Wolfgang Van Halen is an authority on all-things-Van Halen, so when he joined up with Ola Englund to demonstrate how to play his new Mammoth single The End – and deliver a tapping masterclass in the process – we tuned in, ready to take notes.
During the interview the Mammoth bandleader touched on his two distinct approaches to tapping, which he differentiates between two of Eddie Van Halen's most famed guitar solos. Not only that, he explained how to play them.
“Being the Van Halen spawn, I look at tapping in two different ways. There’s Eruption, and there’s Hot For Teacher,” he details, EVH guitar in hand, in the video below. “The Eruption tapping is when you're barring [with your fretting hand] and it's very straight. The Hot For Teacher tapping is more rolling and rhythmic.”
Wolfgang explains it was the Hot For Teacher tapping school of thought that shaped The End, which features an equally explosive lead run during the intro. Rather appropriately the song’s music video also nods to the Van Halen track.
“It’s super simple,” he says of that particular line. “Since I'm a drummer first, I take everything rhythmically. Then you have to try singing on top of it later, which is funny.”
Notably, the rhythm starts with the open E string on the 'four-and' beat of the bar, ensuring that the second group of taps sync with the following bar. In a previous interview, he also explained how his dad’s tapping techniques differ from most players, and it makes a huge difference to the sound.
While speaking to Englund, Wolfgang was also keen to address comparisons between The End’s slapping riff – which he recorded on Eddie’s iconic Frankenstein guitar – and Van Halen’s 1981 hit, Mean Street.
“Obviously, I understand the connection, but I wrote this as a bass slap part, and when I showed it to my producer [Michael "Elvis" Baskette] just before recording, I was like, ‘I don't have a bass, but it sounds like this…’ and he said, ‘You should do it on guitar.’”
Trapping his guitar pick in the crook of his third finger, Wolfgang explains, “What you're doing is, you're slapping [with your thumb] and popping with these two fingers [first and second].”
“Hit the open E, then you're gonna do the mute percussion [one hit with each hand], then you're hitting the A and G harmonics at the seventh fret [with percussive hits in between].”
The end phrase syncopates with a drum flam for added tightness. It's a bit of a mouthful, so it's probably best to watch the master at work in the full video.
In related Wolfgang news, he has spoken about how he took a huge career risk covering Van Halen songs with Dave Grohl, and has revealed he’s stopped listening to his dad’s music.
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