Wolfgang Van Halen on How Eddie Van Halen ‘Ruined the Musical Landscape’

Wolfgang Van Halen, understandably, has many kind things to say about his late father, Eddie Van Halen. His latest praise for his guitar-great Dad is a thinker in the best way possible.

In an appearance on WTF with Marc Maron, Wolfgang said, "In a way, Dad kind of ruined the musical landscape, because instead of everybody wanting to find out who they are, they just wanted to be that."

Truthfully, Wolfgang isn't wrong. EVH's influence was so strong that it did lead to a lot of copycat playing styles in the 1980s. Then again, that sentiment can really be applied to any great guitarist. That Oscar Wilde was really on to something when he famously coined, "Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness."

Elsewhere in his interview with Maron, the whole David Lee Roth drama was discussed. Wolfgang said he thought he and DLR were "on good terms, " but then Roth said how much he didn't like him on YouTube. Wolfgang took the high road and chalked it up to Roth saying "a bunch of stuff that was true to him, I guess."

In January, Roth shared a video to his YouTube channel titled "This Crazy Kid." In the video, he talks about two incidents involving Wolfgang from Van Halen's final tour.

Roth starts this story by referring to Wolfgang as "The f---in' kid." (Note: Wolfgang was about 24 in Roth's story.) Diamond Dave accused Wolfgang of complaining throughout the tour that he wasn't paying enough attention to him on stage. DLR refutes that and says he was giving Wolfgang " ... the best, everything I've got in front of 20-30,000 people at a clip."

Roth then alleges that at a tour stop in New York, Wolfgang had security kick out two women who were Diamond Dave's guests. However, Roth claims these two women also work at the accounting firm that represents Van Halen. He then accuses Wolfgang of doing this as a way of "teaching me a lesson." According to Roth, these women had the paychecks of the road crew on them. When he found that out, Roth said he laughed so hard he spilled his Snapple.

Cut to the final shows of this tour, which are hometown gigs at the legendary Hollywood Bowl. Roth alleges Wolfgang pulled the same move and had a guest of his removed from the venue.

"Wolfie Van Halen's going to teach me a less by throwing out what he thinks is my girlfriend, but guess what? Not only is she an accountant again, and not only is she carrying the paychecks for 82 of us on the road crew, but she's carrying cash bonuses for everybody there ... and that's how I remember my last show with Eddie Van Halen."

Wolfgang finally reacted to Roth's comments in March and said in an interview that he was "honored" Diamond Dave even thinks about him. However, he also said any comments from Roth should be taken "with a grain of salt" and cited how the former Van Halen frontman said he came up with Eddie Van Halen's "Eruption" track and all of his solos. Roth also took credit for the classic red-white-and-black-stripe "Frankenstein" pattern on his guitars.

Wolfgang then said, " ... I seem to have been born into this Van Halen drama that has come way before me. And I guess now that my dad isn't here to be a target, I guess he went to the next best thing."

Eddie Van Halen was the most influential guitarist of our generation.

Of course, flashy, fleet-fingered guitarists were a dime a dozen in the late ‘70s and ‘80s. Eddie was better than all of them, but he was more than that. A songwriter, a keyboardist, a studio wizard, ¼ of Van Halen’s four-part harmony team and a band leader that was able to guide VH through losing the most distinctive frontman of the ‘80s and led them to four chart-topping albums with Sammy Hagar.

Here, we take on the tough task of ranking their top 30 songs. (It was really, really tough to cut any of the songs on the first six albums from this list.)