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new jersey newspaper interview:
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Re: radio interview
Diamond Dave hits the airwavesOriginally posted by Softknockz
new jersey newspaper interview:
Sunday, January 01, 2006
BY JAY LUSTIG
Star-Ledger Staff
STAR-LEDGER STAFF
Thank goodness for exclamation marks. Without them, there would be no way to adequately convey what David Lee Roth sounds like, in print.
"I don't think of it as morning radio," says the former Van Halen frontman of his 6-10 a.m. talk show, which debuts on Tuesday on 92.3 Free FM (formerly K-Rock). "I think of it as after hours! It's a bottomless cup of attitude, and the second one's free, pal!"
Roth, who frequently broke himself up laughing during the course of the interview (and repeatedly called me Mike), brings his celebrity status, as well his endearingly goofy shtick, to his new gig. He'll need both these resources, and more, as he faces the daunting task of trying to make his listeners forget about the time slot's former occupant, Howard Stern. (Stern's new show on Sirius satellite radio begins Jan. 9).
"You could never substitute for Howard Stern, though most morning zoo teams attempt to," says Roth. "The best you could ever be, if you imitate somebody, is 80 percent of what they were. Howard Stern is like a Les Paul guitar -- nothing ever sounded like that, nothing ever will again, forever. Don't try to imitate that! Do what Eddie did."
He means reinvent radio, the way his former Van Halen partner, Eddie Van Halen, reinvented the art of electric guitar playing. That's no small task.
Roth, 50, lives in New York ("The Lower East Side, which I call the land of the blue crew cut and the nose bolt!"), and will base his show there. But the show will not just be heard at 92.3 Free FM, which is revamping its entire lineup to emphasize talk over music (see accompanying story). Stations in Philadelphia, Boston, Pittsburgh, Dallas and other cities will carry it, too.
"It really is an incredible challenge," says Tom Taylor, editor of the industry newsletter Inside Radio. "Radio is a craft, and just as the average DJ wouldn't become the lead singer for Van Halen without learning stagecraft and the tricks of that trade, he's got to learn the tricks of the trade of radio."
Because of the Stern element, Roth has to do that with the kind of media attention few radio hosts have ever experienced.
"He's going to be learning, metaphorically, with all the curtains rolled up: everybody can look in and see him," says Taylor.
"It's a lot harder than it sounds. Howard makes it sound easy. So does Rush Limbaugh, so did Bob Grant. Almost everybody who's good on the radio makes it sound easy. But it's not."
Roth, who has undertaken some brief stints as a DJ in the past, says he will have guests on his show, but has no interest in interviewing musicians. And he won't play records. There will be a musical element to the show, though.
"I play parts of records," he says. "I must have close to 400 loops that are comprised of everything from a Chemical Brothers intro to Steely Dan drum breaks. The vocals never come in; I provide those."
He says he will be more mobile than Stern, taking his show on the road whenever the whim strikes him.
"I'm not going to be 51 and getting my first office job!" he says. "In my contract, I think it's every fourth week, we travel to you-name-it. We'll be event-driven. If it's the Super Bowl, that's where I go! If it's the Grammys, that's where I go!"
Sometimes, he says, he'll present concerts in the cities he travels to.
"For example ... Fourth of July in Boston, we'll get a hotel suite by Copley Square and broadcast for five days there, and then that Saturday or Sunday night, you do your gig," he says. "And we'll just follow the sun. Meet me in Brownsville! Do you speak Spanish? I do! Vamanos. I'm not kidding!"
Roth was born in Indianapolis, and moved with his family to Pasadena, Calif., as a teenager. There he met the Van Halens (Eddie and his brother, drummer Alex) and bassist Michael Anthony. Performing together as Van Halen -- and with Eddie's awe-inspiring guitar playing and Roth's carnival-barker persona as their most obvious assets -- they were one of the dominant forces in rock from the late-'70s to the mid-'80s.
A cover of the Kinks' "You Really Got Me" was their first Top 40 hit, in 1978. Subsequent successes included "Runnin' With the Devil," "Dance the Night Away," "And the Cradle Will Rock" "Jump," "Panama" and "Hot For Teacher."
In 1985, with Roth's star power at its peak (due partially to his ability to command the screen in Van Halen's videos, which got heavy MTV play), he left to concentrate on his solo career. Sammy Hagar replaced him and Van Halen continued to have some hits, but a big part of the band's magic never came back.
Roth was never the same again, either. He did have some solo hits ("California Girls," "Just a Gigolo," "Yankee Rose"), but without a strong band behind him, his record sales soon dwindled.
He reunited with Van Halen briefly in 1996, to record lead vocals on tracks for a greatest hits album, but there has never been a full-blown reunion. In 2002, he and Hagar (who was no longer in Van Halen either) toured together, presenting separate sets.
Between the Hagar tour and the announcement that Roth would be taking the radio gig, he made his biggest news splash in the summer of 2004, when he began training for work as an emergency medical technician.
He says his EMT work is now on hold.
"I just tried to sign up for my shifts," Roth says, "and they said, 'C'mon Dave. There's buses driving around with your picture on it. It's a little tough to go sneaking through emergency rooms'"
"When I started doing my EMT work, I had no idea (the radio job) was even on the horizon. It only showed up at the beginning of the summer. I thought I had the future in sight. I was going to coast -- fat, slow and happy. Just when I tried to get out, they dragged me right in again!"
Mark Chernoff, 92.3 Free FM's vice president of programming, cites the EMT angle as one of the things that makes Roth such a compelling personality.
"Sometimes you think, 'Oh yeah, David Lee Roth -- lead singer of Van Halen, lots of hit records, Diamond Dave onstage,'" says Chernoff. "I think that's just a piece of what his personality is.
