The Tapes Archive

David Lee Roth: There’s two ways to approach transcending a mentor. What most people choose is the easy way out. They see Joe win the race in red shorts and they go out and buy red shorts. You can follow in footsteps, but you must decide, were you trying to achieve what your mentor was trying to achieve, or are you trying to achieve what he already had done? That’s where most people run into the wall. They try and achieve what’s already been done rather than what your mentor was hoping for or reaching for. Also, most bands don’t see the light at the end of the tunnel until the light is near and they figure, Oh my, I can’t play this original music. I can’t play this way. I’m still broke. I still don’t have any audience. What if Mozart said there? What if Freud said that?”

Ethlie Ann Vare: Isn’t there anyone that you’d care to slag?

David Lee Roth: Well, if Boy George is genuinely waking up with the house on fire, you can bet Boy Dave set the blaze.

Ethlie Ann Vare: Only if you promise me you haven’t already used that line, please.

David Lee Roth: I haven’t used it.

Ethlie Ann Vare: Okay, don’t use it again. Don’t use it again. Oh yeah, the combination of Billboard and rock stuff, would be lot of rumors going around about Eddie wanting to leave the band, wanting to do something different, refuses to tour anymore, might not even wanna make another record. You know, what’s the official, what’s the official scan on that?

David Lee Roth: What is drama without conflict? How can you have a resolve if something doesn’t go wrong? How can you have National Inquirer without Eddie and Val? I have always had, since the first day with this band 11 years ago, I have always had the feeling that one day I would wake up in a cold hotel and all the rooms would be vacated and I’d be stuck with an empty telephone and a busy signal. From the first day, nothing has changed. Nothing has changed. We do our own things like the EP or Edward for his movies and stuff, but we are far afforded more time now because of our success. Band’s been multi-platinum for six, seven years. We don’t have to put out a record every 10 months now. It’s neither justified or is it wanted.

Ethlie Ann Vare: Obviously everyone had expected that 1984 would go number one, second week out and would stay there all year and it never did. Was that an ego blow?

David Lee Roth: Who would you rather find at the dinner table unexpectedly? Michael Jackson or me? Who would you rather have come to the door for your daughter, Michael Jackson or me? Playing the charts is racing ponies. We don’t race ponies, we race battleships. We float the whole record. Van Halen is the world’s most popular unknown band. It’s the world’s most famous-infamous band. That’s not by device. It just happens. Playboy left us out of their polls this year. How do you leave Edward Van Halen out of the poll? Why have we never been on the cover of Rolling Stone?

Ethlie Ann Vare: You never ever been on the cover?

David Lee Roth: No… there’s still…

Ethlie Ann Vare: Rolling Stones reviewing of your first album, called it something like Neanderthals banging on garbage can lids.

David Lee Roth: I like the image. I’m not sure I like the message. I’ll work that into the next video. You’re imagining it with me, aren’t you? Wouldn’t that be colorful?

Ethlie Ann Vare: 2001 in there, but it’s–

David Lee Roth: Yeah, that’ll move another 28,000 units and that’s payback. And you know, that’s a good one. I’ll just tell the press from now on, I just take Rolling Stone reviews and sent them to music. You can play that game. You know, somebody asked me, I said, Dave, how tough is it to edit and be a director of these videos? I said, I’ll show you. We were watching the football game. So we turned it off, turned off the sound and put Black Sabbath on the stereo and it made perfect sense. My road manager walked in and said, where can I buy that? I told him, it’s the new Black Sabbath, and he walked out believing me, man, fumbling for change in his pocket. 

Ethlie Ann Vare: When Jump went to number one as a single, a lot of industry people would say that you shouldn’t want a pop single. You know, that it could do you more harm than good to be number one on the pop charts.

David Lee Roth: Everything Van Halen does, myself in particular, is in addition to, not instead of. Whatever music we come up with new is in addition to what we have before. We’re not abandoning ship in hopes of a faster vehicle. There’s more to life than just increasing its speed. Wanna try something new, okay, if you can’t do that in rock and roll, then go back to insurance. The kind of music that we like to play, something that comes from the heart, and our hearts haven’t changed, only the technique. It’s only what’s beneath the fingertips, not what’s in the fingertips. People going to hear that whatever instrument you play, whatever format you take. Don’t you think that if Van Halen truly wanted to sell out and play pop music that Edward and Alex can play just as well as anybody on the R&B charts or the country charts? That we could fake it along with a producer like Templeman and all of the other ancillary characters that we carry with us. Don’t you think we could fake you out at least for two albums?

