Jérôme Frenchise
06-05-2005, 08:00 PM
Here is an interview that Dave gave to "Rock&Folk", a French mag.
I've translated it from French, knowing it was originally from English... Took me hours to type, I hope you'll enjoy. I'll post 2 pictures that were used to illustrate the article.
Interviewer: Dave...? Dave?
Dave: Excuse me, pal but I really have to change jackets for your interview...
I: But Dave... It's not for TV, it's R&F...
D: Anyway! Anyway! I'll be back in 10 minutes.
[Followed by his faithful bodyguard, Diamond Dave hastes towards his room. The people of Rapido (a French TV rock show), with stars in their eyes, pack up their stuff, grinning. No doubt, the immortal creator of "Bottoms up" or "Take your whiskey home" is back. His return puts an end to our worries. Wearing a cow-boy jacket à la Las Vegas (covered with fake diamonds and other jewels, Dave has put on black leather chaps onto his tight jeans and made it all complete with a pair of immaculate Mexican boots. Striking impression garanteed.]
D: Sorry, but I do 15 a day, in 7 different countries a week, if I don't change clothes every time, I can't start, arrhhh, arrhhh, arrhhh...
I: Dave, today it's my 7th interview with you... Do I win a prize?
D: Seven, hey? Seven? Well, happy new year, Phil...
I: So, my first real question is: why does everybody leave a 4-year gap between two albums these days?
D: well, listen: the problem is the lifetime of records has grown much longer. If you want to be on top of the charts, which is the place where people who like to pay the rent regularly love to be, you must not only release your album, but also extract 4 singles from it, and then do 4 videos. Then add 432 photo sessions, 8è interviews. Then the tour begins, which is worldwide nowadays, lasting 2 years. Ten years ago, before videos, the lifetime of an LP was 100 days at best, and as you're a wizard at decimal calculating, you know it well that was about 3 months! (laughs)
I: I've got this fancy vision of you...I've always wondered if between 2 records, 2 tours, you weren't the kind of secret guy who "retires" in his house in the suburbs, somewhere near Pasadena... Founding a family... Two kids and the evening news on TV, momma cooking in the kitchen...
D: Some people have that approach, yes, and that's OK with me. Where do you think bassists come out from? (laughs) I've chosen a different way. I'm a gipsy and I lke it like that, yeah, I like to live like a vampire, ha! ha! ha!
I: So, what have you been doing between "Skyscraper" and this brand new one?
D: I've been hanging around in the South Pacific...
I: Hunting sharks?
D: You know, in that kind of place, when you stroll around from a coral reef to another, in a dugout canoe that you've made with your own hands, your ambitions change. In the urban jungle, your priorities can be: falling in love, going to the movies and buying a pair of new shoes. In the jungle, little things like keeping your dinner safe become number one on your list.
I: You mean you don't have a bodyguard with you for those expeditions?
D: No, no! I leave on my own with my girlfriend who is a helicopter pilot, and who has nothing to do with the little fragile top model you see hanging around with rock stars (laughs)... But I like a good rumble evry now and then (laughs).
I: Let's talk about music again. Not mentioning in detail the staff changes, it seems your group shifts quite a lot... Do you consider yourself as a tough boss?
D: (in a raucous voice) I am extremely tough (laughs). I don't scream at people, I have never hit anybody. But this band is a circus of which I'm the boss. I hold the flag, I make them clap their hands, I act as the "cheerleader" but I require that they give a little from themselves in the whole thing. That's all.
I: No "Tobacco road", no Sinatra song... No cover on this album...
D: Hey, I had 60 songs of mine to work on, we eventually made 12...
I: Will you ever work again with Ted Templeman, the revered producer of all the legendary Van Halen albums?
D: Why not? We're still super buddies... That said, he's got some work these days, he produces the Bullet Boys... Hey, do you know the Bullet Boys? Their singer is bit like the white David Lee Roth! (laughs uproariously)
I: And what does DLR think when he sees Sinead O'Connor get all the 1990 MTV awards for the best video?
