When they were finding their feet as a band in the industrial town of Fagersta, Sweden, The Hives would look to New Jersey garage punks Electric Frankenstein for clues to unlock the vast potential bubbling away in their rehearsal space.
“We could never figure out what they did – every part either twice or four times as long as you’re supposed to do,” guitarist Nicholaus Arson told Vice. “It was kind of a joke, like, to see how long you could play the riff before you felt like you needed to go to another part. You have a riff, you play it for 10 seconds, and then people expect you to switch to a different riff. But if you keep going for a minute, people go bananas for that.”
The band already had an arsenal of catchy riffs in their locker, but there was something about their single Hate to Say I Told YouSo that made people go absolutely bananas.
When the band first went into the studio to record their second album, 2000’s Veni Vidi Vicious, producer Pelle Gunnerfeldt said an early version of the song sounded like “a Swedish ZZ Top or something”, according to vocalist Howlin’ Pelle Almqvist.
“He didn’t like the song,” the singer told The Guardian. “He thought it was boring trite rock, so he made all these sonic changes like adding the swooshing effects, which were all the way through the song at one point. I got him to remix some songs with me and we changed the arrangement. Having less of the swooshy, fast guitar made the end more intense.”
Veni Vidi Vicious was released in April through Burning Heart (the one-time home of fellow countrymen Refused), with Hate to Say I Told YouSo following as a single in November.
“It’s pretty easy to get, it’s total spinal rock,” Almqvist later told Entertainment Weekly. “There’s nothing intellectual about it. It hits your reptile brain. Plus, it’s fairly monotonous, and I think people need that on the radio.”
Following the closure of Creation Records, Alan McGee launched Poptones at the turn of the millennium, just as the garage rock revival was picking up steam. After watching the video for Hate to Say I Told YouSo on German TV, he quickly signed the band to his label and repackaged the Fagersta five’s first two albums (including their 1997 debut Barely Legal) and an EP as a compilation album titled Your New Favourite Band, which peaked at number seven in the UK albums chart.
“The title was ballsy and funny because we didn’t actually have any hits, but maybe if you say something enough people start believing it,” remembers Almqvist.
Following the single’s re-release in February 2002, the band’s profile in the UK gathered pace, helped along by an exhilarating appearance on Top of the Pops later that month.
“We were an underground punk-rock band; a hit in our world was 500 people having our record and 400 of them we didn’t know,” Almqvist told Louder. “We expected it to do that but not to be so massive.
“When we put it out, contemporary music made no sense to us, it was only a year or two later when The Strokes and The White Stripes got popular that it seemed like we had a place in the popular world,” he added. “Becoming famous overnight was like old-school Frank Sinatra, New York New York — it was awesome! You go on television and everyone sees you.”
The band was later caught in a major label bidding war, and went on to sign a deal with Universal Music, worth a reported $10 million and praise from boss Jimmy Iovine.
“They created a buzz on their own,” Iovine told Spin once the ink had dried. “I respect that. I will pay for that. I will let them drive.”
The song is their most popular song on Spotify, with over 303 million streams, and remains an integral part of their set 26 years on. Not bad for a “fairly monotonous” song.
Am 5. November 2026 wird es für Rockfans in Hamburg interessant. Mammoth kommt in die Hansestadt. Hinter dem Namen steht Wolfgang Van Halen, Sohn des legendären Gitarristen Eddie Van Halen und längst selbst eine feste Größe im modernen Rock.
Das Konzert findet allerdings nicht im bekannten Grünspan an der Großen Freiheit statt. Wegen der laufenden Sanierung ist der Hamburger Traditionsclub vorübergehend in die Lagerstraße 11, Halle D, gezogen. Dort steht seit Sommer 2026 eine eigens hergerichtete Interimsspielstätte zur Verfügung. Das Grünspan kehrt nach Abschluss der Sanierung wieder an seinen historischen Standort auf St. Pauli zurück. Die Anfahrt zur neuen Location kannst du am Ende des Artikels berechnen lassen.
Für Mammoth dürfte der neue Standort dabei eine passende Atmosphäre bieten. Die Halle D wurde für den Livebetrieb des Grünspans umgebaut. Der Club selbst hat seit Jahrzehnten eine lange Geschichte als Hamburger Rock- und Livemusikadresse.
