that I can't, when I know I'm doing it, it just — it almost makes me feel better."] SOUNDCUE (:12 OC: . . . me feel better)

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