In a new interview, Wolfgang Van Halen briefly addressed being insulted by David Lee Roth last year, refusing to utter DLR’s name in the process.
On the latest episode of the Rolling Stone Music Now podcast, Wolfgang said DLR started a feud without provocation by posting a lengthy rant to YouTube in 2024 that was essentially a monologue insulting Wolfgang.
The clip started with Roth suggesting that the late Eddie Van Halen’s son benefited from nepotism, and then went on to accuse Wolfgang of trying to throw Roth’s guests out of Van Halen shows. During the rant, Roth referred to Wolfgang as “this fuckin’ kid.”
“I didn’t put a two-hour-long YouTube rant of completely unfounded lies about said person out of nowhere,” Wolfgang said on the podcast, without referring to DLR by name. “I don’t know what I did, but that’s certainly where I sit.”
Wolfgang added, “I’ve always been a punching bag. It is just whatever…. I’m a 34-year-old married man with a third album. I’m not a kid.”
The musician had previously reacted to DLR’s YouTube rant back in March 2024, sarcastically stating at the time: “I guess I’m honored he even thinks about me as much as he seems to.”
Any prospective Van Halen tribute reunion would be a pipe dream at this point, as DLR also appears to be on sour terms with Alex Van Halen after the two came to a disagreement concerning those possible reunion shows. As Alex told it, DLR didn’t want to pay tribute to Eddie Van Halen during the shows, nixing the entire plan in the process. Wolfgang confirmed the clash on the Rolling Stone podcast, implying that DLR was the stick in the mud.
“Unfortunately, some people just can’t get it working,” Wolfgang said.
Elsewhere in the podcast episode, Wolfgang reacted to Alex Van Halen expressing a desire to use generative AI to complete unfinished Van Halen material, an idea Wolfgang isn’t too keen on.
“Al is free to do whatever he wants,” he said. “He’s obviously the proprietor of what Van Halen is and where it goes. But I think generative AI is fucking stupid. I don’t like it. I think it’s dumb. I think we should be using AI to put mufflers on cars, not paint paintings and make songs. It should be doing the stuff that we don’t wanna do, so we can focus on the creative stuff.”
Meanwhile, Wolfgang just kicked off his Fall 2025 tour with Mammoth in the support of new album The End. The outing runs through December 6th in Tempe, Arizona. Get tickets here.
Prior to launching the tour, Wolfgang caught up with Heavy Consequence to discuss the outing and the album. Watch that interview here.
