Van Halen Anecdotes

[WARF]

David Lee Roth: Bondage Club

One evening in the late 1970s, Van Halen frontman David Lee Roth accompanied a friend to a famous bondage club in New York City. At one point, Roth paid a visit to the dimly lit men's room, where he was amused to discover a urinal in the shape of a bathtub. As he began to relieve himself, he was interrupted by a voice from below: "A little more to the left," it said...
Roth finished his business and left the scene with several questions on his mind. Chief among them: "Do I tip this guy?"

[Trivia: In 2004, Virgin Atlantic abandoned plans to install Dutch-made "Kisses" urinals shaped like a woman's open mouth in its first-class clubhouse at New York's JFK Airport (Terminal 4). Ironically, the controversial idea came from a female designer.]


Roth, David Lee ["Diamond Dave"] (1954- ) American musician, Van Halen frontman

[Sources: M. Moser, Rock Stars Do the Dumbest Things]

[WARF]

David Lee Roth: Van Tantrum

Before hitting the stage at a gig one night in Pueblo, Colorado, Van Halen frontman David Lee Roth went backstage for a snack. On one buffet table, he was peeved to find something out of place. "What is this before me!?" he exclaimed before overturning the table, trashing the backstage area, and kicking a hole in the wall.
The problem? Roth had found a bowl containing brown M&Ms, which were explicitly forbidden in Van Halen's contract.

[When the band played "Ice Cream Man" at early Van Halen shows, Roth played his "Davesicle" - a guitar in the shape of a Creamsicle.]

[Trivia: In October 2003, Guinness rejected a California man's claim to have set a new world record for eating Smarties with chopsticks (115 in three minutes). Jim Hager was disqualified - for using M&Ms instead.]


Roth, David Lee ["Diamond Dave"] (1954- ) American musician, Van Halen frontman

[Sources: M. Moser, Rock Stars Do the Dumbest Things; Associated Press]

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Rugged Metaphor

In January 2001, former Van Halen rocker David Lee Roth raised some curious questions about a fellow musician. "Is Christina Aguilera honestly Latina, or is her name one of those Geraldo Rivera things?" he mused. "And does the carpet match the drapes?"

["In fact," he added, "is the room even carpeted yet?"]

[Trivia: Eddie Van Halen once vowed to kick David Lee Roth in the testicles.]

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Fading Star

"A public relations firm said that rock star David Lee Roth owes them over $110,000," Conan O'Brian reported one day at the turn of the millennium. "The strange thing is that it's the first time that David Lee Roth has had any publicity in ten years."


Roth, David Lee ["Diamond Dave"] (1954- ) American musician, Van Halen frontman

[Sources: "Late Night with Conan O'Brien"]

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David Lee Roth: Delivery Boy

Former Van Halen frontman David Lee Roth was once asked how many women he had slept with in a single night. "Actually delivered the groceries?" he replied. "Three of five. But two of them, twice!"

[David Lee Roth often dispensed backstage passes to Van Halen's road crew with orders to find the best girls possible. As an incentive, $100 was given to whoever had chosen the girl he bedded. "The most repressed cities provided us with the best girls: Salt Lake City, Pittsburgh," he once recalled. "It wasn't unusual to have 50 gals show up at the lunchtime sound check demanding to give a blow job."]

[WARF]

Jack Daniels

Van Halen frontman David Lee Roth once spent thousands of dollars designing enormous inflatable devils that could pee Jack Daniels whiskey several feet out over the audience. He then filled them with cheap bourbon to save money.

[At many early Van Halen shows, Roth donned an enormous cowboy hat, jumped onto a huge inflatable microphone, and rode it into the crotch of a pair of enormous inflatable legs.]

[Redballjets88]

keep 'em coming its a good read...though i have read them before... its a good recap

[WARF]

Publicity Stunt

In 1993, seven years after leaving Van Halen, David Lee Roth was busted in New York City for buying a small quantity of marijuana. Shortly thereafter, Roth was asked by Howard Stern, "So, Dave, you lookin' for publicity?" "Howard, this is a $35-dollar pot pust," Roth replied. "If I was looking for publicity, I would have pooped on the sidewalk."

["We're playing every casino, ballroom and whorehouse that will have us," Roth remarked while touring ten years later. "And the band is furious — they'd plug their amps into livestock if I'd let 'em."]


Roth, David Lee ["Diamond Dave"] (1954- ) American musician, Van Halen frontman

[Sources: M. Moser, Rock Stars Do the Dumbest Things; Blender, August 2003]

10987654321 Ratings: 6.51 [35 vote(s)]

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David Lee Roth: Conceited?

