What is the biggest career mistake David Lee Roth has ever made?

[light 'em up!]

The pot bust should have been on the list. That was a big mistake.

[Big Troubles]

absolutely. The pot bust is the only considerable mistake, because as fans we can't decide what was/is a mistake by something Dave did or didn't do. All the things listed that were considered mistakes by some, Dave himself, considers them to be personal milestones. Don't judge a man by what makes him happy. Be happy- he's happy. And he is. He is forever going to be happy and the host of the party.

[stringfelowhawk]

I can't really say if he's made any career mistakes because while I may not have made the same choices as he did, (if I were in his shoes) he is Diamond Dave and as a big enough fan to know his personality, I'm fairly sure even what someone else may consider a mistake he considers another opportunity that didn't work out but led to a different one which did.

In that context, is anything he's ever done careerwise really a mistake or forthought for another opportunity?

Leaving VH wasn't really a mistake IMO. Would "Yankee Rose" be on 5150? I think not. More people may have bought that album instead of EEAS but a majority of those buyers thought they were getting a cool, fun record with a wildman that could make you laugh and totally rock doing it. They didn't expect to be privy to a soap opera album that would have been better background music on "The Bold And The Beautiful". This is why they stopped selling records. Every new album increased the cheese by a ratio of 3:1.

And this is just my HO but after reading and watching MANY interviews over the years by both sides and reading CFTH I think being an active person like Dave, he can't sit still long and got bored waiting on Ed which is what Ed and Al wanted. I'm just basing this on what I've read and seen. I think they wanted to make him wait knowing he couldn't which as soon as he had a side project going they could use that as an excuse to say he quit and hire another singer. They basically just tried to out wait Dave. Finally when he got tired of it and went up and discussed it with them (from his book) all was good. Tears were shed, promises made and he assumed they really meant it. Of course he should have worn a steel plate under his shirt I.E. Clint Eastwood, but I think he truely believed them and took them at their word only to find out later that they hired some dude they cast as a "Janis Joplin" knockoff in some movie called "The Rose". Here they were just verbally killing him in the media and he was being a very wise man by ignoring it for a long time. Then said knockoff started doing it too. At that point, for someone you don't know taking verbal swipes at you with "he said, she said" knowledge, he had to bust his ass with a verbal beat down of his own. As he himself is so fond of saying, "The most interesting thing about Sam Hagar is David Lee Roth"! To me that says it all. And he's right. After all this time, I've noticed media outlets that turned on him back then have started to see they were duped by Groucho and Fucko Marx and have started to see Dave as the class act he's always been.

Back when this site was down, I was google'n around for reviews of Dave albums and VH etc. and they were not so kind but lately those same reviews have been re-written to say, "Regardless of what you have read in the past. David Lee Roth was the heart and soul of Van Halen. We he left (or was fired), the attitude and the fun went with him". I believe that was from Launch. I could be mistaken, I'm advancing in age here waiting on a Van Halen reunion.

[light 'em up!]

Originally posted by Big Troubles
absolutely. The pot bust is the only considerable mistake, because as fans we can't decide what was/is a mistake by something Dave did or didn't do.

Come to think of it, the pot bust is the only time I've ever seen Dave somber in front of a camera, as news crews tried to get his reaction right after he was released fro jail.

Yeah, the pot bust was huge, because his album sales began plummeting downward right after that.

[Bad Muthafucker]

Originally posted by Carmine Raguzza.
Is that really why Billy left? Cuz Dave and Vai produced Skyscraper? Penny Pinching? I mean he hired Bob Rock to do ALAE....sound wise....Sky and ALAE are the 2 best IMO....

Yup. Billy left because of the production....AKA the bass being way too soft for his liking. Listen to that album again. You can hardly hear the bass. And Vai left because he didn't like the overall sound of what they were doing. Dave says that Steve "just hated" the song "Just Like Paradise." He says that Steve didn't want to go in the musical direction that Dave wanted to go in...which was more traditional 4-bar bombastic arena rock. Vai wanted to go off into his own little world of unusual chord structures and time signatures and explore.

And yes, I'd call having himself producing "Penny Pinching" because he saved all that extra money on having to hire a producer. And then after he lost Vai and Sheehan, I think he realized what a mistake it was to do that, so he then figured that he'd better get his act together and just spend the fucking money and hire a real producer. Which is why ALAE and YLFM have someone other than Dave himself doing the producing. Unfortunately, I think it was a bit too late as Dave's popularity had already dwindled by that point. But you can't blame a man for trying.