D: Ha! Ha! Sinead O'Connor! Ha! Ha! Did you notice that nobody, NOBODY, has EVER seen her in the same room with Telly Savalas? Of course, I'm not trying to influence you, but IMO the coincidence is striking! Ha! Ha! Ha!
I: Do you keep informed about the latest video techniques?
D: Of course... Because we've seen myriads of technological inventions during the last few years, each more overwhelming than the others. And what for? To put forward people who can't play on stage and who produce municipal dump music! (sighs)
I: What is your ideal video, at the moment?
D: My new one. Have you seen it? No?! But what the fuck are they doing?! Well, we've used all the common places from the past, like Busby Berkeley sings the blues, and mixed it with allegoric visions of the future while utterly forgetting the present! Whoah ha! ha!
I: Let's talk about rock in general. Today it seems to be mostly interested in its past (Led Zeppelin boxed set, retrospectives of Lennon, the Byrds, and the Doors soon...)...
D: This is dangerous! Apart from country music, there is hardly no one left to make things go ahead. It's sad. As an artist, I don't care, but as a fan, it really gets to me.
I: Is growing old an easy thing when you're a rocker?
D: I'll tell you this: growing old, in rock, is the easiest thing. Of course, there are lots of people in rock who look old right from the beginning... And do you know why? Because they thought they were somebody they weren't. Not me! I'm not Peter Pan, OK? I am David Lee Roth, my music is somewhere between Duke Ellington's Big Band and heavy metal, and here we go...
I: The sleeve of your new album tramples on Ozzy Osbourne's territory, with its hilarious devil... Are you waving the red flag at conservative mothers?
D: Ha! Ha! I don't give a damn about the occult, monster movies, satanism and all that crap...And you know it! This sleeve is a mirror... And it makes you all think! So it will make your dirty little imaginations work and it will be much worse than all I could have put on that sleeve. Ha! Ha!
I: Who is going to tour with you on the guitar this time?
D: Unknown, but spectacular kids... Then I know, we, singers, look a bit like pimps. I mean, it's almost like in an old about the white slave trade in Turkish jails... (in an enormous voice) "Come closer ladies and gentlemen, come over here! Here is my brand new guitar player. He's so much better than the former. (laughs) And he is only 9 and a half years old!" (laughs) I know, it's a bit pathetic. When you think of 20 years ago, the two Led Zeppelin wizards went in the remote East to bring back "Kashmir"... Well, 20 years later, you can't listen to a hard rock record without the compulsory Arab-like guitar solo anymore. That's how rock goes... There's a risk of caricaturing, but well: if you tell a joke that makes people laugh once, why not telling it twice, then three times? And one day you realize you've become a caricature of yourself... It's a trap. But it won't happen to me!
I: You're about to start a world tour... So, to conclude, I'd like to have your opinion about some of the areas or countries that David Lee Roth has crossed...
D: No problem!
I: So, first, Texas...
D: Ah, Texas, it's an amazing place, as most Texans think they are cow-boys, he he... Or cow-girls! Though they'll never get closer to a cow than to the counter of the nearest McDonald's. (laughs) Another piece of evidence showing the philosopher's phrase "I think, therefore I am" was true...
I: England?
D: Listen, how can I bash the cradle of the blues? (laughs) It's odd, isn't it? The blues was born in Mississipi. If you think about it, it's a musical genre that was completely old-fashioned in the United States as soon as the 1950s... Until a band of effeminate English students declared: "Hey we wanna be old Black men for a week! (laughs) They started playing the blues and some of them, Clapton, Page, etc, even got the trick so well that they became superstars... And inspired a generation of Americans...
I: Italy?
Those Italians! They love to organize concerts in velodromes. I've been there, and after that I realized I had spent my whole carreer in a velodrome! (laughs)
I: Japan?
D: Strange. Most of people think the Japanese are ultra-tough, inscrutable, conservative... In fact, the Jap's sense of humour is bigger than Boston! (laughs uproariously) I can't wait going back to Osaka...
I: Vancouver, where the new album was recorded?
D: Vancouver is a combination between Hollywood Bvd, the 42nd Street, the Champs Elysées, it's the old frontier city of the gold miners, with a touch of Mexico, the fucking urban jungle. I walk out on the street, cover me dudes, Tom Waits is in town, the sound of sirens, cops, ambulances, broken glasses, whores howling my name to the moon... It's the true background of "A little ain't enough".
