It’s been more than four years since the death of Van Halen rocker Eddie Van Halen — and for his son Wolfgang, the pain is still fresh.
Wolfgang, who fronts the rock band Mammoth WVH, opened up about the grief of losing Eddie to cancer in October 2020 on an episode of Billy Corgan’s podcast The Magnificent Others, which aired Wednesday, Feb. 26.
“We’re coming up on the four-year anniversary of his passing and it’s not any easier,” Wolfgang said in an interview seemingly filmed several months ago. “And I believe Zelda Williams, Robin’s daughter, said it the best way that I could ever imagine, which is, even a truckload full of roses still weigh a ton.”
When Corgan asked why it was still so hard for Wolfgang, 33, to accept the loss of his famous father, the musician said it was “because there’s so much that I can’t share with him.”
“He never got to see what happened with Mammoth. He never got to see me get married. He never got to see me have kids eventually,” he explained. “And those are some tentpole moments that will always have a tinge of sadness no matter what.”
Wolfgang married longtime girlfriend Andraia Allsop in October 2023 at their home in Los Angeles, and his band released its debut album in 2021. His song “Distance” was nominated for a Grammy in 2022, and Mammoth WVH released its second album in 2023.
Wolfgang explained that Eddie, who was 65 years old when he died, was always one of his biggest fans, which made losing him a significant blow to his self-esteem.
“In the absence of my father, which is a heavy absence that I feel with me to this day, you know, his pride in me was so large that his absence, there’s just this kind of black hole sitting there,” he said. “But I have my mother [Valerie Bertinelli], I have my wife… there are people that kind of see through my insecurities and try and pull [me out].”
In January, Wolfgang marked what would have been Eddie’s 70th birthday on Instagram with a silly photo of the star seemingly picking his nose backstage (Wolfgang famously joined his dad’s band as a teenager).
“70. That’s a lot of candles. Happy Birthday, Pop. Love and miss you more than you could ever know ❤️,” he captioned the post.
Wolfgang previously opened up to PEOPLE in 2021 about the loss of his beloved dad, calling it “really tough.”
“I guess I’m a good actor when it comes to pretending that everything is okay. But it’s really not,” he said. “What really helps me keep going is my dad, because if I just gave up and stopped and crawled in a hole, which I feel like doing every day, I know he’d be really pissed off at me. He’s the only thing that keeps me going.”
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