The Peter Gabriel song Wolfgang Van Halen chose as his first dance in honour of his father
Later this year, musician Wolfgang Van Halen will be marrying his fiancé, Andraia Allsop. It’s been a long road since the young musician first joined Van Halen in 2006, with part of that road including losing his father in 2020.
But Wolfgang is back with his own musical project, Mammoth WVH, and released the band’s second full-length LP, Mammoth II, earlier this month. With various promotional stops and tributes to his father, Eddie Van Halen, Wolfgang is keeping the Van Halen name going strong.
That also includes keeping with some family traditions. You see, when Van Halen sat down with Zócalo Public Square in 2017, he admitted that he was almost clueless about new music past the mid-1980s. When asking Wolfgang from the audience what the last album he bought was, Wolfgang claimed it was Peter Gabriel’s So.
“This is one of my favourite albums because it was one of my father’s favourite albums of all time,” Wolfgang confirmed to Classic Rock in 2022. “So I’ll never forget him coming up to me one night with these huge headphones and going, ‘Wolf, put these on.’ Then he put the headphones on my head and cranked the first song, ‘Red Rain’. It’s very hard to listen to now my father is gone. But that album front to back is Peter Gabriel at his finest.”
When Wolfgang began assembling songs for his wedding, the decision of what song to choose for his first dance came up. Van Halen had plenty of ballads, especially in their Sammy Hagar era, but that probably would have been too obvious. Instead, Wolfgang chose a song that both he and his father loved.
“Peter Gabriel is one of our favourite artists,” Wolfgang told Consequence. “There’s a concert before our wedding that we’re going to see that’s Peter Gabriel because he’s on tour right now and he’s just one of our favourite artists. So is one of my favourite albums of all time, and it was one of my dad’s favourite albums of all time. So, I’ve just had a connection with Peter Gabriel and his music forever, and simultaneously, my fiancée [is a fan], as well. So, we couldn’t think of a better song.”
Check out ‘In Your Eyes’ down below.
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