Vom Van-Halen-Sohn zum eigenen Frontmann
Wolfgang William Van Halen wurde 1991 in Santa Monica geboren. Musik gehörte für ihn von Beginn an zum Leben. Sein Vater Eddie und sein Onkel Alex hatten mit Van Halen Rockgeschichte geschrieben. Trotzdem war Wolfgangs musikalischer Weg nie ausschließlich auf die berühmte Familienband ausgerichtet.
Zunächst spielte er Schlagzeug, später kamen Gitarre, Bass und Keyboard dazu. 2006 wurde er im Alter von 15 Jahren Bassist bei Van Halen. Damit stand er schon als Teenager gemeinsam mit seinem Vater und seinem Onkel auf den großen Bühnen.
Nach der Reunion-Tour von Van Halen sammelte Wolfgang weitere Erfahrungen außerhalb der Familienband. Von 2012 bis 2016 spielte er Bass bei Tremonti, der Band von Mark Tremonti.
Damit entwickelte er sich vom Sohn einer Rocklegende zu einem eigenständigen Musiker.
Mammoth beginnt als persönliches Projekt
Die Geschichte von Mammoth begann bereits während Wolfgangs Zeit bei Van Halen. Unter dem Namen Mammoth WVH arbeitete er an eigenen Songs und übernahm dabei nahezu die komplette musikalische Produktion selbst.
Gesang, Gitarre, Bass, Keyboard und Schlagzeug spielte er für die Aufnahmen selbst ein.
Der Name Mammoth ist dabei kein Zufall. Mammoth war einer der frühen Namen der späteren Band Van Halen. Wolfgang verbindet damit seine Familiengeschichte, ohne musikalisch in ihr stecken zu bleiben. 2021 erschien das Debütalbum „Mammoth WVH“. Die Single „Distance“ wurde zu einem besonders persönlichen Stück. Wolfgang schrieb den Song für seinen Vater Eddie, der im Oktober 2020 gestorben war.
Der Song erhielt eine Grammy-Nominierung als „Best Rock Song“.
Mammoth II und der nächste Schritt
Mit „Mammoth II“ folgte 2023 das zweite Album. Wolfgang zeigte darauf noch deutlicher, dass Mammoth kein Nebenprojekt und keine musikalische Hommage an Van Halen sein sollte.
Die Songs verbinden klassischen Hard Rock mit modernen Rockelementen. Große Gitarren, eingängige Melodien und ein klarer Fokus auf Songwriting bestimmen den Sound.
Gleichzeitig wuchs die Bühne. Mammoth spielte als Support für große Namen wie Metallica (Foto Metallica Hamburg) und Foo Fighters und entwickelte sich zunehmend zu einer eigenständigen Liveband. Dazu kamen eigene Headline-Shows.
Vom Support zur eigenen Headline-Tour
Genau hier liegt die besondere Entwicklung von Mammoth.
Wolfgang Van Halen hat in den vergangenen Jahren vor großen Publika gespielt. Jetzt steht die Band zunehmend selbst im Mittelpunkt.
Das aktuelle Album „The End“ erschien am 24. Oktober 2025. Gleichzeitig verkürzte Wolfgang den Namen von Mammoth WVH auf Mammoth. Damit verschwand das Kürzel WVH aus dem Bandnamen. Aus Mammoth WVH wurde Mammoth. Auch dieser Schritt ist mehr als eine Namensänderung. Wolfgang Van Halen muss seinen eigenen Namen inzwischen nicht mehr als Teil des Bandnamens erklären. Mammoth steht für sich.
Rock-Music.net kennt Mammoth bereits aus einer früheren Phase
Für uns bei Rock-Music.net ist das Hamburger Konzert deshalb auch eine Rückkehr.
Bereits 2024 haben wir ausführlich über Mammoth WVH und Wolfgang Van Halen berichtet. Dabei ging es um seine Herkunft, seine Zeit bei Van Halen, seine musikalische Entwicklung und die Frage, wie weit er sich von seinem berühmten Familiennamen emanzipiert hat.
