WOLFGANG VAN HALEN Says He Picks His Battles When It Comes To Dealing With Online Detractors

Wolfgang Van Halen spoke to 100.3 The X morning personalities Jeremy "Nic" Nicolato and Jeremi "Big J" Schlader about his penchant for facing his online detractors head on, never failing to fire back even harder against people that trash him, his music or his parents.

"I pick my battles," Wolfgang said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET. "There are some that make it very easy to just throw it right back at them 'cause it's just more about them than it is about me in any way.

"I'm very clear in everything that I say and everything I put out there, and I use the best of intentions, so when people try to misconstrue that and muddy my own truth, I very much like to correct it — in a funny way or in a serious way," he explained.

Nearly a year ago, there was a Twitter user named FoodieAcademy who wrote Wolfgang after the multi-instrumentalist performed the song "Distance" with his band MAMMOTH WVH on "Jimmy Kimmel Live!". "Don't know your music well. … What I've heard … was a guitar solo that was one note. Boring & uninspired, and in a tribute to your legendary dad," FoodieAcademy wrote, referencing VAN HALEN's iconic guitarist Eddie Van Halen. "I know he taught you better than that."

Wolfgang responded: "The solo for distance is ALL emotion, and at the emotional height of the song. It's why Pop loved it." He added "(So go fuck yourself)" along with a a red heart emoji.

Asked why he didn't just let FoodieAcademy go and take other people's advice by "letting the trollers die," Wolfgang told The Washington Post last June: "Oh, but it's so much more therapeutic to kill them yourself, isn't it, instead of let them die on their own? It's fun to put them down."

He explained: "Half the time, either one of two things will happen. They'll either double down and be even worse, or they'll immediately apologize because they get a fraction of what they just dealt to you and they don't know how to deal with it.

"There's been plenty of times where I've gotten something on Instagram or something, and I'll pin it at the top of the comment section. And then, you know, like moths to a flame, other commenters just do to them what they did to me, and they can't handle it. And it's like you can't dish it out if you can't take it, man, so I just throw it right back at them.

"I don't know. It's a fun way I found to deal with it, with humor, and it's almost like a puzzle. And so many people are always like, 'Oh, if you ignore it, it will go away,' and that's not true in the slightest. I think most people who say that aren't in the position or haven't experienced that sort of stuff. So, I found my fun way of dealing with it, and I'm going to keep doing it."

MAMMOTH WVH will team up with DIRTY HONEY for a 33-date co-headline North American run dubbed the "Young Guns" tour. The trek will kick off on February 20 in Denver, Colorado and run through April 12, when it will wrap up in Atlanta, Georgia. The tour will make stops in Los Angeles, California; Chicago, Illinois; New York; and Orlando, Florida, to name a few cities, and will see the bands alternating the closing slot nightly.

MAMMOTH WVH's debut album was released in June 2021 via Explorer1 Music Group/EX1 Records.