Ethlie Ann Vare: We definitely have to talk about girls. In the last story we did about you, you were going on and on how you really see yourself as a one-man-woman and you look forward to the day you’re going to settle down, white picket fence.

David Lee Roth: Well, I found a girl who was a one-man-woman, but I wasn’t the man. It comes and goes. I was very close to a girl that I went with to New Guinea and she makes her living back in New York. So here I am for a period of time. There’s no telling.

Ethlie Ann Vare: What did she make her living at?

David Lee Roth: She’s a model of course.

Ethlie Ann Vare: Is that your type?

David Lee Roth: No, actually I guess not. Actually, guess not. I’m not sure what I’m looking for, but I do a lot of things. Stay real busy and I get involved in a lot of different places. You know, we’re here in Barney’s Beanery. I was speaking to somebody, I said, yeah, I’ll meet you at Barney’s. This is when she says, Well I’ll meet you at Trump’s. I don’t even know where it is. I say, No, I’ll meet you at Barney’s. How’s that? You know, she’s like blown away for a second, you know? Goes both ways. I have a tuxedo. It’s cut by Jack the Ripper from Rio de Janeiro. So I go both, I do both ways. And you gotta have somebody who’s very flexible that way and somebody who’s got a lot of energy that way. And I just haven’t really met it in my part of the entertainment industry so far. So I spend a lot of time by myself. I socialize all the time, got a lot of friends, see a lot of people. But as far as a soulmate, perhaps I’m megalomania, is that a correct word?

Ethlie Ann Vare: I don’t know that that would be the more of the problem. It’s like you’ve got such a wonderful line of rap. I mean your persona is so out there and it’s so larger than life and it’s so much a barrier between you and the world. I should think it must be hard for someone to get to know you and not David Lee.

David Lee Roth: I’m not sure, there’s tremendous division that there’s such a strong alienation between Public Dave and Private Dave. I’m very enthusiastic. Whatever I do, wherever it is and go, very enthusiastic.

Ethlie Ann Vare: Yeah, ’cause I mean, I feel I’m seeing just Public Dave. I mean you’ve got your lines, your rap, it’s very good, it’s very together. But I’m not getting behind anything and I probably never will, you know, because I probably won’t get a chance to see you other than in a working situation. But I wonder how far that extends into your personal life too.

David Lee Roth: The only other side that you probably won’t see is a very quiet side. When I’m off by myself, that’s almost meditative, but I’m genuinely like this. Nine times out of 10, and I can see where that would be a distraction. Always been this way. Always been kind of off on my own, you know, so it’s nothing new. I need a lot of attention. Gotta have a lot of attention from the audience, you know, from everybody. And I can see where that would be a distraction. The world is truly a stage for me. If I was truly lonely, I’d call it a hazard. But I don’t find myself lonely. I talk to myself a lot, but I’m articulate and a great listener.

Ethlie Ann Vare: Do you find most of your friends are also in the music business or–

David Lee Roth: None of my friends are in the music business. One or two, that’s it.

Ethlie Ann Vare: Because I find I don’t have a lot to talk about to people that don’t know what the six next hot bands coming outta Minneapolis are gonna be.

David Lee Roth: You know, we don’t have a lot of lines of communication. I’m critical of other bands, other musicians, anything that’s to do with music like that. I like to pick it apart. I’m very analytical in my perceptions. Most musicians I don’t think are so analytical and not even very perceptive. So, you know, it’s hard for me to talk shop ’cause I’ll watch a video and apart from just enjoying it for what it is, the second time I see it, I’ll go, oh, that’s interesting lighting. I like that editing. Hey there, that’s a colorful frame. What do you think he was trying to say there? You think this has any bearing on the song? Most musicians say, bearing? You mean real . I looked at it a little more technically sometimes and that will separate me socially. I’m always reaching for something. I’m always looking for an answer. Maybe you got the answer. Maybe the answer’s in a video. I’ll supply the question. People feel like I’m being overly aggressive because I ask a lot of questions. I’m interested, I’m curious. I’m motherfucking fascinated, man. And people feel like I’m just clawing, and I am. Like that comes out in my interviews. It comes out when I’m on TV or on the stage. It’s easier when I’m separated from you by a piece of glass on your TV set. I’m not actually there. Or when you read it on a paper, piece of paper, I’m not actually there. Live hit, bounce, smash, slam egg. Junior Walker and the All-Stars, it’s “Shotgun”.

