New Roth Interview (Forbes)

[NDL]

"My anxieties in terms of revenge and fear are very specific and tangible. I'm not complaining about the man, I'm not upset about injustice. I'm pissed at the wristwatch, it's a little too fast, like ten years too fast. Can you dig? I'm pissed at the calendar. It should slow down a little bit, especially the good days. I'm pissed on those days off when I feel my age, 60 going on 90. Does that make sense?"

https://www.forbes.com/sites/steveba.../#422f435a74b4

[Sam Vs. Dave]

Not sure I agree with his assessments of the other frontmen, except maybe Springsteen. Someone is certainly imitating Robert Plant now!

[Van Squalen]

Lol. Leave it to D-Ro to slag Elvis and McCartney to promote his ‘Eurocentric’ roots in music.

[ArtyBoy]

"Steven Tyler doesn't dance?" Dave's officially crazy! All Steven Tyler DOES is dance! I would call what Dave did "running around," but Steven Tyler actually had rhythm!

"Elvis only has one Diamond album, and it was a Christmas album, he didn't write the songs." Oh, God. Does Dave think he's bigger than Elvis now?

Now to see what's in the Miami Ultra thread...that video...lord.

[PrideofPasadena]

His take on the front men is simply ignorant.
Elvis didn't have huge selling albums because 45's were the vinyl of choice in his heyday.

Dave...jeez...this is more embarrassing than that overblown Ultra video.

[Wruff_ajax]

Ffs, Dave. Blah blah blah. The shit he says don't even make sense.

[Number 47]

David Lee Roth On David Bowie, Steven Tyler, Van Halen And Fighting Time

A conversation with Van Halen frontman David Lee Roth cannot be contained in one article. One 45-minute meeting with the engaging and energetic Roth is the gift that never stops giving for a journalist.

In the midst of my fascinating and lengthy joint conversation with Roth and iconic DJ Armin Van Buuren in advance of their Ultra appearance (https://www.forbes.com/sites/steveba.../#3c233d344ce8) there were several other fascinating points that Roth brought up, from his take on some of his fellow Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame frontmen, from Steven Tyler to David Bowie to speaking at length about where the edge that fueled Van Halen and fuels him today comes from. And he has a lot to say about performing, the mindset he gets into and how he prepares to take the stage as only David Lee Roth can.

David Lee Roth: I'm one of a half-dozen frontmen that after two beers the whole world can imitate. Everybody has a David Lee Roth imitation, just like you have a [Mick] Jagger imitation and now you have a Freddie [Mercury] imitation.

Baltin: Who are the other frontmen?

Roth: Nobody imitates Steven Tyler or Robert Plant. Those are static singers that are a little bit closer to a [Frank] Sinatra. I've been dancing, they don't dance. They perform and they present a little closer to what [David] Bowie did. Bowie didn't dance either. Neither does [Bruce] Springsteen. Springsteen is a job site foreman at a construction site (laughs). I'll imitate. [Walks around] "Finish those gaskets, Armin, I'm buying lunch." They don't dance.

Baltin: Who were your performing role models?

Roth: When I was doing rock and roll and learning stage craft we were imitating all the European act, who were schooled from old British music hall and Vaudeville. All those Odeon's and theaters were still open when I did my first tours. And all the old guys and everything, Alfred Lagarde, in Holland and he would comment and stuff. And he would comment, he was a critic as well as a supporter. Old school, so that was very much in our DNA. I came from classic training, which was [George] Gershwin, [Leonard] Bernstein, classic music like this. That edge is in Van Halen music. That dark minor key tone is in everything we ever made and that's why we have two diamond albums [Van Halen and 1984]. Elvis [Presley] doesn't have two. He has one and it was Christmas tunes and he didn't write them. That darkness, that little shot of sea salt in the caramel is what makes it work, the John Lennon note. Not the [Paul] McCartney note. The reason I'm so funny is because I ain't even vaguely happy. And that's in your music all the time, from midrange down to here.

Baltin: So how does that come across in your performance?

Roth: Over a period of time it transcends what you look like, unless you were David, unless you were Ziggy Stardust cause you had that specific haircut. But what we bring is classic. I don't go perform, I don't present. The Van Halen's and I come from a background where you had to win or you didn't eat. You had to win your seat in the orchestra starting in sixth grade or you weren't in the orchestra. And when I was in the marching band you had to win first, second or third chair saxophone or you didn't march,. You didn't get a uniform. And then we had to win every audition, then we had to win over the audience, then we had to win over the record company, then I had to sue the record company and win that. It comes from a different mindset of preparedness cause when I step on stage I don't think about that at all. It's all in the prep, thousands of hours so that you can go no mind and interact with the people. But all of my preparation comes from a determination that's based on revenge and fear. My anxieties in terms of revenge and fear are very specific and tangible. I'm not complaining about the man, I'm not upset about injustice. I'm pissed at the wristwatch, it's a little too fast, like ten years too fast. Can you dig? I'm pissed at the calendar. It should slow down a little bit, especially the good days. I'm pissed on those days off when I feel my age, 60 going on 90. Does that make sense?

https://www.forbes.com/sites/steveba.../#10d1709674b4

[Dave's Dreidel]

I'll go ahead and be the one to say it.

