Name: the Thursday Afternoon Monday Morning Podcast 2-18-21 w. @Mammoth
Uploaded: 2021-02-18T19:31:22.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'the Thursday Afternoon Monday Morning Podcast 2-18-21 w. @Mammoth' from Bill Burr on Comedy Buff. Published 2021-02-18. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'the Thursday Afternoon Monday Morning Podcast 2-18-21 w. @Mammoth' from Bill Burr on Comedy Buff. Published 2021-02-18. Transcript available.

the Thursday Afternoon Monday Morning Podcast 2-18-21 w. @Mammoth

Hey, what's going on everybody? Welcome to another episode of the Thursday
afternoon just before Friday Monday morning podcast. I am just checking in on
you. You're probably wondering, well, hey man, like it's usually audio only.
Why are you sitting here with your sky blue background? Because I have a very
special guest honored to have the amazingly talented Wolfgang Van Halen on the
podcast. What's going on, man?
What's going on? Thanks for having me. This is a trip.
Dude, you're sitting in arguably probably the coolest room I've ever seen. It's
like it's not enough that you got drums and the guitars and what's that, a
Marshall stack. You also got the red lighting there. You got blue going on. It's
a hell of a setup over there.
It'll look really nice. And you decided to fly into the sky for me. And that's
great.
Well, you know what it was is I usually use this stupid black background that
for some reason has these dandruff marks on it. But then I also wore a black
shirt and we were trying to figure out how to do it. Andrew's going, open up
your shirt more, which it's weird. Then I'm like blindingly white.
I kind of look like a yin-yang sign with my white skin and the black shirt.
So anyway, I can't tell you what an honor it is to have you on this podcast. I
saw you in 2007 at the Staples Center and totally kicked ass. It was just an
amazing show.
What I remember from that show was forever. I always, I'm a drum geek. I always
wondered if Alex played, was it Mean Streets? If he played that hi-hat with one
hand or two. I got a buddy of mine claims the studio version was one hand. I'm
like, how could you play it that fast?
I'm pretty sure the studio is one hand. Like every now and then I think it's
just depending on how his hands feel. Does he do either way? But I think on the,
on fair warning, it's with one hand.
The mystery solved. Cause guess what, dude, I went to the bathroom cause I was
drinking back then.
So I'm in the bathroom stall and I hear, and I was in the stall and I go, oh no.
Like I was going to take like a five minute piss. And then some guy who was
washing his hand goes, oh no. Like mocked me and I felt like an asshole.
So anyway, all right. So you answered my drum geek question, which I was going
to save until the end, but we are here to talk about your new album.
That's out. That's out. That's I'm sorry. Not that is, is going to be coming
out.
No. Let me, let me just read this thing. So I don't screw up your band mammoth.
Okay. Mammoth. It's set to release self-titled debut album on June 11th day
after my birthday via X one records now available for pre-order on found dot E
E
slash mammoth slash mammoth WVH. And, um, dude, I got to tell you, man, the
tracks that I heard so far, absolutely killer. You have your own sound.
It was completely not what I expected. And, um, then I, I was reading the, the
whole release on it that you played all the instruments and sang every note on
it.
And by the way, dude, your voice is ridiculous.
Thank you.
Especially when you get up into those higher registered, you making me a little
emotional, man. You're, you're an incredible singer.
So I got to ask, was it with your parents? Was there music on both sides?
Not really. Uh, it was kind of mostly on, on my dad's side.
Um, that's amazing. Cause I, I was sitting there cause usually, you know, like
if, if somebody, this is what I've, I always compared to like Michael Jordan's
kids.
They're like, well, how come Michael Jordan's kids never made it to the NBA? It's
like, well, cause he, he, he's half Michael.
Like, it's like drugs that have been stepped on. Like he bred with the wife now,
now, instead of being six, six, two, he's all, you know, he's only like five,
10, five, 11.
He can't go to his left and opposites attract. So I figured Jordan maybe
married some clumsy woman and that's what ended up happening.
But I was so just blown away with, um, um, um, first of all, the, the, the
first one that came out was a distance.
Yeah.
I'm sorry. My, I got my shit all over the place here. Uh, don't worry about it.
What do you mean? Don't worry about it, dude. You've been on this podcast for
like 20 minutes watching me trying to click links to songs that I couldn't get
to open and everybody else could listen to them.
And then all of a sudden I was coming up. It's like, do you have a password?
Like, what is the password? It's just like, how come nobody else has to give
out a password?
So I just want to make sure I get the name of the second song, right. Uh, you're
to blame.
Now that's the one when I first listened to it, I thought it was in an odd time.
Oh yeah.
And I had to listen to it for half a second. Then I just had to snap to the
snare. I'm like, no, this isn't for, um, had a little bit of tool kind of vibe
to it. Um, so how does one person, first of all, how the hell did you learn how
to play all of those instruments that well?
Thank you. Um, most people would, um, most, most people immediately go like, Oh,
well, he had a good teacher and, uh, that's not true. My dad was a terrible
teacher.
I have a drink. I have a great drum teacher and I suck.
I know, I know, I know, I know Dave. He's, he's a buddy.
Oh, okay. So, um, how would, so how would he go about one of the main, one of
the main things my dad taught me, um, uh, for drums, which was the first thing
I learned, um, was he, he put a couple of magazines on a table and with one, he
made me do like eighth notes and the other one do a snare.
Right. Like if you do your foot in between the beat that the snare is doing it,
that's playing, you can, you can play highway to hell right now.
