Alex Van Halen Calls David Lee Roth’s Jabs at Wolfgang Van Halen a ‘Sign of Respect’ .Linh

Alex Van Halen took no issue with David Lee Roth’s unsolicited digs at former bandmate Wolfgang Van Halen earlier this year. And in fact, the drummer says the insults are actually something of a compliment.

Alex, 71, spoke to Rolling Stone ahead of the release of his new book Brothers, and weighed in on the comments former Van Halen frontman Roth, 70, made about Eddie Van Halen’s son Wolfgang, which implied that he’d only found success because of nepotism.

“To me, it’s a sign of respect, that he actually thinks that Wolfie’s on the same level as the old master Dave, right?” he said of his nephew. “The other thing is that Wolf can easily take care of himself. It’s not a problem.”

Roth, who left Van Halen in the 1980s but later rejoined, posted a bizarre video in January that began with a fake interview positioning Wolfgang as Jesus Christ and his father Eddie, the late Van Halen guitarist, as God. The clip — which Roth captioned “This F—in Kid” — ridiculed Wolfgang for receiving an advantage due to nepotism.

Wolfgang, 33, joined his father’s band on bass after Michael Anthony’s exit in 2006, and he played alongside his dad, uncle and Roth until Eddie’s death in 2020 at age 65.

“Bro, I want people to know I got this job because of my talent,” a Wolfgang impersonator says in Roth’s video. “I would have this job anyway, even if my dad wasn’t God. I just want people to know I got this job because of my talent.”

Wolfgang is then mocked by Roth, who alleges the singer didn’t pay attention to him on stage during their time in Van Halen together.

Roth claimed the younger Van Halen threw a woman out of two concerts for revenge, thinking she was Roth’s girlfriend when she was actually an accountant overseeing the tour’s payroll.

Wolfgang, for his part, responded to Roth’s comments in a March interview, saying he was “honored [Roth] even thinks about me as much as he seems to.”

“You have to take what he says with a grain of salt, considering he also said that he wrote ‘Eruption’ and came up with [Eddie Van Halen’s custom guitar] the Frankenstein Strat,” continued the Mammoth WVH frontman, son of Eddie and Valerie Bertinelli. “He said he wrote all the solos that Dad wrote. I guess that’s all I can say.”

The Mammoth WVH singer added that he doesn’t believe Roth has an issue with him personally.

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