"I'm not conceited," former Van Halen rocker David Lee Roth once declared. "Conceit is a fault, and I have no faults."

["What's your greatest fault?" a fan asked on another occasion. Roth's reply? "My Christ-like humility."]

[Trivia: After concerts, Van Halen's road manager was required to pour Perrier water over David Lee Roth's feet.]

[WARF]

One Bad Apple? (long)

Tommy Lee, often asked what had inspired him to become a musician, once named two formative albums: Kiss's Alive and Van Halen's debut.
"Eddie Van Halen's guitar f---ing freaked me out," Lee once recalled. "Eddie Van Halen had me air-guitaring, and Peter Criss's drum set flipped me out. That got me doing the cardboard boxes and setting up these pretend drum sets and thinking I was just the full-blown rock star. I was that guy, jumping up and down on my bed in the mirror thinking I was Eddie Van Halen or with my drumsticks up in the air like I was Peter Criss."

Which of these works was his first record? Neither. Lee's aural cherry was popped by... The Osmonds' One Bad Apple!


Lee, Tommy (1961- ) American musician, Motley Crue drummer [noted for such works as Shout At The Devil (1983), Theater Of Pain (1985), Girls Girls Girls (1987), Dr. Feelgood (1989) and New Tattoo (2000)]

[Sources: Rolling Stone]

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Justin Hawkins: Modest Hawkins?

The Darkness once played the Roxy in Hollywood. Though Eddie Van Halen was expected to attend, he did not show up. Or did he? "He would have worn a heavy disguise," Darkness frontman Justin Hawkins declared. "He would have left his tiara at home, because he knew he'd have to hand it over."
(Note to Hawkins: A tiara is most often used to descibe an ornamental, often jeweled, crownlike semicircle worn on the head by women on formal occasions.)

["America is on its knees (before the Darkness)," Hawkins declared on another occasion. "It's been beaten across the shoulders. The jaw is agape. One by one, they will fall." His voicemail message? "This is Justin Hawkins, lead singer of The Darkness, the UK's leading rock combo..."]


Hawkins, Justin (?- ) British musician, frontman of The Darkness [noted for various recordings with The Darkness]

[Sources: Rolling Stone, Oct. 30, 2003, p. 33]

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Young Alex Van Halen

Van Halen drummer Alex Van Halen once claimed to have lost his virginity one night after a gig - when he was nine years old!


Van Halen, Alex (1955?- ) American musician [noted for various recordings with Van Halen]

[Sources: M. Moser, Rock Stars Do the Dumbest Things]

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Young Eddie & Alex Van Halen

Van Halen guitarist Eddie Van Halen was once why, after growing up playing the piano, he had switched to guitar. "I had a $125 St. George Japanese drum kit," he recalled. "I got a paper route to pay for it. Alex [Van Halen] stopped playing the piano too and took guitar lessons. But while I was out throwing papers, he was playing the drums - and he got the better of me. So I said, 'F--- you! Play the drums and I'll play your f---ing guitar!'"

["I drive people with perfect pitch nuts," Eddie Van Halen once confessed. "I don't tune anything. On our first album, 'Ain't Taslking 'Bout Love' is in between A and A-flat."]


Van Halen, Eddie (1955- ) American musician [noted for various recordings with Van Halen]

[Sources: Rolling Stone, Sept. 18 2003, p. 52]

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Van Halen & Son: Pumpkinship?

One day in kindergarten music class, Eddie Van Halen's son began improvising. Because the students had been instructed to sing Halloween songs, however, the young man was given a 'time out'; the young man in turn picked up a pumpkin, threw it at the teacher (narrowly missing her head) and cried, "My daddy said it's okay!"
Shortly thereafter, Van Halen Sr. got a call from the principal. "I asked him what he [the son] was doing," Van Halen explained, "and he said singing a different melody."

Eddie later sat his son down for a little chat: "I told him next time," Van Halen declared, "aim better!"

[Van Halen later explained that he had only been kidding. He did, however, consider pulling his son out of the class: "I don't want anyone telling him that there is a wrong and right when it comes to music. I don't want him taught that way."]

[Trivia: During the filming of the video for Van Halen's "Hot for Teacher," the director, trying to make one of the kids look as grungy as possible, finally sprayed him down with WD-40. The boy's parents were not amused. They had to wash his hair with Ajax - four times.]

[Redballjets88]

cool finds where did you get them?