Are you excited to get back on the road?
A: Yeah! We are going out in July. We just did Jimmy Kimmel and the Ellen show. All of a sudden, [David Lee Roth] wants to do the live stuff. We said, “OK, great!” He never wanted to do it before.
Q: What was special about that night that made for such a great CD?
A: In the old days, to make a live record, you had to have a mobile truck following you everywhere and all the BS that comes along with it. Not to mention the money it costs. Nowadays, we’ve got a Pro Tools rig out by the console, and we just let it run every night. We have a couple hundred shows archived.
When it came to doing a live record, none of us wanted to sit there and listen to 200 shows to pick the best one. So we left it up to Dave.
[Drummer] Alex [Van Halen], [bassist] Wolfgang [Van Halen] and I were pretty consistent every night, [but] for a singer it’s more difficult. Because if the bus ride is too long, or you slept with the air conditioner on or the heater on and your throat is [messed] up, [it can change his voice].
Dave said, “How about Tokyo Dome?” We said fine. The bonus of that show was we didn’t have an opening act. So we played much longer. It’s about a 2-hour show. We got Bob Clearmountain to mix it. We were pretty involved with the mixing. Once we got the instruments sounding the way we wanted, we just let him go. He would send us mixes, and we would say, “Yeah, it sounds great. As long as you hear all the instruments and the vocals, that’s all you need.”
Q: Last time you toured, Wolfgang assembled the set list. Did he do it this time, and are you playing any songs this time out you didn’t play during the last tour?
A: That is yet to be seen. I’m hoping to play some other songs, but a lot of times that comes down to what Dave will sing and what he won’t. Wolf and I talk all the time and say, “Let’s throw this in. Let’s throw that in.” Ultimately, if Dave doesn’t want to sing them, then we can’t do them. I would love to throw in “Drop Dead Legs” and “Light Up the Sky.” All kinds of stuff. I think it would be a treat for the audience. Maybe we can convince him this time around
Q: How are things between you and David Lee Roth these days?
A: He is always off doing his own thing. Getting tattoos in Japan. He’s got an apartment over there. He’s got an apartment in New York. The relationship has always been the same, really. Just because he quit back in 1985 to pursue a solo career, the press I think made a bigger to-do out of our relationship being sour than we did, you know what I mean?
When [my son] Wolfgang joined the band, he was actually responsible for calling Dave and getting him back in the band.
Q: Will there ever be another Van Halen studio album?
A: After this touring cycle, we will probably hunker down and do a studio record. We certainly have enough material. It is a matter of timing and getting everybody together. That’s the only way it can be done.
We put out [“A Different Kind of Truth”] in 2012. But then you go onstage and play those new songs, and the audience looks at you like, “What’s this?” They really want to hear the classics.
Q: Is it frustrating that when you play a new song, the audience makes a beer run?
A: It’s kind of a double-edged sword. Thank God we have so many career tunes that people want to hear — songs they grew up on and that bring back memories of where they were and what party they were at and what chick they were with.
That’s what they remember and want to get back to. But at the same time, it would be nice to be able to put out new music that people would give a chance. Maybe 10 years from now stuff off of “A Different Kind of Truth” will be considered classic and people will want to hear those.
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Originally Posted by DavidLeeNatra