Ethlie Ann Vare: I have the feeling that you never worked as a DJ even though you probably do a good job of it.

David Lee Roth: I was never a DJ. I’d like to try my hand at a DJ.

Ethlie Ann Vare: I was wondering what jobs you had before you started earning a living in music.

David Lee Roth: (Roth Raps) I said hip-hop, bip-bop, bip-bop on the dude in the back of the burger shop. Don’t laugh at me ’cause I’m in back or I’ll blow my nose in your Big Mac. Hold the pickles, keep the lettuce, ain’t no way you can’t upset us. Baby, we got the burgers. Honey I own the buns. The shake and sugar have a little bit of fun, and now you like it, don’t you. Try it twice and settle baby for a double fry.

Ethlie Ann Vare: Now we’re gonna talk about odd and strange jobs, as a youthful person.

David Lee Roth: I shoveled shit. I shoveled shit at Eaton Canyon Stables down in Pasadena for about four and a half years.

Ethlie Ann Vare: Do you ride?

David Lee Roth: I did then and that’s when I was 12 and a half. This is my first job. That’s basically when we came to Los Angeles, you know, seventh grade, junior high school. I worked there for about four and a half years. Worked at the horse shows as a groom, as a warmup kid. You know, rode in a few shows like that in between that time and the other I had, I worked at a clothing store. I was a night janitor in several buildings. I got a job as a cleanup boy in surgery at a hospital. And then from there I was in the band. I was making the band. Band was paying, you know.

Ethlie Ann Vare: But yeah, you were like 18 when band started.

David Lee Roth: Yep, I remember working at the hospital. I won’t tell you that story. That’s where I develop my bedside manner, the one I use on stage.

Ethlie Ann Vare: Now you have gotta have tons of money. But do you worry about long-term investments and do you have wise, do you manage your own money or do you have a business manager?

David Lee Roth: I manage my own money.

Ethlie Ann Vare: What sort of investments do you choose?

David Lee Roth: Oh, all the basics, man. Real estate and all the proper things. I have a lot of money stashed in terms of investments, but I also keep a large amount for my adventures, for the education I never had, and I never really had an education except for school. I could tell you I spent this many thousands of dollars at Yale or I can tell you about the places I would otherwise read about.

Ethlie Ann Vare: What other places do you still wanna hit that you haven’t done yet?

David Lee Roth: Next trip might be to Ecuador. They say there’s a temple up there, up above the tree line in the Highland jungles. Maybe we’ll go there. Maybe we’ll go to Rwanda where you can see the last of the real mountain gorillas. You build a blind up in a tree and wait for four days. See the last of your predecessors.

Ethlie Ann Vare: Harking back to criticism again, a lot of times you take a lot of flak, I think, from being a bad role model, you know, saying you shouldn’t be up there telling kids to get drunk, steal the family car, and get some girl pregnant, you know, that that’s not what a teenager should be hearing. How would you defend that? Do you think–

David Lee Roth: My message is not one of get drunk, get stoned. My message is not one of throw it all to the wind. My message is one of a very positive, carefree attitude, and I tend to think that people listen to Van Halen music and hear the work and the heart that was put into that. And they know from seeing the show and from listening to records that you can’t get stoned all the time and do that. My mom always said I’d be an example. I sell people smiles, I sell big smiles. Here, have one. Yeah, it looks good on you.

