“You have to love creating music to do this – everything else is the bad part”: Wolfgang Van Halen on being a musician in 2025
Having joined one of the biggest rock bands in the world when he was just 16 years old, Wolfgang Van Halen is no stranger to the ups and downs of the music business.
In a new interview with Baltimore radio station, 98 Rock, the musician reflects on what it’s like navigating the industry in 2025 as the leader and frontman of his own band, Mammoth.
READ MORE: “I don’t think I would have ever been able to live it down”: Wolfgang Van Halen on why he was worried playing his father’s songs could have “ruined my life”
“You certainly learn more and more. It’s not the greatest business, but what is nowadays? I think especially in the day of streaming, you’re the product,” says Wolfgang [via Blabbermouth]. “You don’t really have much choice in how you get used.”
He argues that the rise of AI has only made things worse: “And then you’ve got all this AI stuff that’s kind of ruined stuff even more. So you have to really love playing and creating music to do this, because that’s the good part. Everything else is the bad part.”
According to Wolfgang, staying grounded in the chaos comes down to persistence, luck, and surrounding yourself with the right people.
“I believe there’s that one Hunter S. Thompson quote that’s really… I don’t think I can say it right now, but, yeah, I think you just keep moving. You learn and you surround yourself with people you trust, and hopefully, you throw a little dash of luck in there and you can somehow find your own niche, so to speak.”
Asked if he’d ever used AI as a “tool” himself, Wolfgang says that while he’s dabbled in it, he sees it as little more than a utility.
“I’ve messed with it just randomly, but to me, it’s like a ruler,” he explains. “Use it if you wanna do a slightly more in-depth Google search. But I’m not gonna sit here and be, like, ‘write a song’ or ‘draw a picture.’ AI should be putting mufflers on cars, not making music and doing our creative jobs. It should be doing the menial stuff we don’t wanna do.”
The musician also doubled down on the issue in a recent interview with Springfield, Missouri’s Q102 radio station, calling generative AI “really stupid”.
“I just think it’s dumb. I think it’s a waste of time,” said Wolfgang. The 34-year-old was equally blunt about the role labels play in pushing AI into music, arguing that it all comes down to cost-cutting, not creativity.
“Yeah, it’s lame. Well, you know why? ‘Cause it allows you to pay less people,” he said, adding that “it’s never really about what’s being made” but rather “how quickly you can make it and shovel it out to people”.
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