The “Behind The Music” episode on Wolfgang Van Halen has arrived. Both heartwrenching and heartwarming, it’s an emotional roller coaster ride you can’t take your eyes off of.
The 96-minute-plus episode debuted on Paramount+ Thursday (May 2nd), just a few weeks after the promo trailer promised to deliver a raw, honest, and candid look at the life of Wolfgang Van Halen and the incredible father-son relationship between him and the man he affectionally calls “Pops” – Edward Van Halen.
“I’ve never seen another human being love another human being as much as Ed loved Wolfie,” said Valerie Bertinelli, who begins the episode by taking viewers back to the moment she and Edward first met in 1980.
“I just immediately was drawn to Ed. Immediately,” said Bertinelli.
Bertinelli opens up in the documentary about Edward’s addictions and what she believes led to his alcohol and drug dependency.
“He had a lot of trauma in his childhood,” said Bertinelli. “He shared some of it. I don’t know that it’s appropriate for me to talk a lot about it because it’s…he…I don’t think he ever. I don’t know much of it he talked about publically but it was a very volatile household, the four of them. Ma and Pa and Ed and Al and, um…I. That he survived it and that Al survived it is kind of amazing.”
After Wolfgang was born on March 16th, 1991, Edward’s life would forever be changed. He realized very early that his son was also gifted with musical ability. Wolfgang is seen watching video footage of a 1998 MTV interview with Edward, who tells the story of his then-six-year-old son getting in trouble with his first-grade music teacher for improvising a song. Edward defended his son to the principal saying he didn’t want Wolfgang being “taught by a book”.
“Man, that teacher hated him,” said Wolfgang with a laugh as he wiped the tears away.
Eventually, Wolfgang got to see what his father did for a living, and to his surprise it was in front of tens of thousands of screaming fans. While that would seem like a dream scenario to many, it was a never-ending weight on Edward’s shoulders.
“He was an incredibly humble person, then he gets put on this ‘Rock God’ pedestal,” said Wolfgang’s uncle Patrick Bertinelli. “That was not his personality.
“I know that Ed did not choose to be an addict,” added David. “He fought it and fought it hard. Because it ended up destroying his marriage.”
After being diagnosed with cancer in 2001, Edward’s addictions continued to worsen. They reached an all-time low after Valerie filed for divorce in 2005.
“Mom got a place, Dad had his place. That only made Dad worse,” said Wolfgang. “As the divorce was more and more real, that made his shit more and more real, and darker. There’s not many people who really understand how bad it got. I think Matt [Bruck] being one of the only true people who really understand.”
Bruck is the co-founder of EVH Gear and among Wolfgang’s most trusted friends.
“Addiction is usually at the hand of a coping mechanism,” said Bruck. “I never felt that Ed was ever the same after Val and he broke up. Part of addiction was coping with that loss. Yeah, it was a dark time.”
But no matter how strong Edward’s demons were, they couldn’t weaken the bond between him and his son, who continued to hang out together. In the summer of 2006, Wolfgang, Edward, and Alex Van Halen started getting together for “fun” jam sessions. It wasn’t long before the three realized they were, as Wolfgang puts it, “rhythmically intertwined”.
The jams led to the highly publicized 2007 reunion tour with David Lee Roth, a reunion sparked by Wolfgang’s phone call to Roth asking if he’d like to join him, his dad, and Al in the studio.
Wolfgang was now an official member of Van Halen, and everything seemed perfect. That was until Edward’s demons started creeping back.
“Back in ’04 it was just drinking,” said Wolfgang. “He’d been to rehab a couple of times and the thing about these particular rehabs [is, they will tell you], ‘Here, take this. Take this. Take this and you’ll be fine. Take this and you’ll be fine.’ And so he was taking all these pills and then he started drinking again on top of that. And that was a really big difference between 2004 and 2007.
“When he was drunk, you could still see him behind the eyes. You could still see that he was there,” continued Wolfgang. “But in ’07 it was like there was nothing there. It’s like the pupils were black and there was nothing behind it. And that’s where it got really scary.”
Wolfgang said he finally had to confront his father. He made an ultimatum that Edward had to face. Choose the drugs and alcohol or your son.