Dave, shut the fuck up. Jesus, what a delusional interview.

[ziggysmalls]

Besides what is being discussed what about him and marching band? I can't recall him playing in marching band.

[Number 47]

"Bowie didn't dance either."


The hell, you say!


[

[snowdog]

This whole new version of Jump and following interview feels like groundhog day.

Remember this from 2013?

The “Jump” remix is part of an approach I wanted to take of, “What if we take a specific song and update it both in terms of time period and neighborhood, and you use that throughout the play?” The way “Jump” sounds originally is very different than the way it sounds on this latest version. You can turn it country, you can make it a very sad song. I was also thinking to take this material to one of our finer filmmakers and see if the whole package might be used.

We went around the circle, and one of them said to me, “Dave-san, what inspires you?” I said, “Fear and revenge.” They asked, “Revenge against who?” I said, “People who have a whole lot more talent than I do and then threw it away. Sometimes friends of ours have Maserati-style talent and they treat it like a fucking lawn mower.” And they all laughed.

I said, “Then there are folks who have lived much faster and got much farther down the track. Now my wristwatch seems to be moving forward faster and my knees seem to be going slower.” Everybody sort of nodded. It’s revenge against my wristwatch. And fear that I might not have all the time that I wish I could in order to do what’s in my imagination. I don’t think what I’m imagining is preposterous. I don’t think what I’m imagining is undoable at all. Maybe I’m audacious, but I can’t really even smell it. Let’s get after this, like Grandma Roth said. I’m furious to beat the clock here. And whether or not I do last to 93, I want to live a life well-lived. And I do it with a sense of humor. I brought up something in an interview with one of the magazines here in Tokyo. I said, “I wish Bon Jovi would’ve given me a call before he recorded all of his hits, because the lyrics would’ve been smarter, the melodies would’ve been much more smashing, and they would’ve sold a lot fewer records.” Fighting spirit, Steve-san. It’s a goddamn war every day in the music business in one faction or another. I have a taste for that. I like conflict, and I can admit that now. “Come on, let’s get after this. Where’s the next war, guys?”

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/m...future-125890/

I love Dave as a Van Halen fan and general rock music fan and I always will, he's just who he is. Having said that, being around him regularly on a personal level must be exhausting. And all I can think is that the VH's can still put up with Dave but yet somehow find Mike to be utterly intolerable.

It's truly Bizarro World...

[Daisy Hill]

"Finish those gaskets, Armin, I'm buying lunch." David Lee Roth has never been on a construction site. gaskets? really?

[NDL]

"My anxieties in terms of revenge and fear are very specific and tangible. I'm not complaining about the man, I'm not upset about injustice. I'm pissed at the wristwatch, it's a little too fast, like ten years too fast. Can you dig? I'm pissed at the calendar. It should slow down a little bit, especially the good days. I'm pissed on those days off when I feel my age, 60 going on 90. Does that make sense?"

https://www.forbes.com/sites/steveba.../#422f435a74b4

Now my wristwatch seems to be moving forward faster and my knees seem to be going slower.” Everybody sort of nodded. It’s revenge against my wristwatch. And fear that I might not have all the time that I wish I could in order to do what’s in my imagination. I don’t think what I’m imagining is preposterous. I don’t think what I’m imagining is undoable at all. Maybe I’m audacious, but I can’t really even smell it. Let’s get after this, like Grandma Roth said. I’m furious to beat the clock here.

He's getting restless. Whenever he seeks to goose the Van Halen's into action, he comes into the public light with some cryptic, zany, DLR crap.

Does it work? Of course not. So why do it?

If anything, it confirms that the Van Halen's are up to NOTHING, and he's frustrated with their inactivity.

The Wolf thing kinda blows my mind; we're into April, and fast approaching the one year anniversary of Wolf's completed work.

'I'd have to be an asshole to retire at 27. Who does that?'

How does he sit on a completed record for nine months?

[TheresOnlyOneWay]

Well, at least his voice works in interviews.

[TheresOnlyOneWay]

Best part of the 'interview":

'Does that make sense?"







No, Dave. It doesn't.