New Dave interview - Jump dance remix - March 2019

[Nitro Express]

Yeah, but...like, this 'gourmet' burger joint opened up in town a few years ago...in the end, they were still just hamburgers. A bottle of hot sauce is still just a bottle of hot sauce: eventually people will tire of it and want something other/newer.

Not if you market it right. There were a ton of BBQ sauces on the market when Sweet Baby Rays came out. Now it's a major brand. You have to have a good product but you also have to market. It's like Tito's vodka. How many vodkas were on the market? A zillion. Tito did things better. It's watered down corn liquor in a cheap bottle but it's marketed as a vodka made with loving hands in Texas. You have to have the goods but you also have to sell an experience and tell a story. But you have to stay on it. Something Dave isn't good at. How long was Sammy banging on the window selling tequila? A long time. No different than any other tequila in it's range and I think the Cabo Wabo logo sucks donkey snot but Sam sold a story and an experience and sold it like a carnival barker. It worked. We won't hear much more about Roth's skin care line. He won't promote it. He's already off doing crazy dance music shit.

[Seshmeister]

It wasn't great and isn't my cup o' tea. But at the end of the day I understand it and electronica is very popular, so maybe Dave is bringing some Van Halen to a market that might otherwise ignore it or only be minimally aware of it. This is just Dave being Dave, he's always been into trendy dance music and it certainly influenced his 'Frontman'ness' from the 70's-90's. Without it, Dave might not have been the crossover frontman god we all know that pushed Van Halen into a market and success they otherwise might not have achieved with a lessor lead singer, hardrock purist....

The audience has changed more than he has and doesn't like to acknowledge it in the same way you sometimes hear middle aged men complaining about the Star Wars prequels being childish while having a blind spot for the teddy bears in the 3rd one.

I remember a while back going along to my daughters dance and theater class end of year show and suddenly realizing half the show was 11 year old girls basically doing Dave's CVH schtick, doing high kicks, leaping from things and doing the splits, twirling batons and forgetting their lines.

[Terry]

Not if you market it right. There were a ton of BBQ sauces on the market when Sweet Baby Rays came out. Now it's a major brand. You have to have a good product but you also have to market. It's like Tito's vodka. How many vodkas were on the market? A zillion. Tito did things better. It's watered down corn liquor in a cheap bottle but it's marketed as a vodka made with loving hands in Texas. You have to have the goods but you also have to sell an experience and tell a story. But you have to stay on it. Something Dave isn't good at. How long was Sammy banging on the window selling tequila? A long time. No different than any other tequila in it's range and I think the Cabo Wabo logo sucks donkey snot but Sam sold a story and an experience and sold it like a carnival barker. It worked. We won't hear much more about Roth's skin care line. He won't promote it. He's already off doing crazy dance music shit.

If all of that were merely as simple as you seem to think it is (i.e. "market it right"), there would be far more success stories than there are products - condiments, booze, whatever - which had a lackluster response when released to the marketplace: surely it can't be the case that all products that had a mediocre public reception just weren't marketed right, can it?

Look at lemon and lime flavored Coke, or McDonald's trying to rebrand itself to be a healthier fast food joint. Surely, you'd agree both Coca Cola and McDonald's probably have more than a few astute marketing people employed within their organizations, yet both the lemon/lime Cokes and the sales of McDonald's 'healthier' menu haven't exactly taken off.

Which isn't to say you were wrong, but sometimes the best laid plans of mice and men...I mean, does the general public at large even know who the fuck Michael Anthony is? If not, what chance did he ever have of getting his hot sauce to take off? Just because you are a genius or successful in one field doesn't mean you'll be successful in every other one. We won't hear about Roth's skin care line for the same reason we haven't heard much about Anthony's hot sauce, in that neither product is a significant twist on existing products that are already overcrowded with too many other brand names to even remember, much less mention.

[Terry]

You Nazi sunnuva bitch!!!

[Nitro Express]

If all of that were merely as simple as you seem to think it is (i.e. "market it right"), there would be far more success stories than there are products - condiments, booze, whatever - which had a lackluster response when released to the marketplace: surely it can't be the case that all products that had a mediocre public reception just weren't marketed right, can it?

Look at lemon and lime flavored Coke, or McDonald's trying to rebrand itself to be a healthier fast food joint. Surely, you'd agree both Coca Cola and McDonald's probably have more than a few astute marketing people employed within their organizations, yet both the lemon/lime Cokes and the sales of McDonald's 'healthier' menu haven't exactly taken off.

Which isn't to say you were wrong, but sometimes the best laid plans of mice and men...I mean, does the general public at large even know who the fuck Michael Anthony is? If not, what chance did he ever have of getting his hot sauce to take off? Just because you are a genius or successful in one field doesn't mean you'll be successful in every other one. We won't hear about Roth's skin care line for the same reason we haven't heard much about Anthony's hot sauce, in that neither product is a significant twist on existing products that are already overcrowded with too many other brand names to even remember, much less mention.