Ethlie Ann Vare: For the Billboard side, we should probably get, is there any parameter time parameter as far as another Van Halen project, tour album–

David Lee Roth: I have no idea. We’re gonna start arguing again in the middle of January and who knows where that will take us. I’ve heard some great, great music coming out of Ed’s studio and I look forward to the next album. I love being a lead singer in a rock and roll band. It’s the greatest. We’ve seen so many movie stars staring at the stage. They don’t wanna meet me. They all wanna be rock stars.

Ethlie Ann Vare: And so what’s the groupie really like, like, could you give us sort of an R-rated version of what it’s really like? What the backstage seems like.

David Lee Roth: It’s ugly, I don’t wanna talk about it. Backstage at Van Halen is a myriad of fantasies. Everybody’s got their own. Some of the band participates, doesn’t participate. I do. I am Toastmaster General for the Immoral Majority. You know our motto? Ah, shut up, sit down Waldo.

Ethlie Ann Vare: That came out so clever. I was a little annoyed at the girls in the bikinis on the tabletops. But everything else I thought–

David Lee Roth: You have a teacher fantasy or what? We make cartoons, you know? Sure. I noticed–

Ethlie Ann Vare: People out there are a girl and some of us don’t like seeing those little sized bodies wiggling their nubile tits in our faces. You know, if I were 18 again, I might not mind so much.

David Lee Roth: We love it. We hired these 10 year olds to act as us, you know, the Junior Van Halen and said we couldn’t drag them from the set. I thought for sure the social workers were gonna go through the church ceiling. They were in admiration as well. Our casting ability.

Ethlie Ann Vare: How many kids did you audition to to pick them?

David Lee Roth: For each one of these videos, Hot for Teacher and for California Girls, we probably went through between 500 and 700 people total for each set. And in Hot for Teacher we probably used 80 characters, extras as well as principals. And that’s a long, long, long process. And I don’t know how we arrived at the formula, but one of the formulas between Pete and I is to find a very distinguishable cast. Some people whose personalities, whose background and potential future is immediately graspable before they even say a word. It’s cartoons. They’re not animated, not, you know, have cellular animation. All the frames are tilted. They’re all bent a little bit. It’s just our own little perspective on what I guess is our own little planet. People tell me all the time, Dave, you live in your own little world. Tell ’em, well, at least they know me there.

Ethlie Ann Vare: Have you ever said what you want on your tombstone, what your epitaph will be?

David Lee Roth: Oh man, I’ve made a lot of jokes about what it’ll say on my tombstone. How about, “Here, folks, have one on me. “I told you I didn’t feel well.” How about, “Hello, I’m not home, “but if you leave a message…”

Ethlie Ann Vare: I like that one, do you have an answering machine?

David Lee Roth: No.

Ethlie Ann Vare: Do you hate them? Do you leave ridiculous messages on other people’s answering machines?

David Lee Roth: No, no, I don’t have an answering machine. I heard a good one about answering. Have your machine call my machine, and I forget.

David Lee Roth: Have your machine call my machine and they’ll get together for something.

Ethlie Ann Vare: Most people say it’s, have your machine call my machine and we’ll do lunch. But that’s just typical.

David Lee Roth: We’ll record lunch. Well that’s the the music business joke. How many music business people does it take to put in a light bulb? Don’t worry, call me. We’ll have lunch. We’ll talk. Music business people. I love the music business. I want the Cotton Club back. Well you know, I want the glamor man. I like thetinsel and the spangle and the late night noise and sheen and Cotton Club in the movie, have you seen it?

Ethlie Ann Vare: Not yet.

David Lee Roth: In the movie there’s a thing where they take, Richard Gere’s a trumpet player in a shit-for-all band. You know they’re gonna make him a gangster movie star. And it cuts to the director and the producer and whatever backstage in Hollywood. They’re watching his screen test, you know, in an empty room. And he goes, well can he move? No one says, Well AJ can’t really move. I really think he stinks. Yeah, but I like him, says AJ. Me too, says the other guy. I think he’s wonderful, you know. Well, can he sing? He’s got a voice like rusty pipes on January morning, man. Yeah, I think he is lousy. Yeah, but I kinda like the way he sounds. Me too, AJ. Kind of miss living in Hollywood though. I like Hollywood, yeah. I like the noise, man. Is my cigarettes over there? Here it is.