"He's this guy who works on these EMT crews, who sees the poorest of the poor, but can live with the richest of the rich as well. And anything in between. I think he's got this whole way of life, or lifestyle about him, that everybody will find interesting."
Roth concurs. Enthusiastically.
"For the last 30 years, I've been leading a life of crime and international intrigue that's involved 40 stamps in my passport, love affairs, and broken hearts to go with each one of them. You would have to live three lifetimes to catch up with just the allegations that follow me!
"When I think of what my show is going to be like ... it's going to be like a warm and friendly neighborhood candy store that also sells guns out of the back room! I am literally the only individual who can articulate and entertain the liberal left -- I'm so far left I support stuff you haven't even heard of yet! -- and I've also totally embraced the NASCAR voter block."
Roth insists that radio is not a momentary fascination for him, and that he plans to do it a long time. He just won't do it in the conventional way.
"After 20 years," he says, "most morning personalities can look over their shoulder and see, on one hand, a sizable bank account, and on the other hand, a small room with no window. I see the absolute converse! I don't have any money left. And I've got 40 stamps in the passport. And the tattoos to prove it, your honor!"Comment
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Re: philly newspaper article
Former Van Halen vocalist replaces Howard Stern
Sunday, January 01, 2006
By Adrian McCoy, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
It's been a long, strange trip for David Lee Roth. His music, both as frontman for Van Halen and as a solo artist, has long been a staple on FM radio rock formats across the country and, starting Tuesday, he'll be on the radio again -- this time as a syndicated morning host.
Roth replaces longtime radio star Howard Stern, who is busy launching his new show on Sirius Satellite Radio.
Roth will be heard here on rock station WRKZ-FM (93.7) weekdays from 6 to 10 a.m. The show will also air on flagship station WXRK-FM in New York, among other big cities, and online.
While the show will follow the basic template of music, talk and interviews, its larger-than-life host wants to turn things upside down.
"Think of my program not as morning radio, but rather the first of the late-night talk shows that day," Roth says. "If we get up early, this will be the best thing to happen to our hangover -- a bottomless cup of attitude."
"Four o'clock in the morning feels the same whether you stayed up or whether you just woke up."
That doesn't sound like your typical morning show.
In October, CBS Radio (formerly Infinity Broadcasting) announced that Roth, 51, would replace the departing Stern. Infinity looked both in and out of the radio business for fresh talent to take over in different markets across the country, including Roth in the eastern states and Comedy Central's Adam Carolla out west.
With the highly rated Stern show out of the morning drive equation, there's a big audience in search of new listening habits. That could change the face of morning radio -- locally, where Stern's show was consistently in the top five, and nationally. Roth's ebullience and humor, plus his rocker status among several generations of listeners, might become that new habit.
Roth's winding road to radioland includes more than two decades as a rock icon, but also a life of world travel as an avid explorer and outdoor adventurer and serious martial arts practitioner -- and, of late, a stint as a New York City emergency medical technician. Other recent projects included a guest spot on "The Sopranos" and a performance with the Boston Pops.
Entering the new arena of syndicated radio is just the latest of his reinventions.
"What makes me different from virtually all other personalities on any kind of radio is my background," Roth said. "The last 30 summers have been spent in a life of crime and international intrigue. I've got drinking stories, broken-heart love affairs and assertions of my own. There's nothing that I don't have an editorial bias on.
"I can interview a Dalmatian and get you 20 minutes of illumination and mirth."
There will be a political talk element to the show -- again, from the Roth world view. "I'm conversant with everybody from the mayor to Heidi Fleiss. I'm the one personality who can singlehandedly catch and entertain the liberal left of the left of the left, as well as the NASCAR nation."
In an era of corporate radio and centrally controlled programming, Roth's show promises to be something of an anomaly. While most radio personalities don't choose their own music, Roth has been given unusual freedom to program the show's components. "It's an amazing privilege. This is the hottest seat in American radio. I've been given carte blanche in terms of content: guests, music, format, subject matter."
Musically, he says, he's looking for the kind of balance and appeal that made his band and solo music so popular.
"You know what separated Van Halen from all the other heavy rock bands? Half our audience is girls. I've always aimed for the girls. Everything I've done as an artist is girl-friendly."
His first guest on the show will be a family member, albeit a famous one: Manny Roth, owner of the famous Cafe Wha? in New York, the venue that hosted up-and-coming artists like Bob Dylan and Peter Paul and Mary in the early '60s. Roth spent a lot of his youth at his uncle's club.
In 2004, he became a New Yorker, moved to the Lower East Side ("I'm in on a cultural relevancy visa," he says) and trained as an emergency medical technician. It sounds like an odd move, but Roth comes from a family of medical doctors, including his father and uncle. "I was afforded the time to pursue some things that I always wanted to do but had dropped in pursuit of fame. I thought I was going to be cruising along the margins, fat, slow and happy,"
Working as an EMT gave him an extreme street-level view of the inner city and that perspective to share with listeners, although he notes, "I had this perspective before I got the gig. Now I'm just sure I was right."
Roth's contract includes the freedom to travel, and he'll be taking the radio show on the road. First stop is Miami.
Unlike some radio hosts, Roth thrives on life on the road. "That's where I live. On my bed right now is a sleeping bag. I learned how to do it from watching the Rolling Stones and Jimmy Buffett."
He envisions his new life as "somewhere between [CNN's] Christiane Amanpour and every fourth-rate morning zoo broadcasting from the local strip mall. We'll follow the sun.
"I'm not giving up my life of crime."Comment
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thanks so much!
“Why do people say "grow some balls"? Balls are weak and sensitive. If you wanna be tough, grow a vagina. Those things can take a pounding” ― Betty WhiteComment
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