Name: Wolfgang Van Halen’s Secret Influence on Guitar
Uploaded: 2026-03-29T21:36:35.000Z
Duration: 6 min 53 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

The imperative

Pavel, did that—did you get that or not?

So you're going to show me this again, Wolf.

but it's more going like trying to slice your strings like this and using your thumb to press.

Still not good at it, but it's fun to try and fit it.

Tell me about this riff that you're doing, the slapping riff.

You know, I think my dad was right to start me on drums.

It's a really good place to start rhythmically.

You know, you just understand music from that dynamic first, and you kind of grow from there.

So I think that really has helped me a lot.

I mean, really, all of your stuff when you're playing your bass, everything.

Like, it's everything I start with is the rhythm of it, you know?

And I think that's what's fun, where I personally think it really locks in, where the rhythm band is—where the rhythm section is just me.

It's tight because it's my instincts and exactly what I would play it on each instrument.

Okay, so how do you play the slapping riff?

Okay, so it's literally just a bass slap part, and I get it.

A lot of people were like, "Oh, a little bit of mean street there, hey Wolf." And no, it's not.

And of course you can play that, Wolf, a little bit.

When you do it on the bass, it's a bass slap part.

And I told Elvis, I was like, "Hey, I have this cool idea that could be a cool break." And I looked at him, I was like, it goes like this.

And I was like, "But imagine that on the bass." And Elvis, the cool dude he is, was like, "You need to do that on guitar." On guitar, yeah.

but the plucks are the harmonics on the seventh fret, on A and G.

But then you have to sing at the same time.

I remember I asked Elvis, I was like, "How the hell am I supposed to do this live?" And he's like, "That's a problem for you to figure out later." And I figured it out,

Is it just a matter of practicing it a bunch of times?

I remember specifically watching you talk to Les Claypool about Tommy the Cat, which is like, when I think of who is the best at just like separation, it's him, man.

Just Tommy the Cat alone is unbelievable, the fact that he's just like.

I asked Sting about how he plays the bass, and everybody just says the same thing.

A lot of people are really—it comes from a really nice place where people are like, "Oh, those jeans, man.

You got those jeans." And it's like, I've been playing for 20 years.

So while the jeans sure maybe make me a bit more musically inclined or interested, they don't make my muscles do it.

It's a matter of just you putting the time in.

As I like to say, Wolf, instruments don't play themselves.

All right, so a song like this, which actually has a really intricate arrangement, are you playing to the demo when you're doing it at first,

Usually—not usually, always it's drums, then bass, then rhythms, and

then usually we'll take like—we'll do whatever, like mini, maybe leads, or like in the chorus, there's the.

Like stuff, those sort of octaves or whatever layers.

It was in between the last two Metallica shows in Mexico that we opened for that I recorded the initial most of the demos.

And then when I got back, we started tracking,

and then we took a break for the holidays and then got back together at the beginning of January.

And then that's when we used that break of time for me to work on lyrics and vocal and melodies and stuff and guitar solos.

And then we get back together and do all that and anything we may have missed.

But we like to split it up that way just to give me—because normally with a band where everybody's a separate person, while the drummer's recording, the singer can work on the vocals.

But since it's just me, we need that little bit of extra time, I think.

And how much practice do you do beforehand?

Like if you're doing a drum part like that, do you need to practice them that much or not really?

Because once you've programmed, you know exactly what to do.

I found that if I can play what's in my head on my knees like this, it just takes—give me three takes and I'll have it.

There was a lot like the very first song off of the second album, Right.

I did not know how I was going to play that drum part.

I knew what it was, but I was just visualizing.

And I didn't really actually try until I sat there the day we were recording it.

Usually, I like to leave the demo really vanilla so that when I sit down on the kit, usually the fills, unless there's something really specific I have in mind, everything sort of comes naturally.

How long do you guys spend getting drum sounds?