Wir hatten Mammoth zu diesem Zeitpunkt auch bereits live erlebt.
Beim Konzert von Alter Bridge in der Hamburger Sporthalle im November 2022 war die Band als Support dabei. Damals war Mammoth für uns noch eine vergleichsweise neue Größe.
Beim Metallica-Wochenende im Mai 2023 änderte sich der Eindruck.
Wolfgang stand dort nicht einfach als „Sohn von Eddie Van Halen“ auf der Bühne. Er war Frontmann seiner eigenen Band, sang, spielte Gitarre und zeigte eine enorme Bühnenpräsenz.
Unser damaliger Bericht über Mammoth WVH ist damit auch eine Momentaufnahme aus einer Phase, in der Wolfgang noch am Anfang seines Weges als eigenständiger Frontmann stand.
Auch im Rockcast war Mammoth Thema
Auch im Rockcast haben wir über Mammoth und Wolfgang Van Halen gesprochen. In Rockcast Folge 34 haben wir den Hamburger Konzertabend ausführlich besprochen. Neben Slash & Myles Kennedy, Absolva und Blaze Bayley ging es auch um Mammoth WVH und Wolfgang Van Halens Entwicklung zum eigenständigen Künstler. Damit können wir die Entwicklung der Band über mehrere Jahre verfolgen. Vom Support-Act bei großen Konzerten über eigene Headline-Shows bis zur aktuellen Tour.
Wolfgang Van Halen braucht keinen Vergleich mehr
Natürlich wird bei Wolfgang Van Halen immer der Name seines Vaters im Raum stehen. Das lässt sich auch nicht ändern. Eddie Van Halen gehört zu den prägendsten Gitarristen der Rockgeschichte. Wolfgang ist mit dieser Geschichte aufgewachsen und hat sie selbst erlebt.
Entscheidend ist aber, was er daraus gemacht hat.
Er versucht nicht, Van Halen wieder auferstehen zu lassen. Er kopiert seinen Vater nicht. Und Mammoth ist keine Fortsetzung der alten Band. Wolfgang nimmt seine Herkunft mit, schreibt aber seine eigene Geschichte. Genau das macht Mammoth interessant.
Mammoth kommt nach Hamburg
Das Konzert von Mammoth findet am 5. November 2026 in Hamburg statt. Einlass ist um 19 Uhr, Beginn um 20 Uhr.
Wichtig für alle Besucher: Das Konzert findet nicht im bekannten Gruenspan an der Großen Freiheit statt.
Neue Spielstätte während der Sanierung
Das Gruenspan nutzt während der Sanierungsarbeiten eine Interimsspielstätte in der Lagerstraße 11, Halle D.
Der Umzug ist für das Hamburger Publikum zunächst ungewohnt. Das legendäre Gruenspan in der Großen Freiheit wird umfassend saniert. Nach Abschluss der Arbeiten soll der Club wieder an seinen bisherigen Standort auf St. Pauli zurückkehren.
Für Mammoth bedeutet das einen Auftritt an einem Ort, der zwar neu ist, aber die Geschichte des Gruenspans weiterträgt.
Ein Wiedersehen mit Mammoth
Für uns bei Rock-Music.net ist das Konzert auch ein Wiedersehen mit einem Musiker, dessen Entwicklung wir seit seinen ersten Hamburger Auftritten verfolgen.
Sleep Token formed in London in 2016 around the mythology of a deity called Sleep, and in ten years they have gone from serialised self-releases to a number one album on both sides of the Atlantic, two broken industry records in a single week, and a Grammy collected under a Roman numeral — without one member ever showing their face or confirming a name. Here are thirteen things worth knowing about the strangest success story in modern heavy music.
13. The band has two official members, not four
Start here, because almost every article gets it wrong.
Sleep Token perform as four masked musicians — Vessel, II, III and IV — plus the vocal collective Espera. But only Vessel and II are credited on the albums, and only those two are registered as songwriters. III and IV are live and touring members.
That distinction matters more than it sounds. The two people whose names appear nowhere are also the only two whose work is legally registered somewhere.
12. A Sleep Token member won a Grammy as a Roman numeral
On February 1, 2026, at the 68th Annual Grammy Awards, Best Rock Performance went to the Villa Park live recording of “Changes” from the Back To The Beginning concert.