“Eventually, after however long, I must have gotten through to him,” said Wolfgang.
While Edward was in rehab, Wolfgang had some downtime. That’s when he became fully aware of the backlash from fans who felt he was undeserving of his role as Van Halen’s bassist.
“People couldn’t comprehend the fact that I could possibly be playing or singing,” said Wolfgang, who was just 15 years old when he became a member of Van Halen. “It must have been Dad playing or something like that. I didn’t have good self-esteem to begin with. That certainly didn’t help.
“People didn’t like me and still didn’t like me,” he added. “And I understand that. It’s not easy to be the second guy but that wasn’t my decision. It wasn’t my problem. My problem was making sure my dad was alive.”
Eventually, Edward did get clean and sober. And it stayed that way until the end, which led to the hardest part of the documentary to watch.
While Wolfgang and Van Halen continued with a studio album (2012’s A Different Kind Of Truth) and tours, Wolfgang was writing and recording his own music. He planned on releasing his Mammoth WVH project earlier than he ultimately did but his father’s cancer would return.
In March 2019, after falling off of his motorcycle, doctors found a tumor on Edward’s brain, affecting his ability to talk. A procedure to remove the tumor resulted in a recovery, however, and things seemed to be back on track. But months later, he suffered a stroke on the left side of his brain.
“He could still talk and everything was OK,” said Wolfgang. “It was a little hard to understand him and he couldn’t really feel stuff in one hand and he was worried about the future. And maybe I was naive and not seeing the writing on the wall but I was there every day helping him. You know, exercise his hands and sometimes it was really good. It really did seem like we were going to get through it and it was going to be OK.
“And I remember getting woken up to the doctor’s phone call and he said, ‘You should get over here,'” continued an emotional Wolfgang. “And I hung up and I ran.”
Edward had suffered another stroke. The doctors told his family there was nothing more they could do.
“And I just sat in the room with my Dad,” Wolfgang said, struggling to get the words out. “I held my Dad’s hand. I held it up to my face…until…he left. Just felt the warmth of his hand on my face until I couldn’t feel him anymore.”
Wolfgang looked off into the distance, reliving the painful moment in his mind as if it were yesterday. He took a deep breath and said, “This is the most I’ve ever talked about. The last thing he ever said to me…was, ‘I love you.'”
Valerie revealed her final moments as well: “I just held his face and kissed him and I said, ‘Maybe next time we’ll get it right…maybe next time.'”
The documentary concludes with Wolfgang’s life after his father’s passing, including the release of two successful Mammoth WVH studio albums, tours with heavy-hitter bands like Guns N’ Roses and Metallica, and Wolfgang’s appearances at the Taylor Hawkins concerts, where he performed his father’s iconic guitar riffs for the first time in public.
“That moment was the closest to a mic drop moment I think I’ve ever had,” said Wolfgang. “It was me putting the Van Halen shit to rest with people saying, ‘He can’t do it.’ No, I just showed you I could do it. I’m choosing not to because I don’t want to leech off of something and I want to build something on my own.”
And that he has with Mammoth WVH. But he makes certain his father’s presence is known every night in concert with a point to the sky.
“I don’t know why I do it, honestly. I’m not a religious person,” said Wolfgang. “I think my dad and my relationship was so strong and the love was so strong that if there ever was a way to communicate to somebody who’s passed, we’d figure it out. And I haven’t felt anything. And I haven’t….he’s gone, ya know? He’s not here. But I do it anyway because if I’m wrong I want him to still know that we’re together.
“No matter what I do we’re always together,” added Wolfgang. “I have his thumbprint on this ring. [reaches for his heart necklace] I have his thumbprint on this necklace. His ashes are here. I haven’t told anybody that. He’s hangin’ on my neck. Every show I’ve ever played, he’s with me all the time. No matter what. So even if I don’t feel him spiritually I can get away with saying it because he’s literally here with me at all times.”
The documentary ends with an emotional voice message from Edward to his son: “I’m just so happy to have you as my son, man. So proud of you and I love you so much. Call me if you get a chance. I just wanna hear your voice. OK? I love you…”
View the Behind The Music episode on Paramount+. If you don’t have a subscription, they offer a free one-week trial to new subscribers.
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