In a recent interview with Premier Guitar, Wolfgang Van Halen talked about his signature guitar. Wolf Van Halen noted that he found his unique sound instead of copying his father, Eddie Van Halen.
Wolf Van Halen continued with his solo project Mammoth WVH in 2021 following the split of Van Halen when Eddie passed away. Although his father’s musical geniuses inspired Wolfgang, he has embraced a distinctive style in his sound.
In the previous months, Wolf Van Halen introduced his new signature guitar named ‘SA-126’ by pointing out how his father inspired him about the meaning underneath its title. He also mentioned that even though Eddie Van Halen influenced and showed a direction for his music taste as a father and an impactful musician, Wolfgang always wanted to reflect his uniqueness in his sounds. Thus, he created this guitar in his distinctive style.
As Wolf Van Halen detailed during a recent interview, he wanted to create his style instead of trying to copy what his father, Eddie Van Halen, did while preparing his signature guitar. Although, at first, the guitarist did not know what to create, he was sure that he wanted to sound himself. As Wolf Van Halen mentioned, 335s were excellent; however, they were not proper to play fast. Thus, the musician designed a distinctive performance guitar by thinking about these aspects.
About creating his signature guitar, Wolfgang said:
“The main thing was when I started doing this was that I wanted to find my sound and not just do everything dad did. You know, we’ll get into the amps later and stuff. But when it came to the guitar, I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I just knew I wanted to sound like myself. Through recording and having fun, I ended up tracking with the 335, and that hollow-body sound ended up being what became the base for all of Mammoth.
Since then, I have wanted to make something that has the DNA of the EVH brand but something that it doesn’t offer. That’s more my speed. I don’t know because the 335s are great, but their necks are like baseball bats. It doesn’t lend itself to playing fast and what the brand is known for is performance guitars. So, this is the merging of that classic warm hollow-body tone with the performance aspect that the brand is known for.”
You can watch the entire interview below.