The credited artists were Yungblud, Nuno Bettencourt, Frank Bello, Adam Wakeman — and II of Sleep Token.
The Recording Academy listed a Grammy winner as a Roman numeral. No face, no name, no acceptance speech that identified anyone.
The band went into that ceremony with three nominations. Emergence was up for Best Metal Performance against Dream Theater, Ghost, Spiritbox and Turnstile. Caramel was nominated for Best Rock Song. Three nominations, one win, and not a single face on the broadcast.
11. Even In Arcadia broke a record that had stood since 1991
Released May 9, 2025 through RCA, Even In Arcadia debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 with 127,000 equivalent album units — topping Top Album Sales and Top Streaming Albums simultaneously, which almost nothing does.
Two records fell that week.
Its 47,000 vinyl sales made it the largest vinyl week for a hard rock band since tracking began in 1991, breaking a record Ghost had set just two weeks earlier with Skeletá.
Its 68.89 million streams made it the largest streaming week ever recorded for a hard rock album.
10. Sundowning was released one song at a time, at sunset
The 2019 debut wasn’t released as an album. Tracks were unveiled sequentially at sunset, amplifying the record’s themes of time, love and devotion.
Produced by George Lever, it introduced the band’s central trick — crushing sections sitting directly against genuine tenderness — and set up a trilogy that wouldn’t complete for four more years.
9. Espera are the only part of the band that has ever self-identified
The masked vocal collective who perform with Sleep Token live and on record identified themselves through their own social account.
Ten years, four albums, three Grammy nominations, and Espera are the single instance of anyone in this operation stepping forward voluntarily. Everything else remains exactly where the band left it.
They also get left out of members lists constantly. Those choral swells across the recent material are them.
8. The lore is a functioning framework, not a marketing device
The mythology holds that Vessel serves an ancient deity known as Sleep, and that the songs are offerings made in devotion. Concerts are rituals. The audience are participants. The fanbase call themselves the Cult of Sleep.
Where it stops being presentation is the paperwork. The numbered names aren’t aliases concealing real ones — they’re roles inside the ritual, and they extend into how these musicians are registered as working songwriters with a performing rights organisation.
Strip out the celebrity and the work is what remains, which was always the design.
7. They have given almost no interviews in ten years
One. A single press interview, early on, and effectively nothing since.
The one crack in it came in late 2023, when II gave Sleep Token’s first-ever video interview to Drumeo — masked throughout. A drummer talking about drumming, with his face covered, for a drum education channel.
That remains the closest thing to an on-camera appearance any member has made.
6. Take Me Back To Eden completed a trilogy fans had been tracking for four years
Sundowning (2019), This Place Will Become Your Tomb (2021) and Take Me Back To Eden (2023) form a single narrative arc documenting a deteriorating relationship between Vessel and the deity.
The third record is where it resolves — and where the band’s ambition outran everything they’d attempted, moving between djent, R&B, jazz-inflected breakdowns and full balladry across sixty-three minutes.
It peaked at number 16 on the Billboard 200 with roughly 16,000 first-week units. Hold that number.
5. The Summoning broke them on TikTok, not radio
The band’s mainstream breakthrough came from a song that shifts between technical metal, progressive rock and a soulful jazz-fusion outro roughly four minutes in.
“The Summoning” went viral on TikTok in 2023 and dragged an anonymous British band into an audience that had no idea what any of it meant.
That outro is the moment. Everything stops, a completely different band walks in, and it works. It’s the single most-clipped forty seconds in the catalogue and it did more for them than any campaign could have.
4. This Place Will Become Your Tomb went to number one four years after release
The 2021 second album, also produced by George Lever, converted a cult following into a mainstream one on release.
Then in late 2025 it returned to number one on the UK Official Rock and Metal Albums chart, four years later, on the strength of vinyl reissues.
Records that old don’t do that. It happened because the audience that arrived through Even In Arcadia went backwards through the catalogue and bought everything.
3. Their first-week sales grew eightfold in two years
Put the two numbers side by side.
Take Me Back To Eden, 2023: 16,000 first-week units.Even In Arcadia, 2025: 127,000.
