Wolfgang Van Halen Explains How He Ended Up on the Oscar-Nominated ‘I’m Just Ken’ From ‘Barbie’

Gary Graff
·5 min read
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Wolfgang Van Halen‘s career has been full of unlikely opportunities. After all, he started with playing bass alongside his father and uncle in Van Halen when he was just 16 years old. And his own band, Mammoth WVH, has become a stadium habituate opening for the likes of Metallica and Guns N’ Roses.

But the son of the late Eddie Van Halen and actress Valerie Bertinelli never thought he’d be part of an Academy Award-nominated song — sung by a Barbie doll, no less.

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Yet Van Halen was, in fact, part of the team that recorded “I’m Just Ken,” the Ryan Gosling-sung piece from Greta Gerwig’s hit film Barbie. He plays guitar on the track, which was co-written and produced by Mark Ronson and Andrew Watt and features Slash on guitar, current Foo Fighters drummer Josh Freese on drums and Jelly Fish/Imperial Drag keyboardist Roger Manning.

“I’m honestly happy just to be a part of it, to have an opportunity to play a super small part in it,” Van Halen tells Billboard. “It was a really, really wonderful opportunity. I knew (the movie) was good just from being involved in it and seeing what I was able to see. But to see the song I played on blow up as much as it did was pretty crazy.”

Van Halen was recruited for the track after meeting Ronson at the Taylor Hawkins tribute concert in London during September 2022. “Mark Ronson and I hit it off,” Van Halen remembers, “and he reached out and hit me up and it was just a really good time. I spent two days in his studio and we just played around with ideas and it was a really good time. (Ronson) and his writing partner Andrew are such wonderful dudes and amazing at what they do that it was an honor just to see how they worked.”

“I’m Just Ken” was a top 5 hit on the Hot Rock & Alternative Songs chart during the summer and hit No. 87 on the Billboard Hot 100, while Barbie The Album reached No. 2 on the Billboard 200 and No. 1 on the Soundtrack Albums chart. During December, a “Merry Kristmas Barbie” version of the power ballad send-up was released, accompanied by a video boasting an in-studio performance. Gosling will perform the song at the 96th Academy Awards on Sunday (March 10); the band lineup for the show has not been announced, but Ronson, Watt and others who took part in the session are expected to be part of it. Mammoth WVH recently announced the postponement of three concerts this week which would have conflicted with the Oscars and rehearsals.

“For Mark and Andrew to bring me into it, just to play some guitar in the movie, it was really, really wonderful,” Van Halen says. “I’d love to do something like that again, especially with those guys. They’re wonderful dudes and incredibly talented. Everybody in the movie, the whole production of it, are so deserving of every accolade they’re getting. It’s really exciting.”

Van Halen does not, however, see soundtrack composing in his future at the moment. “I’m still very much focused and driving on building Mammoth and seeing what is possible with that,” he explains. “But certainly, opportunities like the one that Mark gave me for Barbie, when they come up it’s very, ‘Okay, we can certainly make time for something like this.’ But I’m very much driven in terms of, ‘Let’s see where we can take Mammoth.’”

Van Halen has mostly been taking Mammoth on the road this year, supporting last August’s Mammoth II. The group is wrapping up the first leg of a U.S. headlining tour and will be playing Europe supporting Slash Featuring Myles Kennedy & the Conspirators during March and April. The group will also be supporting Metallica and Foo Fighters during the summer. Van Halen is also “tinkering” with new song ideas, though he says any plans for a third Mammoth WVH album are “super preliminary.”

In May, Van Halen and his father’s EVH instrument company will roll out a new line of SA-126 guitars, which he designed along with EVH masterbuilder Chip Ellis and Matt Bruck.

Amidst all the good news, Van Halen is still fighting off some haters, an ongoing battle that he’s addressed in songs such as “I’m Alright” and “Better Than You.” Most recently it was former Van Halen frontman David Lee Roth, who posted a lengthy video diatribe that referred to Van Halen as “this f–kin’ kid” and a “schlemiel kid” and accused him of kicking some of Roth’s guests out of the backstage area during shows. “I’m honored he thinks about me as much as he does, I guess,” Van Halen says in response, though quickly adding that, “I would sure love to not have to be part of some sort of Van Halen drama at all, so I think I’m just gonna continue to sit in my no-comment zone…’cause at the end of the day it’s just not worth it.”

But, he continues, “It’s one thing when there’s some due on Twitter saying a lie about me. But when there’s other people trying to lie about me and make me look bad? It’s just like, you can believe whatever you want, I guess. The people who hate me are gonna continue to hate me, and I’m just gonna be over here doing my thing.”

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