Latest David Lee Roth News

A new Billy Sheehan interview popped up today, mostly promoting his Winery Dogs project but with the obligatory Dave questions:

http://ultimateclassicrock.com/billy...nterview-2013/

With Talas, you got the chance to tour with Van Halen a couple of times. What was the scene like at that time?

Van Halen was the greatest band in the world. At their worst, they were only spectacular. It was just an amazing experience. It was Showbiz 101 to see that band in action and behind the scenes and [to see] how incredibly precise and awesome [they were] and [with] almost military precision [how] they could get up on stage and make it look like it’s a big-ass party.

You know, to do a party, you just have a room with beer in it and have people in there. But if you do it right, it’s a riot and they always would do it right. And it would never seem like there was any effort put into it at all, but behind the scenes, there was great effort. The lighting, the sound and the cues and everything was all worked out, but when you watched it — even though we watched it every night and it was the same every night, we’d still laugh at every joke. It was all worked out and scripted to a large degree, but boy, it was just done magically and perfectly.

A lot of that was Dave, of course — he’s just a grandmaster of showbiz and the greatest frontman in my humble opinion that there ever was — and still is. It was an incredible lesson to learn and they were very, very nice to us. They let us do some encores and they chose us personally to be on that tour, because they got a tape from Premier Talent, the booking agency. We had no idea we were even up for it until we finally found out, “Hey, you guys got the Van Halen tour” and we were like, “We got the what?” We didn’t even have a record out, really — so we were very surprised. We made friends with everybody and I’m friends with all of them to this day, thankfully.

That was a band that was knocking a lot of people for a loop at the time. Particularly the bands that were touring with that band, it seems like if you’re in that position, that would cause you to take at least a second look at all areas of your process to make sure you had everything dialed in.

Yeah, when you’re up on that stage and it’s Van Halen’s stage, you’re under a microscope and there’s a whole lotta people watching. We got lucky. We scored and we got a bunch of encores and we did real well and they were real pleased with us. I created a relationship there that, of course, led to the Dave thing later.

It was a little spooky though, getting up on a stage like that in front of all of those people and telling them that we’ve never played there before and we had no record out and we just gotta go up there and do it. There again, we get back to the power trio thing and with everybody singing and playing, we got up there and did our thing and they responded positively. Sometimes you roll the dice and the sun comes up.

One of our readers wanted to ask about how you were asked to join Van Halen quite a few times. It’s surprising that never panned out or went that way.

Yeah, in the end I’m not really sure what the purpose of any talks with me to join the band was. But it happened a couple of times. I love Michael Anthony and I felt totally torn, because I love the band too — I didn’t want to see the band change and [have them] bring some new guy in, even if it was me. I’m a real believer in the original lineup — I love that concept as a fan. Whenever anybody changes, even if it’s some peripheral person, it’s kind of not the same to me — once in a while, it works. So I was torn a little bit, but it never really panned out.

In a way, nature took its course. When Dave left, he called me and we started that band and that was close enough. I always said when I was in Buffalo, the only band I’d ever leave Talas for was Van Halen and when Dave called, I said, “Okay, close enough, I’m gone.” That was it!

That ‘Eat ‘Em and Smile’ lineup, as it’s now called, that was a supergroup to end all supergroups. Even now when you look at some of the combinations have come along since then, that lineup remains impressive. The albums that you guys made speak well of what was accomplished. Was there instantly good chemistry when the band came together to work with Roth?

Absolutely. ‘Eat ‘Em and Smile’ was just a great experience for all of us. We would hang in the basement with Dave and tell stories. He had a whole garage full of beer left over from the US Festival. He lives in Pasadena where it’s pretty hot and the garage, of course, was air-conditioned, so the beer was skunked by then.

But we drank it anyway — we’d sit around and drink skunk beer, like we were sitting around the campfire in Dave’s basement, telling stories and hanging, me, Steve, Gregg and Dave. It was a riot. On tour too, we just had a complete blast.

With ‘Skyscraper,’ things changed. I think it was more management-run at that point, which I think was a mistake in retrospect. It wasn’t as personal and fun or close or [us] hanging out. But the ‘Eat ‘Em and Smile’ thing was just an incredible experience. Everywhere I go, someone has an ‘Eat ‘Em and Smile’ record for me to sign. Coming out of the jungles of Indonesia, somebody has a copy of it and it’s incredible.