I: Mexico City?
D: It's a mix, a kind of burning city. I'm not only talking about the hot peppers that they serve as soon as breakfast; it's a limp, lascivious city... You know what Jesus Christ said to the inhabitants of Mexico City when he had to leave the city? He told them: "Don't move an inch, guys, I'll be back in a minute"... (laughs)
I: South America?
D: A bit scary... The jungles, the mountains are spectacular. But the cities scare me a little. Is it drugs, politics, death squadrons, or the mix of it all? It's the last frontier, if you like city camping...
I: Russia?
D: I'm one of the few who haven't played there yet, but Russia attracts me. My grandparents all came from Russia. My grandad on my father's side even has never spoken a single English word. Sounds, smells are already familiar to me... But then once again, what's that political mess? You know, I've been around our good old planet a dozen times, and I'll tell you this: its inhabitants do not like each other...
I: Let's go back to america... Detroit?
D: Detroit? Hey, Motor City! Hey! Car culture! Detroit! In America, what's the first thing you buy yourself with your first pay? A car! And what's the second thing you buy? A second car! So, hey, Detroit...
I: France?
D: Here is what I deeply think: I don't really care about France. What I dig is French people...
I: Oh, come on, Dave, you can do better than that!
D: No, no, honestly! Nobody understands me... I recently met an American dude in a bar in Tahiti. He asked me how I could say that... The French... Moaners, their fucking aggressive attitude...I always say: "Oh, if you had to drink their horrible coffee every morning, and smoke their dreadful cigarettes just after, you would curse the whole world too!" Arrhhh! Arrhhh!
I: In which country do you find the best groupies?
D: Hey, pal, it's a wild flower that indifferently grows in every country in the world!
[The manager slips her head at the door and says "Time's up!". She has great news for Dave: the single "A little ain't enough" is climbing up American charts at the speed of a Scud missile. It's already the fastest and best selling single in the history of Warner records! Dave nods, looking worried:
"What am I going to wear for the next interview?"]
I've translated it from French, knowing it was originally from English... Took me hours to type, I hope you'll enjoy. I'll post 2 pictures that were used to illustrate the article.
Interviewer: Dave...? Dave?
Dave: Excuse me, pal but I really have to change jackets for your interview...
I: But Dave... It's not for TV, it's R&F...
D: Anyway! Anyway! I'll be back in 10 minutes.
[Followed by his faithful bodyguard, Diamond Dave hastes towards his room. The people of Rapido (a French TV rock show), with stars in their eyes, pack up their stuff, grinning. No doubt, the immortal creator of "Bottoms up" or "Take your whiskey home" is back. His return puts an end to our worries. Wearing a cow-boy jacket à la Las Vegas (covered with fake diamonds and other jewels, Dave has put on black leather chaps onto his tight jeans and made it all complete with a pair of immaculate Mexican boots. Striking impression garanteed.]
D: Sorry, but I do 15 a day, in 7 different countries a week, if I don't change clothes every time, I can't start, arrhhh, arrhhh, arrhhh...
I: Dave, today it's my 7th interview with you... Do I win a prize?
D: Seven, hey? Seven? Well, happy new year, Phil...
I: So, my first real question is: why does everybody leave a 4-year gap between two albums these days?
D: well, listen: the problem is the lifetime of records has grown much longer. If you want to be on top of the charts, which is the place where people who like to pay the rent regularly love to be, you must not only release your album, but also extract 4 singles from it, and then do 4 videos. Then add 432 photo sessions, 8è interviews. Then the tour begins, which is worldwide nowadays, lasting 2 years. Ten years ago, before videos, the lifetime of an LP was 100 days at best, and as you're a wizard at decimal calculating, you know it well that was about 3 months! (laughs)
I: I've got this fancy vision of you...I've always wondered if between 2 records, 2 tours, you weren't the kind of secret guy who "retires" in his house in the suburbs, somewhere near Pasadena... Founding a family... Two kids and the evening news on TV, momma cooking in the kitchen...