Close to an eightfold jump in two years, achieved by four musicians the public cannot officially name, with no interviews, no faces, and no conventional promotion.
The singles moved with it. Emergence reached 17 in the UK and 57 on the Billboard Hot 100. Caramel hit 10 in the UK — their first top ten there — and 34 on the Hot 100. Damocles landed at 25 and 47.
2. In 2026 they released the album again, without the singer
This is the strangest thing they have done, and that’s a competitive field.
On May 8, 2026 — one day shy of a year after the original — Sleep Token surprise-released an entirely instrumental version of Even In Arcadia. No Vessel anywhere on it. Their spokespeople called it a new immersive experience. The vinyl followed in August.
An anonymous band removed the one voice anyone could identify, and put the record out again.
They have no tour dates booked and no announced activity for 2026. The Even In Arcadia run wrapped in October 2025 with a line the fanbase has been reading every possible way since: until our paths cross again.
1. Nobody has cracked it, and the paperwork suggests nobody will
Ten years. Four albums. Number one on both sides of the Atlantic. Three Grammy nominations and a win.
Not a confirmation, not a denial, not a strategic leak.
Fan research — thousands of people across Reddit, Discord and YouTube cross-referencing rights databases, freeze-framing tour footage and comparing equipment endorsements — has assembled names for all four. None are confirmed by the band, and the quality of the evidence varies enormously depending on which member you’re talking about.
Most anonymous acts eventually reveal themselves, usually because the concealment starts costing them something. For Sleep Token the reverse has happened at every stage. They’ve gone from serialised self-releases to arena headline runs and a Grammy with the masks on the entire time.
What the filings show is that this isn’t a stage gimmick waiting for the right moment to cash in. These musicians have structured their professional lives around it — writing credits, publishing entities, performing rights registrations, the whole administrative machinery of a major-label career, built to function without their names attached.
Sundowning — 2019, Spinefarm, produced by George Lever This Place Will Become Your Tomb — September 24, 2021, Spinefarm, produced by George Lever Take Me Back To Eden — May 19, 2023, Spinefarm Even In Arcadia — May 9, 2025, RCA, produced by Carl Bown
Plus the EPs One (2016) and Two (2017), and the instrumental Even In Arcadia in 2026.
Worth a moment of context, because Sleep Token didn’t invent this.
Masks in heavy music go back decades and the tradition runs deep — Slipknot, Ghost, Mushroomhead, and the nu-metal acts who were doing it before any of them. We’ve ranked the best of them separately.
What separates Sleep Token is how completely it has held. Slipknot’s members are known. Ghost’s frontman was identified through a lawsuit. Sleep Token have taken a Grammy home under a Roman numeral and nobody can prove who carried it.
TL;DR
Two official members, not four — only Vessel and II are credited on the albums and registered as songwriters. III and IV are live members, alongside the vocal collective Espera.
II won a Grammy on February 1, 2026 — Best Rock Performance, credited on the award as a Roman numeral.
Even In Arcadia hit number one on the Billboard 200 with 127,000 units, set the largest vinyl week for a hard rock band since 1991 with 47,000 copies, and the largest streaming week ever for a hard rock album at 68.89 million.
First-week sales grew eightfold in two years — 16,000 for Take Me Back To Eden in 2023, 127,000 for Even In Arcadia in 2025.
Sundowning was released one track at a time, at sunset.
Espera are the only part of the band that has ever self-identified.
In May 2026 they re-released Even In Arcadia entirely instrumental, with no Vessel on it at all.
No identity has ever been officially confirmed, across ten years and four albums.
FAQ
How many albums does Sleep Token have?
Four studio albums: Sundowning (2019), This Place Will Become Your Tomb (2021), Take Me Back To Eden (2023) and Even In Arcadia (2025). They also released the EPs One in 2016 and Two in 2017, and an entirely instrumental version of Even In Arcadia in May 2026.
What genre is Sleep Token?
A deliberate blend rather than a single category — alternative metal, progressive metal, post-metal and djent sitting alongside R&B, indie pop and ambient passages. The band have never accepted a genre label, and the refusal to be categorised has been part of the project since the 2016 EPs.