Ted Templeman produced that album while Roth and Vai end up producing the next one. How much did that change the dynamic of the sessions for that second record?

Quite a bit. The second record was done one at a time. We never played together as a band ever. The drums were laid down, I came in and did bass and then they did a zillion guitar overdubs and it wasn’t the band playing. ‘Eat ‘Em and Smile,’ Ted had us all in a room and we were playing, we laid down the track and there it was.

I remember even Steve wanted to go back and double all of his guitar lines and Ted said “no, let’s just leave it organic the way it is and leave it there” and I’m glad he did, because it really showed a side of Steve’s playing that I don’t often see now where he’s just kind of on his own and he’s just gotta play. He’s a studio wizard, so when he goes in the studio he ends up with a lot of wizardry and it’s brilliant and beautiful, but what he did on ‘Eat ‘Em and Smile’ is a different character than the Steve I see today.

I love ‘em both, but I’d love to see Steve go out now with a combo amp and a drummer and a bass player and do a record like that without going and doing a zillion things after. A lot of players are like that and they approach it differently — Steve uses the studio as an instrument now and on ‘Eat ‘Em and Smile’ he didn’t have the opportunity because someone else was in charge. Then on ‘Skyscraper,’ the record sounds a little over-produced to me and it was not one of my favorite records.

It was even years before I actually listened to the whole thing because I’d left right at the end of making that, so it was not my favorite time, music-wise and career-wise, because unfortunately I had to make a move and I did. It’s always a sad thing when you have to leave or break something up or make a change like that. But unfortunately, that’s what had to happen.

Eddie Van Halen Biography Coming



Faber & Faber have announced today that they have acquired a biography of Eddie Van Halen, Eruption, by Paul Brannigan.




Paul Brannigan previously wrote the Sunday Times bestselling biography of Dave Grohl, This is a Call, and is the co-author of the forthcoming two-volume biography of Metallica, Birth School Metallica Death. He is also the current editor of Kerrang!

Scheduled for publication in 2015, the book promises to explore how it was the incendiary playing of the young guitarist which launched the band Van Halen into the consciousness of America in early 1978, and transformed the musical landscape. Offering the first real examination of a true musical icon, it will also turn up the volume on a life lived in popular music's fast lane.

There was previously a biography of Eddie released in 2011 by Kevin Dodds.

Faber and Faber will publish in the UK + Commonwealth rights, plus Canada. Eruption will be published by Da Capo in the U.S.

Jon Taffer of Bar Rescue on Van Halen’s boozy business affairs



“Running a bar is not just a business – it’s a science… nobody knows more about bar science than Jon Taffer.” Three seasons in, that opening voiceover to Spike TV’s Bar Rescue is undoubtedly the most recognizable on the current reality television landscape. Taffer, a bar business veteran, takes on the tired, the angry, the bitter, and the dejected who are desperate to find a savior even if, like doubting Thomas before them, they at first don’t believe. Much more often than not, the boisterous, Svengali-like Taffer is able to take establishments in disrepair and turn them around with a new look, sometimes a new name, and always with an attitude of positivity that few can match.

I know you’ve worked with Sammy Hagar before, but when it comes to Van Halen, are you a Dave guy or a Sammy guy?

[Laughs] Let me tell you a quick, funny story about when Sammy and the guys went down to Mexico and decided to open Cabo Wabo – this is years ago. They had left a titty bar and they watched a local drunk walk into a light pole and knock himself out. Sammy turns to Eddie and says, “That’s the Cabo Wabo!” and they have a big laugh. The next morning they wake up and decide they want to open this nightclub next to their favorite topless bar. They find a local architect [Marco Monroy] and tell them that they want a 12,000-square-foot nightclub. Being rockstars, they leave two days later and go on a 10 month tour.
They come back after the tour and the club is 12,000 square meters, which is 32,000 square feet – so this club is almost three times the size they expected. First year it loses one million dollars and is a huge frustration in the band. Sammy goes ahead and buys out Eddie and his brother and now he owns 100% of it and he gives half of it to the architect, Marco, and his wife, to run in Cabo.

Marco’s wife becomes promoted to the VP of tourism to the port of Cabo. The next morning, there are buses pulling up in front of Cabo Wabo from all the cruise ships to buy t-shirts, and suddenly they’re doing $50,000 to $60,000 a week in t-shirts when the month before the place was losing a million a year.