D: Some people have that approach, yes, and that's OK with me. Where do you think bassists come out from? (laughs) I've chosen a different way. I'm a gipsy and I lke it like that, yeah, I like to live like a vampire, ha! ha! ha!
I: So, what have you been doing between "Skyscraper" and this brand new one?
D: I've been hanging around in the South Pacific...
I: Hunting sharks?
D: You know, in that kind of place, when you stroll around from a coral reef to another, in a dugout canoe that you've made with your own hands, your ambitions change. In the urban jungle, your priorities can be: falling in love, going to the movies and buying a pair of new shoes. In the jungle, little things like keeping your dinner safe become number one on your list.
I: You mean you don't have a bodyguard with you for those expeditions?
D: No, no! I leave on my own with my girlfriend who is a helicopter pilot, and who has nothing to do with the little fragile top model you see hanging around with rock stars (laughs)... But I like a good rumble evry now and then (laughs).
I: Let's talk about music again. Not mentioning in detail the staff changes, it seems your group shifts quite a lot... Do you consider yourself as a tough boss?
D: (in a raucous voice) I am extremely tough (laughs). I don't scream at people, I have never hit anybody. But this band is a circus of which I'm the boss. I hold the flag, I make them clap their hands, I act as the "cheerleader" but I require that they give a little from themselves in the whole thing. That's all.
I: No "Tobacco road", no Sinatra song... No cover on this album...
D: Hey, I had 60 songs of mine to work on, we eventually made 12...
I: Will you ever work again with Ted Templeman, the revered producer of all the legendary Van Halen albums?
D: Why not? We're still super buddies... That said, he's got some work these days, he produces the Bullet Boys... Hey, do you know the Bullet Boys? Their singer is bit like the white David Lee Roth! (laughs uproariously)
I: And what does DLR think when he sees Sinead O'Connor get all the 1990 MTV awards for the best video?
D: Ha! Ha! Sinead O'Connor! Ha! Ha! Did you notice that nobody, NOBODY, has EVER seen her in the same room with Telly Savalas? Of course, I'm not trying to influence you, but IMO the coincidence is striking! Ha! Ha! Ha!
I: Do you keep informed about the latest video techniques?
D: Of course... Because we've seen myriads of technological inventions during the last few years, each more overwhelming than the others. And what for? To put forward people who can't play on stage and who produce municipal dump music! (sighs)
I: What is your ideal video, at the moment?
D: My new one. Have you seen it? No?! But what the fuck are they doing?! Well, we've used all the common places from the past, like Busby Berkeley sings the blues, and mixed it with allegoric visions of the future while utterly forgetting the present! Whoah ha! ha!
I: Let's talk about rock in general. Today it seems to be mostly interested in its past (Led Zeppelin boxed set, retrospectives of Lennon, the Byrds, and the Doors soon...)...
D: This is dangerous! Apart from country music, there is hardly no one left to make things go ahead. It's sad. As an artist, I don't care, but as a fan, it really gets to me.
I: Is growing old an easy thing when you're a rocker?
D: I'll tell you this: growing old, in rock, is the easiest thing. Of course, there are lots of people in rock who look old right from the beginning... And do you know why? Because they thought they were somebody they weren't. Not me! I'm not Peter Pan, OK? I am David Lee Roth, my music is somewhere between Duke Ellington's Big Band and heavy metal, and here we go...
I: The sleeve of your new album tramples on Ozzy Osbourne's territory, with its hilarious devil... Are you waving the red flag at conservative mothers?
D: Ha! Ha! I don't give a damn about the occult, monster movies, satanism and all that crap...And you know it! This sleeve is a mirror... And it makes you all think! So it will make your dirty little imaginations work and it will be much worse than all I could have put on that sleeve. Ha! Ha!
I: Who is going to tour with you on the guitar this time?
