Watch Wolfgang Van Halen and Mammoth WVH give first-ever live performance

Things have been heating up on the Mammoth WVH front. Earlier this week, Wolfgang Van Halen announced the tracklist of his band’s debut effort, and early yesterday he unveiled a new song, You’re to Blame, and the cover art and release date – June 11 – for said album.

Later in the day, Mammoth WVH also gave their debut live performance, playing the song Distance, a tribute to Wolf’s father, electric guitar great Eddie Van Halen, on Jimmy Kimmel Live!

While Wolf assumed all instrumental and vocal duties on the studio version of the song (and the entire album itself), for the Kimmel performance he was joined by guitarist Frank Sidoris, bassist Ronnie Ficarro and drummer Garrett Whitlock.

Wolfgang's rig for the set included a Gibson ES-335 and what looks to be a 50W EVH 5150 III head.

Mammoth WVH are scheduled to play their first full live show on October 10 at the Aftershock Festival in Sacramento, California.

Wolfgang has made it clear, however, that he has no intention of revisiting classic Van Halen songs with Mammoth WVH in a live setting.

“I refuse to tread the same ground as my dad,” he said in an interview with SiriusXM's Trunk Nation last year. “I need to forge my own path.”

Richard Bienstock

Rich is the co-author of the best-selling Nöthin' But a Good Time: The Uncensored History of the '80s Hard Rock Explosion. He is also a recording and performing musician, and a former editor of Guitar World magazine and executive editor of Guitar Aficionado magazine. He has authored several additional books, among them Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck, the companion to the documentary of the same name.