Sammy’s got the tequila going, he’s got the club going, he’s making all this money and he’s perceived as the coolest guy in Van Halen, and the Van Halen brothers have none of this.Now the Van Halen brothers are out, Sammy owns the place, it becomes successful. Marco comes up with the idea to make a Cabo Wabo tequila, they move 140,000 cases a year in sales and Sammy later sells it for, give or take, $80 million. All this is going on while the band had broken up over, what I believe, Cabo Wabo. Sammy’s got the tequila going, he’s got the club going, he’s making all this money and he’s perceived as the coolest guy in Van Halen, and the Van Halen brothers have none of this.
Eight years later, the band gets back together with Sammy for a summer tour. At this time, I’m working with Sammy on a Cabo Wabo New Orleans. In the contract that Sammy signed to go on tour with Van Halen, it said specifically that he’s not allowed to say Cabo Wabo, wear Cabo Wabo shirts, do anything with Cabo Wabo onstage whatsoever.

He signs the contract.

Next day, Sammy goes out and gets the biggest fucking Cabo Wabo tattoo on his arm he can possibly get. Every promo picture has Cabo Wabo in it. Halfway through a planned world tour they were ready to frickin’ kill each other and they [didn’t go overseas].


The theory is that Sammy hoodwinked the Van Halen brothers, had a plan to buy them out while the club was doing poorly and then turn it around and make all the profit for himself.


Can I be honest with you? I know Sammy Hagar – he’s not that smart. It didn’t happen that way. They opened the place – it failed. They wanted out, Sammy bought them out. The cruise ships started showing up; that’s the side of the story I believe. And Sammy’s not a bad guy – I’m not suggesting he is – Sammy Hagar did not wake up one morning and decide to fuck the Van Halen brothers.

However! That said… I gotta go with Diamond Dave.

I’m right there with ya.

When I used to run the Troubadour, Diamond Dave used to come hang out and I remember a lot of wild Diamond Dave nights that I won’t get into. There were some amazing stories at the Troubadour and he was involved in quite a few of them, actually [laughs].




Read more at http://www.vanyaland.com/2013/08/29/...iness-affairs/

Just hit the FB...



We want you!!

I'm gonna be on the Steve Austin Show. Straight Up, Stone Cold, Nothin' But Yeah.

09/03/13 www.SteveAustinShow.com

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John 5 (Lowery) sometime Rob Zombie and Marilyn Manson guitarist played and helped write large parts of the 1998 DLR Band album including Slam Dunk!, Blacklight, Counter-Blast, Little Texas, Wa Wa Zat!!, Relentless and Weekend With the Babysitter.

Dave recently mentioned he had been working with him again and now in a snippet from a recent interview in Metal Insider he has commented on it.





Not too long ago, David Lee Roth revealed that he was working on a musical jukebox project with you. What’s the status of that?



It’s called Somewhere Over the Rainbow Bar & Grill. What it was, he was warming up for the Van Halen record he said “Hey John, come on over, we’ll play some songs and write a little bit.” He likes to get his voice in shape and we were just hanging out at his house and he said “I love this, let’s go into the studio!” And we recorded it that day. Luckily I cleared my day, and we came out with twelve songs, and they’re incredible! I don’t know what he’ll do with it.




I remember hearing him say he had such grand ideas for it.


It’s so incredible. It is awesome. It sounds like “Could This Be Magic?” or “The Full Bug,” you know, that David Lee Roth deep voice. It’s really great. Hopefully it’ll see the light of day one day.



Was it nice working with David Lee Roth again?


Yeah. I’ve known him forever. For years and years and years and years and years. It’s great. It’s like hanging out with a friend, and just knocking stuff out.




You can read the whole interview at http://www.metalinsider.net/intervie...nd-rod-stewart

From our forums...

I found on a VHS an old recording of an italian tv interview by of DLR in 1994, about promotion for YLFM Tour.

Kambri Crews once lived with her deaf parents in a tin shed in Montgomery, Texas. She now owns and operates Ballyhoo Promotions, a PR and production company in New York City specializing in stand up comedy. She is also the author of the critically acclaimed memoir Burn Down the Ground (Random House) and a renowned storyteller and public speaker. She has performed on The Moth, Literary Death Match, SXSW Comedy, Risk!, UCB Theatre, Gotham Comedy Club and given speeches at the University of Texas, Texas Book Festival, University of Oregon, SXSW (South by Southwest), DeafHope, and many other schools, colleges, book festivals, and events.


http://kambricrews.com