Pierre Presents: Mammoth, A Conversation With Wolfgang Van Halen

Listen to an insightful conversation with Wolfgang Van Halen, hosted live at the Foundry by Pierre Robert of WMMR for Mammoth fans in Philadelphia. Hear the playback on air at noon today (5/29) or stream it below on the MMaRchives Podcast.

Pierre Presents sessions are up close and personal events with a live performance from the band, plus an interview with our ever-curious rock n' roll ambassador. Earlier this month, fresh off the big MMRBQ stage the weekend prior, Wolfgang Van Halen and company joined Pierre and a couple hundred of our friends in the Foundry in Fishtown for a unique musical experience.

As Wolf points out at the start of the interview, Mammoth's first tour was in 2021, and the run included that year's MMRBQ festival. Since then, he and his band - Frank Sidoris and Jon Jourdan on guitars, Ronnie Ficarro on bass, and Garrett Whitlock on drums - have played hundreds of shows together, and earlier this month they roared back onto the 'RBQ stage stronger than ever.

On this much smaller stage at the Foundry, Wolf reflected on his childhood at 5150, the legendary Van Halen studios and his current headquarters: "It was just this cool place to see my dad and his friends work... Any time Al (his uncle, Alex Van Halen) would get up to go to the bathroom I would immediately run to his (drum) kit... I couldn't even reach the kick pedal, but it was fun to mess around on."

Wolf's pursuit of music began on the drums when he was young, but he quickly became a polymath, excelling at any instrument he touched. As a teenager touring with Van Halen starting in 2007, he held down the bass next to his father, Eddie Van Halen. Now, with Mammoth, he plays every instrument on the band's records, and even incorporates vintage Van Halen gear into his new music, telling Pierre about using his dad's Frankenstein guitar on their newest song "The End".

When Pierre brought up Mammoth's very first single, "Distance," and moving through grief with music, you'll hear the impactful moment with an MMR listener that brought the room to a standstill; anyone who's lost a loved one will be able to relate. As Wolf explains: "Every moment that you have without that person becomes tinged with sadness, if you're not ready for it."

Wolf is always honest about how the loss of his father has affected him, but he's also hopeful, and the future is bright for the band. He's preparing for the "Back to the Beginning" Black Sabbath and Ozzy Osbourne tribute in Birmingham, touring with Creed this summer, and rolling out more new songs for us later this year. Pierre covers all of this and more in the interview below.

Big thanks to Mammoth and their crew, The Foundry at the Fillmore, Sony BMG, Neumann Media, Nadine Joy Photography, and the WMMR family for another inspiring Pierre Presents!