Wolfgang Van Halen Explains Metallica's Impact On Him

By Editorial Staff | Published: Mar 22, 2026 5:09 PM EDT

Wolfgang Van Halen recently revealed two of the biggest highlights of his touring career so far with his solo band Mammoth. When asked by Eddie Trunk about his touring highlights, the multi-instrumentalist points to sharing the stage with Metallica and Foo Fighters.

He singles out Metallica for impacting how his band performs. "Personally, the few, the couple gigs we did opening for Foo Fighters was a really big thing for me. Being able to do that was really exciting," he said. "Overall I think just being a part of the 72 Seasons World Tour with Metallica was probably one of the craziest things we've been a part of and that will forever go down. It's just like, 'Wow.'

"That was just being a part of that and being able to see how it operates and just like, because they're basically a traveling city, the amount of people that it takes to build that stage and just to operate in a stadium to begin with. It was such a crazy level of stuff I'd never really been around. And so, just to be able to be in that area and see how it works and figuring out how to play on such a crazy stage was a really fun challenge, and it really shaped, I think, the band, the live band that we are now because of that.

Wolfgang then commented on how Metallica treated him while showing Trunk something special the metal giants gave him for the shows he opened, "I'm looking at, speaking of treating me well, they had sent this because we were the only band out of all the openers to play every single building with them.

"So, they gave us the certificate from every show. So, that if that doesn't show you how much they care and how cool they are. And they also sent it with, this was us at the last show in Mexico which was really cool."