What is the lore behind Sleep Token?
The mythology centres on a deity called Sleep, which Vessel claims to worship, with the songs framed as offerings made in devotion. The trilogy of Sundowning, This Place Will Become Your Tomb and Take Me Back To Eden documents a deteriorating relationship with that entity. Concerts are presented as rituals and the fanbase is known as the Cult of Sleep.
Has Sleep Token won a Grammy?
Yes. II won Best Rock Performance at the 68th Annual Grammy Awards on February 1, 2026 as a credited artist on the Villa Park live recording of “Changes,” alongside Yungblud, Nuno Bettencourt, Frank Bello and Adam Wakeman. The Recording Academy listed the winner as a Roman numeral. Sleep Token held three nominations in total that year.
Are Sleep Token touring in 2026?
No. The Even In Arcadia touring cycle wrapped in October 2025 and the band have no dates booked or activity announced for 2026. Their only release since was the instrumental version of Even In Arcadia in May.
Ten years, four albums, a number one on both sides of the Atlantic and a Grammy winner credited as a Roman numeral. Which fact caught you out? Tell me below. And keep it locked on the Loaded Radio stream — follow Loaded Radio for daily rock and metal news.
When President’s name appeared on last year’s Download poster without explanation, speculation ran rife. With the release of first single In The Name Of The Father, online sleuths deduced that they shared management with Sleep Token, and sought to reveal the identity of their masked singer. When that festival appearance arrived, the hype meant the crowd was spilling out of the tent.
Just three months later, President released an EP, King Of Terrors. Now comes their first fully formed vision in debut album Blood Of Your Empire – and that vision is bleak. The man behind President started the band as an outlet to process the emotions that came after losing his Christian faith, and the subsequent questioning of all institutions that hold power – hence the President, who in the US famously rules one nation under God.
Dark Heaven is the most explicit track here on both subjects, with a chorus line of ‘I used to stare at the cross and cry out for God, but I’m not the person I was’, alongside references to tariffs, worshipping flags and religion’s influence on children. That idea of influence surfaces again on Pink Noise, where a sample explains Plato’s allegory of the cave: prisoners watch shadows on the wall cast by a fire and mistake them for reality.
President’s voice is autotuned in parts and disappointingly less rich, but bursts forth when moving from lyrics about numbness to being alive. The autotune, the mask, the building of atmosphere only to break it down… it’s easy to see why people keep comparing President to Sleep Token. But while they’re in the same modern metal djent-goes-pop category, there’s much to distinguish them.
Throughout, Blood Of Your Empire has a cold, hostile quality where riffs stab and loop, leaving only President’s voice to passionately soar. There are nods to Bring Me The Horizon and Architects on the danceable Doom Loop, but the most obvious touchpoint is Deftones. Mercy and Dionysus hit a dark, thrilling Steph Carpenter spot while Angel Wings features a blatant Chino Moreno ‘Woo!’.
Chino’s side-project, Crosses, also comes to mind for vibe and aesthetics. This Will Divide Us embraces piano and brass, while Sleepwalker is destined to get lighters waving. Hate Figure, guest starring self-described ‘prog hop’ artist and labelmate Ando San, is the most dramatic change of pace – a catchy rap song with post-hardcore screams.
Channelling the same energy as Architects’ Seeing Red, which called out fans for demanding angry/heavy music, it targets perceived persecution by the media: ‘I used to be a hate figure / Put up with your shit / Had to navigate piss bottles thrown from the pit / It’s been 21 years now / Are we in a reprise?’ If there’s a moment where President’s conceit fails and the illusion falls away, it’s here. Every fan knows who’s rumoured to be behind the mask, and a casual Google will bring newcomers up to speed.
On the whole, though, Blood Of Your Empire generates the kind of discomfort that arises when your illusion of security is shattered. Sometimes it feels like losing all executive function and bed-rotting under a weighted blanket, at other times it feels like screaming into the void and not knowing if the void will scream back. It’s a collection of songs befitting the pervasive doom of 2026, but earwormy enough to make you glad you exist.
Blood Of Your Empire is out now via Warner Bros UK / Atlantic. President are on tour in the US now, with UK dates set for November. For the full list of dates visit their official website.