Right. Uh, as soon as he realized I could do it, he was like, fuck yes. And he
got, he got me a drum kit for my birthday. Um, and then I played, uh, to Van
Halen, best of volume one and enema of the state by blink 182 until I could
figure out how to, how to play.
Yeah. And I just kind of took it from there. And so it's almost like my dad
just gave me a little nudge with everything, but then I kind of figured
everything out as I went along.
Yeah. Cause I got two kids now and, uh, my daughter actually, when she wants to,
she's only like four, you know, when did you start?
Uh, nine, 10 ish.
Oh, okay, good. All right. I'm jumping the gun. Cause that was one of the
questions I was going to ask you, like, how do I expose my kids to music?
Without forcing my failed rockstar dream on them.
He never forced it on me. It was kind of like, he could see that if I was
listening to a song, I could tap to the beat properly.
And he was like, okay, he's, he's got it, you know, but, uh, wasn't until I was
nine or 10.
Okay. So I am jumping the gun. Cause she wants, she's all about her scooter and
her balance bike. And I'll be like, Hey, you want to go into the, I got a
little soundproof thing in the garage. You want to go in the garage and play
drums? And, uh, she's just like, nah, nah, I don't, I don't think I want to.
So when you're doing all of this stuff yourself, like, Oh, like what, what is
your main instrument? Because you kind of, you just rip on everything.
I started on drums. So I'd like to, even though I've never played technically
in a band live on the drums, I'd like to think that it's my main instrument.
Who, who are your biggest influences on drums?
Obviously Al, you know, my uncle, uh, but you know, everyone for like John Bonham,
uh, Danny Perry, uh, uh, Gavin Harrison and drummer for, yeah, porcupine tree.
Yeah. I went through a whole phase with him. Yeah. He's got that cool setup. He's
got the three racks and the two floors and all this stuff.
And those cool little symbol accents he has just the kind of drummers where it's
like, you can't even contain their awesomeness on CD.
Like they're even better live. That's Gavin Harrison for sure.
So have you ever written a song where you came up with like the drum, any,
anything on this album where you just come up with like a killer groove and you're
like, Oh man, I got to record this.
And then I got to like, cause cause it always seems like everything is either
starts on piano or then it, or it's, it's, it's, it goes, it's, or it's a
guitar riff.
I never hear somebody like, Oh, you know, this guy just was playing a killer
drum beat. And I heard a whole song.
Usually it, for me, I'm just like noodling around on my acoustic guitar.
And then it's like, Oh, this is cool. And then I go upstairs and go on the
logic and dial in some sounds and come up with like a scratch drum track and
record a little thing.
And then I just kind of listened to that over and over again until I figure out
where I wanted to go.
Now, is that like a thing? Do you, uh, when you come up with something, cause I
find this with like writing, like I'll write something like a script and I'll
be like, dude, this is hilarious.
I'm going to sell this. This is going to be the shit. And then like, I get busy
and I come back and I read it and it's like somebody else wrote it.
And I'm like, what is this shit? I don't even know what the rhythm, cause like
writers, you read it.
Like it's all fresh in your head, the rhythm of how everything goes. And then
it's like, somebody gave it to you.
And I can't hear the writer's voice anymore. And I'm like, this sucks. I can't
believe I was going to send this out to somebody.
Is writing a song anywhere like that?
Oh, super similar. I think, uh, you know, sometimes you just, you have an idea
you like, and then you come back to it and you're like, wait, that's fucking
terrible.
Uh, but I think a big thing is that like, sometimes if you're writing something
and you get stuck, you can't push it.
Like there were a handful of times on the album where I just couldn't figure
out the right lyric for like a chorus or something.
After an hour or two of trying, I just kind of gave up and was like, I'll come
back to it later.
And more often than not, I'd come back to it and figure it out right away.
Right. Or you'll, yeah, you're going, going driving down the street and you're
like, oh shit.
You can only beat your head against the wall for so long.
How long did now, how that, cause that's a very mature point to get to somebody
creating.
Like how long did it take you to get, when you were younger, would you just sit
in, like, just lose a weekend trying to come up with two lines?
It took a really long time. I mean, I started writing for this album that's
going to come out in June.
When I got off the second Van Halen tour, I was a part of, so in 2013.
Wow.
It's like.
Now, was that due to like, you know, were you busy in your personal life or?
A lot of different things.
You know, I was just, it was taking me a while to figure out who I wanted to be
as my own artist.
And then there was the, the Van Halen tour in 2015.
And then I really slowed down around 16 up until now because of everything that
happened with my dad.
Right.
Now, what was it like, as far as like, cause I, you know, as we all know,
anybody who ever, anybody who's been on the internet, it's not the nicest place.
It is like, that's what funny is like, I am so sick of them just building up
Joe Sixpack.
It's like, are you reading what Joe Sixpack is writing?
I mean, it's something like, and there was like, you know, these people in the
public, I really need to be taken down a notch.
It's like, believe me, it's happening.
I got a, I got a documentary that I helped produce with all things comedy,
Comedy Central and Von DiCarlo about Patrice O'Neill.
So I, all I did was just say it was coming out and like an asshole.
I go, you know what?
I'm going to check in on the comments.
Now, most of them were positive, but you know, those aren't the ones that
sticks with you.
And some asshole wrote like, I don't know, I, cause he watched the trailers.
I don't know.
I feel like I've already seen this before, you know, I hope it goes deeper than,
you know, what I've already seen.
It's like, no, no, we did a superficial one.
We tried to make it as cheesy as possible.
It's like, dude, 