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Wolf Van Halen Opens Up About Rock Fans’ Hate for New Bands

“Rock is dead,” is one of the most-repeated lies in the music world. Your uncle said it when Metallica dropped The Black Album. Rock legend Gene Simmons all but said it in his book Me: Inc. The list goes on and on. Honestly, it seems like people are ignoring the wealth of new talent in the rock world today because they sound either nothing or too much like bands of the past. Wolf Van Halen of Mammoth WVH isn’t having any of that.

Wolf Van Halen is relatively new to the music world and is already making waves. His band’s first tour was with legendary rockers Guns N’ Roses. Not long after finishing that run Wolf and the boys announced a 2022 tour with Dirty Honey. Most recently, Mammoth netted a Grammy nod for their song “Distance” which is an emotional tribute to Wolf’s late father and guitar god Eddie Van Halen.

They’re calling their upcoming outing The Young Guns Tour. The name fits like a studded glove because both bands are relatively new and made up of young, passionate, talented musicians. In a recent interview with Loudwire, Wolf Van Halen and Dirty Honey frontman Marc LaBelle opened up about being the new guys in town and their thoughts on the “rock is dead” crowd.

Wolf Van Halen on the Hate New Bands Get

When the conversation came around to why rock fans seem to get angry about new bands hitting it big, Wolf Van Halen had a theory. “I think a heavy slice of that is nostalgia about things being better back in the day,” he said. That makes sense. How many times do you hear “they don’t make ‘em like they used to,” about a wide range of things? Most of us tend to think like that, no matter how true or false it is. Additionally, Wolf pointed out that other genres are getting more attention than rock, right now. That only fuels the “rock is dead” flame.

Wolf Van Halen went on to explain that this undue hatred toward new bands and the negative talk surrounding the genre as a whole is part of the reason for the upcoming tour. “I think if you say ‘rock is dead,’ you’re wrong. And I think that’s a big point of this tour, is that we are the young guns of the genre, and we’re here to prove that we can do it just as good as the old guys.”

Rock, like most styles of music, is alive and well. However, purists of the genre will have to dig a little deeper to find what they’re looking for. Those who try to lay rock and roll in a premature coffin just aren’t trying hard enough to find the good stuff.