90% of new products fail. You are right. Marketing isn't easy and getting a product on the store shelves alone is not easy. I could go into all the details of what is required to get shelving allowances. The thing is with the internet and mail order you don't have to mess with that. Mike could have grown his line of sauces but it takes effort and he didn't want to mess with it. To market a product you have to be in the game and some people just don't want to put the effort into it. Yeah it might fail too. Welcome to the business world.

[Seshmeister]

It's like Tito's vodka. How many vodkas were on the market? A zillion. Tito did things better. It's watered down corn liquor in a cheap bottle but it's marketed as a vodka made with loving hands in Texas.

I've just got a bottle for my birthday - $35 a bottle here so hopefully it's better than you are making out.

[Nitro Express]

I've just got a bottle for my birthday - $35 a bottle here so hopefully it's better than you are making out.

It’s a novelty. Some out of work oil engineer in Texas was told if he could make a really good vodka it would sell well. So he built a little distilling operation and came up with his own recipe. It’s a corn based liquor. Not your traditional vodka. It’s basically watered down moonshine. It’s corn liquor but vodka sells so it’s marketed as vodka. I really don’t think it’s all that great.

[Nitro Express]

[chuckjitsu]

Here's a textbook example of why Roth is a frustrating interview:

David, what do you remember about when you heard the music to “Jump” the first time?

Roth: My background in music is classic in many regards, and not just orchestral; same for the Van Halen brothers. One of the posters I had on the wall was Lenny Bernstein, and it went way beyond orchestra and into Broadway. In this case West Side Story, which begat like-minded theater like Damn Yankees. In Damn Yankees, the key song is, “You Gotta Have Heart.” I learned that song word-for-word probably when I was five or six years old. “Jump” is the answer to that.

Of course, it's not like he's going to tell the truth and say he didn't care for it!

[twonabomber]

Of course, it's not like he's going to tell the truth and say he didn't care for it!

It's funny that Ed claimed Dave didn't like Jump and didn't approve of keys because "you're a guitar hero, man!" But Dave has turned Jump into his signature song.

Of course we all know how full of shit Ed was in most interviews. See "I tune the guitar to itself" and "if you can find a tuner on the property, I'll give you a million bucks."

[FORD]

Well, we know that Jump could have been written for guitar.... because Eddie pretty much recycled it in 1991 with the Van Hagar song "Standing on top of the World".

Dave had a valid point though. Even people who like keyboards don't want to hear it from a guitar player. I like what Depeche Mode, early Ministry, Thomas Dolby, etc. did in the 80s, but I never expected Van Halen to end up in that camp.

Dave and his dance music fetish though... that's a whole other thing that I never would have seen coming back in the 80s.

[Nickdfresh]

Dave is like a trust fund kid. He's just doing shit to do it. He doesn't have to make a living for himself apparently. He's not the most stable guy in the world. To run a product line and be in business you have to be pretty focused and steady. I doubt his skin care line will go anywhere. Not that it's a bad idea and maybe the products are actually good but Dave isn't constant enough to see a real marketing campaign through and build a brand.

Dave may be a "trust fund kid", but he also went to a racially and mixed class high school and dated a lot of black girls apparently. he grew up in a diverse cultural mishmash that I think shaped his stylings. I don't think it's fair to dismiss Dave as just a doctor's son that loved disco anymore than it is to just dismiss him as a guy that ripped off Jim Dandy. he had a lot of exposure to the side of things that typical white, upper-middle class Jewish and WASP kids from Indiana don't get...

Brown suga', you never tasted so good!

[Nickdfresh]

The audience has changed more than he has and doesn't like to acknowledge it in the same way you sometimes hear middle aged men complaining about the Star Wars prequels being childish while having a blind spot for the teddy bears in the 3rd one.

I remember a while back going along to my daughters dance and theater class end of year show and suddenly realizing half the show was 11 year old girls basically doing Dave's CVH schtick, doing high kicks, leaping from things and doing the splits, twirling batons and forgetting their lines.

I bet they were drinking real whisky from their Jack Daniels bottles, not ice tea like those Clash pussies!

[Nickdfresh]

Not if you market it right. There were a ton of BBQ sauces on the market when Sweet Baby Rays came out. Now it's a major brand. You have to have a good product but you also have to market. It's like Tito's vodka. How many vodkas were on the market? A zillion. Tito did things better. It's watered down corn liquor in a cheap bottle but it's marketed as a vodka made with loving hands in Texas. You have to have the goods but you also have to sell an experience and tell a story. But you have to stay on it. Something Dave isn't good at. How long was Sammy banging on the window selling tequila? A long time. No different than any other tequila in it's range and I think the Cabo Wabo logo sucks donkey snot but Sam sold a story and an experience and sold it like a carnival barker. It worked. We won't hear much more about Roth's skin care line. He won't promote it. He's already off doing crazy dance music shit.

I haven't had Cabo in at least 10 years, I recall it as okay, but nothing better than other tolerable low-grade tequilas for shots at the bar like Patron. It certainly is no Don Julio...

[Nickdfresh]

I've just got a bottle for my birthday - $35 a bottle here so hopefully it's better than you are making out.

I think it is. It's a very good mixer...