D: Unknown, but spectacular kids... Then I know, we, singers, look a bit like pimps. I mean, it's almost like in an old about the white slave trade in Turkish jails... (in an enormous voice) "Come closer ladies and gentlemen, come over here! Here is my brand new guitar player. He's so much better than the former. (laughs) And he is only 9 and a half years old!" (laughs) I know, it's a bit pathetic. When you think of 20 years ago, the two Led Zeppelin wizards went in the remote East to bring back "Kashmir"... Well, 20 years later, you can't listen to a hard rock record without the compulsory Arab-like guitar solo anymore. That's how rock goes... There's a risk of caricaturing, but well: if you tell a joke that makes people laugh once, why not telling it twice, then three times? And one day you realize you've become a caricature of yourself... It's a trap. But it won't happen to me!
I: You're about to start a world tour... So, to conclude, I'd like to have your opinion about some of the areas or countries that David Lee Roth has crossed...
D: No problem!
I: So, first, Texas...
D: Ah, Texas, it's an amazing place, as most Texans think they are cow-boys, he he... Or cow-girls! Though they'll never get closer to a cow than to the counter of the nearest McDonald's. (laughs) Another piece of evidence showing the philosopher's phrase "I think, therefore I am" was true...
I: England?
D: Listen, how can I bash the cradle of the blues? (laughs) It's odd, isn't it? The blues was born in Mississipi. If you think about it, it's a musical genre that was completely old-fashioned in the United States as soon as the 1950s... Until a band of effeminate English students declared: "Hey we wanna be old Black men for a week! (laughs) They started playing the blues and some of them, Clapton, Page, etc, even got the trick so well that they became superstars... And inspired a generation of Americans...
I: Italy?
Those Italians! They love to organize concerts in velodromes. I've been there, and after that I realized I had spent my whole carreer in a velodrome! (laughs)
I: Japan?
D: Strange. Most of people think the Japanese are ultra-tough, inscrutable, conservative... In fact, the Jap's sense of humour is bigger than Boston! (laughs uproariously) I can't wait going back to Osaka...
I: Vancouver, where the new album was recorded?
D: Vancouver is a combination between Hollywood Bvd, the 42nd Street, the Champs Elysées, it's the old frontier city of the gold miners, with a touch of Mexico, the fucking urban jungle. I walk out on the street, cover me dudes, Tom Waits is in town, the sound of sirens, cops, ambulances, broken glasses, whores howling my name to the moon... It's the true background of "A little ain't enough".
I: Mexico City?
D: It's a mix, a kind of burning city. I'm not only talking about the hot peppers that they serve as soon as breakfast; it's a limp, lascivious city... You know what Jesus Christ said to the inhabitants of Mexico City when he had to leave the city? He told them: "Don't move an inch, guys, I'll be back in a minute"... (laughs)
I: South America?
D: A bit scary... The jungles, the mountains are spectacular. But the cities scare me a little. Is it drugs, politics, death squadrons, or the mix of it all? It's the last frontier, if you like city camping...
I: Russia?
D: I'm one of the few who haven't played there yet, but Russia attracts me. My grandparents all came from Russia. My grandad on my father's side even has never spoken a single English word. Sounds, smells are already familiar to me... But then once again, what's that political mess? You know, I've been around our good old planet a dozen times, and I'll tell you this: its inhabitants do not like each other...
I: Let's go back to america... Detroit?
D: Detroit? Hey, Motor City! Hey! Car culture! Detroit! In America, what's the first thing you buy yourself with your first pay? A car! And what's the second thing you buy? A second car! So, hey, Detroit...
I: France?
D: Here is what I deeply think: I don't really care about France. What I dig is French people...
I: Oh, come on, Dave, you can do better than that!
D: No, no, honestly! Nobody understands me... I recently met an American dude in a bar in Tahiti. He asked me how I could say that... The French... Moaners, their fucking aggressive attitude...I always say: "Oh, if you had to drink their horrible coffee every morning, and smoke their dreadful cigarettes just after, you would curse the whole world too!" Arrhhh! Arrhhh!
I: In which country do you find the best groupies?
D: Hey, pal, it's a wild flower that indifferently grows in every country in the world!
[The manager slips her head at the door and says "Time's up!". She has great news for Dave: the single "A little ain't enough" is climbing up American charts at the speed of a Scud missile. It's already the fastest and best selling single in the history of Warner records! Dave nods, looking worried:
"What am I going to wear for the next interview?"]