Ethlie Ann Vare: You had a Harley too. Do you still have it?

David Lee Roth: I have it, but I haven’t rid it in a year. But it’s such a macho item. You know when somebody says do you ride, you say, yeah. Of course, the next question is, what kind of bike do you have? You say Harley, duh.

Ethlie Ann Vare: 1200 or something.

David Lee Roth: Yeah. Yeah. You know, chopped and lowered and the whole thing. I’m afraid to ride it ’cause I don’t wanna bust my pins. Got a little cut in my foot and I’m down for three weeks. I dropped the Harley once at 20 miles an hour and didn’t walk right for a month. You know, I don’t want to do an Isadora Duncan, you know? Yank my head off with a silk scarf.

Ethlie Ann Vare: I could still picture that scene.

David Lee Roth: It is such a macho symbol. Should anyone ever ask me, ask me, what kind of bike do you ride?

Ethlie Ann Vare: What kind of bike do you ride?

David Lee Roth: Harley-Davidson. I want see the reaction. There you go.

Ethlie Ann Vare: What kind of car do you drive?

David Lee Roth: I have a Mercedes-Benz, big black Mercedes with a golden red skull and crossbones on the hood with fire coming outta the eyes and a 24 karat gold leaf tooth. And I have a 1951 Mercury Lowrider that we built and it’s like, it’s just high enough to slip a pack of Kool cigarettes under the back fender and the asphalt. I’m built for comfort, not for speed. I figure if I can’t cross my legs. Car’s too small.

Ethlie Ann Vare: How tall are you?

David Lee Roth: Six feet.

Ethlie Ann Vare: And you weigh what?

David Lee Roth: 160 pounds. You ever see that thing where Steve Martin gets out of the car? The cop pulls him over ’cause he thinks he is drunk. Says all right, walk a straight line. Walks a straight line. He says, all right, now touch your nose without, keep your eyes closed and touch your nose. Touches his nose. Says now do a handstand. Does a handstand. He says, now do a one armed handstand. Does a one armed handstand. He says a back flip with a kip, does a back flip with a kip. He says, ah, I guess you’re all right. He gets back in the car. I like Steve Martin. I haven’t seen his latest stuff. Last thing I saw was Amadeus.

Ethlie Ann Vare: I wanna see that.

David Lee Roth: With the star of Animal House as Mozart.

Ethlie Ann Vare: Did you looking forward to seeing it?

David Lee Roth: Well I think the fact that the star of Animal House was Mozart is an interesting parable of our times right there.

Ethlie Ann Vare: I saw Johnny Dangerously last night.

David Lee Roth: Any good?

Ethlie Ann Vare: Better than I thought it would be. It’s kind of like Airplane or Top Secret. It spoofs itself. I always get the feeling Michael Keaton is aware of the camera. You know how Groucho, every now and then, he’d be talking to Margaret Dumont and he’d look into the camera and go, and if you believe that, and then go back to his dialogue.

David Lee Roth: That’s a whole new slew of flicks. What’s the average budget for a flick like that? $5 million bucks.

Ethlie Ann Vare: Average movie’s $7 million, average? Anything under that is called a low budget movie.

David Lee Roth: Really? just offered me a low-budget flick. I don’t want to go into that.

Ethlie Ann Vare: I’ll put it off the tape if you want.

David Lee Roth: No, I’m sorry.

Ethlie Ann Vare: I know a friend of mine was a co-producer of a film that was budgeted like $6 million and so far in general release they did like a $14.5 million bucks office and now it’s going into video cassette and he literally gets to take that money and put it in his pocket.

David Lee Roth: Video, it’s the wave of the future. Everybody wants it in the homes, putting all porno theaters out of business. Well, anything else?

Ethlie Ann Vare: Who’s gonna remember you 500 years from now?

David Lee Roth: History does not record our achievements ever really.

They record your spirit. That’s what the last little bit about Mozart was. The last movie was certainly not about his achievements, it was about his personality, and they chose the star of Animal House. So history records your spirit. Not a thing that you do will research credit as the spirit that you lived with. And that’s where I come from.

Ethlie Ann Vare: So you think your spirit is gonna go down in history?

David Lee Roth: I think so. I think so.