Edward Van Halen “disrespected”

Late guitar icon appears fleetingly in Grammy tribute.

Wolfgang Van Halen says he was “hurt” by an all-too-short tribute to his late father, Edward Van Halen, during the In Memoriam segment of the recent Grammy Awards. The televised show featured a short clip of EVH performing Eruption. The Van Halen guitarist passed away at the age of 65 last October.

Wolfgang, who toured as a bassist with Van Halen from 2006 to 2020, wrote on Instagram: “The Grammys asked me to play Eruption for them and I declined. Nobody could have lived up to what my father did for music but himself. I didn’t realise that they would only show Pop for 15 seconds in the middle of four full performances for others that we had lost.”

He added: “What hurt the most was that he wasn’t even mentioned when they talked about artists we lost in the beginning of the show.”

The ‘tribute’ was poorly received in general, with Nuno Bettencourt weighing in with a lengthy social media post. “You would think, considering his impact on rock’n’roll, that the Grammys would have given the legacy of Edward Van Halen more than 15 seconds of a humiliating live clip that ended in a flat note,” the Extreme guitarist wrote. “Not only was the clip disrespectful, but to not get a tribute performance from his legendary guitar peers is shameful and a missed historical opportunity.”

Grammys executive producer Ben Winston responded: “I would have loved for [the tribute] to be longer than it was, but Eddie was the only person in the whole In Memoriam to play their own music, with no other faces being seen. I felt that was an appropriate tribute, but if Wolfgang didn’t then I’m sorry about that. It’s such a horrific thing to lose a parent. We did the best that we felt we could.”

Wolfgang releases his long-awaited debut album, Mammoth WVH, on June 11 via EX1 Records/Explorer 1 Music Group. He played all the instruments on the record, which includes the acclaimed song Distance as a bonus track.