Wolfgang Van Halen loves him some Meshuggah to help him get to sleep

A picture of Meshuggah performing on stage during the heavy metal music Festival Copenhell, in Copenhagen, Denmark, on June 15, 2023 — (Image credit: Photo by HELLE ARENSBAK/Ritzau Scanpix/AFP via Getty Images))

Wolfgang Van Halen says he could quite happily drift off to sleep to the less-than-relaxing tones of the mighty Meshuggah.

The Mammoth WVH mainman and former Van Halen member, who also enjoyed a spell as Tremonti's bass player, says the Swedish band have a seductive rhythm that belies their extreme metal sound.

Van Halen tells Primordial Radio: "I could fall asleep listening to Meshuggah. It relaxes me so much. If you're familiar with Meshuggah, you probably know the song Bleed.

"Meshuggah is just one of my favourite bands They are unbelievably heavy – there's nothing heavier than them. But you get lulled into their rhythm. As a drummer first, I just am in love with rhythmic music, and there's nothing more rhythmic than Meshuggah.

"After hearing it, you probably couldn't fall asleep to that, but, man, I could, because I love it."

Van Halen's second solo album, Mammoth II, will be released later this year as the follow-up to 2021's debut.

He recently released a video for Another Celebration At The End Of The World, the first taste of Mammoth II.

Wolfgang recently made a joke about his uncle guesting on the upcoming album – and it ended up costing him a day and a whole $1.

Ever since the son of the late Eddie Van Halen launched his own project, he has been asked whether any of his family or former Van Halen bandmates would ever guest on his Mammoth material.

He said: "The one thing that I did do was like a fun little joke. The song I'm Alright, for that solo with the wah...I kind of got bored with the operation of it, so I had my uncle Patrick do it.

"You'll see on the back of the album, 'All songs written and performed by Wolfgang Van Halen, except for wah operation on solo of I'm Alright by Patrick Bertinelli.'

"While I thought it was a funny joke, it actually held back the approval process for the album cover by one day because we had to sign a work-for-hire and pay him $1. So my manager was a bit upset at me for that dumb joke. But I thought it was pretty funny."

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Stef wrote close to 5,000 stories during his time as assistant online news editor and later as online news editor between 2014-2016. An accomplished reporter and journalist, Stef has written extensively for a number of UK newspapers and also played bass with UK rock favourites Logan. His favourite bands are Pixies and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. Stef left the world of rock'n'roll news behind when he moved to his beloved Canada in 2016, but he started on his next 5000 stories in 2022.