The End

The fact that Wolfgang Van Halen is finally able to drop the WVH suffix that appeared on previous Mammoth albums mirrors the solidification of form taking place on *The End*. “I think I’ve finally reached this confidence where I know who I am as my own artist and what I have to offer,” he tells Apple Music. “When you know that, you’re able to challenge yourself and see where you can go. And that’s what I tried to do on this record.” Lyrically, *The End* reflects the doomsday feeling that hangs over every news cycle, infecting our daily lives with anxiety and fear. “It was never an intentional thing to write about that stuff,” Van Halen says. “It’s just that being in this world and being exposed to this stuff constantly, it affects everybody—whether you want it to or not, whether you want to participate in it or not. It’s a bad situation, but the record ends on the idea that maybe it’ll get better.” Below, he discusses each track. **“One of a Kind”** “Sequencing is something I take very seriously, so it’s very intentional that this song is at the top. I think this is one of the most emblematic examples of the growth in songwriting on this record. Through the writing process and the recording process, I could tell it was a song that really is going to define the record. I knew it would be the first song or the last, nothing in between. I like how it lulls you into that false sense of security and then blows up. It’s one of my favorite songs on the record.” **“The End”** “I wrote the \[guitar\] tapping thing in this song in 2014, but I never knew what to do with it until now. At the end of the demo process for this record, where I was really throwing stuff at the wall, I remembered that tapping thing and was like, ‘You think we can write a song around it?’ We treated it like a ‘Spirit of Radio’ sort of intro with that big open chord stab, and that’s when we realized what it was. It’s like a ‘Welcome to the Jungle’ type of thing, where you play it in an arena and it gets everybody fucking hyped. The biggest challenge was writing the guitar solo, because writing a guitar solo for a song that’s basically already a guitar solo was a little tough. But once I finished it, I was like, ‘I think this is the first single.’ It felt right.” **“Same Old Song”** “It’s almost a thematic sequel to ‘Don’t Back Down’ from the first record. It’s that same sort of glam-rock drum part but exploring where the thought process of ‘Don’t Back Down’ goes when you become more confident. And maybe that’s a reflection of my headspace on making this record altogether, being three albums in and feeling more comfortable and confident in what I have to offer as my own artist. I think I’ve finally reached this place where I don’t care what other people think, and I’m confident in who I am and what I have to offer.” **“The Spell”** “Not to sound douchey or anything, but I think when you’re writing a song, it’s less you creating the song and more of the idea showing itself to you as you go down the line. The vibe of this one just felt very ’70s with a little bit of Lenny Kravitz, who is someone I’ve always looked up to. I play everything on my records, as he has done. It was fun to chase this vintage-y vibe, but also with a modern rock twist that is inherent with us being a modern rock band. My favorite chorus on the record is in this song.” **“I Really Wanna”** “When I wrote the chorus, my producer Elvis was downstairs watching a hockey game while I was upstairs working on the idea. I came down humming it and I was like, ‘Hey, Elvis, would it be weird if the chorus was “I really wanna fuck with you”?’ And he said, ‘No, that’s actually kind of cool.’ The more we sung it, the more I thought it was awesome. Like with ‘Same Old Song,’ I think this song really epitomizes the idea of not giving a shit. It really is the realization that, no matter what I do, I’m going to piss somebody off. So you might as well do what makes you happy and try to enjoy it.” **“Happy”** “I think my love for grunge really shows on this song. As I said, I like how songs show themselves, and when writing this song, it was fun to realize that it was going in a Nirvana, Alice in Chains, Failure direction. So, it’s grunge through a Mammoth lens; it very much still has a melodic Mammoth chorus. It was fun to get to the solo because I really love the melody of the verse, so I thought, ‘Should we just do a “Smells Like Teen Spirit” thing and do the main vocal as the solo?’ So we did, and I think it works out.” **“Better Off”** “This is a fun one. It’s got that really sleazy riff that’s a really different vibe for us. When the vocals come in, there’s that fun, almost Black Crowes or Queens of the Stone Age, cocky half-bend riff. There’s a lot of vocal layers on this too. I think there’s a three- or four-part harmony in that part. But it’s funny, because I was really uncomfortable recording vocals for this song. It felt new and weird, but I think that’s a good thing because I was challenging myself. I felt uncomfortable during a lot of this record, which I think is good. We’re exploring.” **“Something New”** “It reminds me of the song ‘Mammoth’ or ‘Epiphany’ off the first record, and that’s because I wrote it around the same time. It’s one of two songs on this album that was me finishing ideas that I started years ago. It was fun to explore an almost AC/DC-ish vibe on this one, with big, open chords. Lyrically, it’s talking about being in that doomsday headspace, but asking, ‘Can’t we just get along and get through this instead of beating the hell out of each other? Let’s figure this out. For the betterment of all of us, let’s get to a better place.’” **“Selfish”** “This is the other song that came out of an older idea that never felt right until now. I also think it might be the heaviest Mammoth song, or at least one of the heaviest. ‘Something New’ is a really hopeful, happy song, but this is one of the angriest. I was really pissed off when I wrote this, I guess. On ‘The End,’ I used my dad’s Frankenstein guitar for the tapping part, the bass slap on the guitar idea. I wanted to bring one more of my dad’s guitars out, so just for fun I recorded the palm-muted intro of this song with the Shark guitar, which is the one my dad is holding on the cover of *Women and Children First*.” **“All in Good Time”** “I’d say this is the closest thing to a ballad that the record has. I thought it was really important to end the record this way. The whole album is mired in that negative headspace and anxious doomsday idea, but the hopefulness peeks through on ‘Something New’ but then is solidified on ‘All in Good Time’ after that last moment of panic with ‘Selfish.’ Finding that light at the end of the tunnel for the record was really important to me, and I think that’s what this song did. Otherwise, this record would’ve been really negative. It’s another one of my favorites, and I’m excited to play it live.”

Wolfgang Van Halen's solo vehicle powers through the gears with another set of pumped-up guitar-rich rock tunes

Charlotte Griffiths reviews the new album from hard rockers Mammoth (fka Mammoth WVH). Read her review of 'The End' here on Distorted Sound!