And Dave is absolutely NOT above trying to save some extra cash. He even says so in his book. How many videos did he shoot in black & white? He admits in his book that it was simply a cheaper method. And do you really think that all of that whiskey that the ALAE devils were pissing was the name brand Jack Daniels? Hell no. He also admits that in his book as well. To quote Dave, "Purely for budgetary reasons, there are other forms of that very beverage that can be substituted." All he did was buy Jack Daniels once and save the bottle. From then on, he'd buy the cheaper, bottom-shelf whiskey and just pour it into the empty Jack bottle backstage where nobody could see him. Then, he'd go out where the people could see him to pour it into the reservoirs of the devil statues. Neat, huh?

[Carmine]

Originally posted by bad_muthafucker
Yup. Billy left because of the production....AKA the bass being way too soft for his liking. Listen to that album again. You can hardly hear the bass. And Vai left because he didn't like the overall sound of what they were doing. Dave says that Steve "just hated" the song "Just Like Paradise." He says that Steve didn't want to go in the musical direction that Dave wanted to go in...which was more traditional 4-bar bombastic arena rock. Vai wanted to go off into his own little world of unusual chord structures and time signatures and explore.

And yes, I'd call having himself producing "Penny Pinching" because he saved all that extra money on having to hire a producer. And then after he lost Vai and Sheehan, I think he realized what a mistake it was to do that, so he then figured that he'd better get his act together and just spend the fucking money and hire a real producer. Which is why ALAE and YLFM have someone other than Dave himself doing the producing. Unfortunately, I think it was a bit too late as Dave's popularity had already dwindled by that point. But you can't blame a man for trying.

And Dave is absolutely NOT above trying to save some extra cash. He even says so in his book. How many videos did he shoot in black & white? He admits in his book that it was simply a cheaper method. And do you really think that all of that whiskey that the ALAE devils were pissing was the name brand Jack Daniels? Hell no. He also admits that in his book as well. To quote Dave, "Purely for budgetary reasons, there are other forms of that very beverage that can be substituted." All he did was buy Jack Daniels once and save the bottle. From then on, he'd buy the cheaper, bottom-shelf whiskey and just pour it into the empty Jack bottle backstage where nobody could see him. Then, he'd go out where the people could see him to pour it into the reservoirs of the devil statues. Neat, huh?

I knew all that cept for Sheehan leaving. I thought there was some awesome bass on Skyscraper! And my friggin new lab puppie ate my copy of Crazy from the Heat, yesterday! Bastard!

[Bad Muthafucker]

The bass PLAYING was totally awesome on Skyscraper. But thing is, it's at a very low volume. Which I guess kinda insulted Sheehan. The volume of the bass is nowhere near what it was on EEAS. Poor Billy.

[Carmine]

Originally posted by bad_muthafucker
The bass PLAYING was totally awesome on Skyscraper. But thing is, it's at a very low volume. Which I guess kinda insulted Sheehan. The volume of the bass is nowhere near what it was on EEAS. Poor Billy.

Yeah..wah....still a great album!

[Wolverine]

the pot bust is not a career move, is wasn't done intentionally.. dave was in that park several times before, buying his so called" jamaican bunk".

[katie]

I thought the pot bust was GREAT publicity.
You could not but that amount of exposure worldwide.
Hey In Rock N Roll as long as they spell the name right, all publicity is GREAT publicity.

[Big Troubles]

Originally posted by katie
I thought the pot bust was GREAT publicity.
You could not but that amount of exposure worldwide.
Hey In Rock N Roll as long as they spell the name right, all publicity is GREAT publicity.

today, getting busted for pot can work for you. Depending on who you are. Didn't work out too good for Whitney Houston. :D

I still say him getting busted was the only mistake he made. (not smoking it-getting caught of course)

[spmusicplyr]

why does everyone hate skyscraoer?

i dig it

[lms2]

I think Dave's biggest career mistake would also be the thing that made him the worlds greatest front man to begin with... he cast himself in a role he was later unable to evolve from.

[dave_is_vh]

First of all, who the fuck cares that Sheehan left. All he is is a bass player that plays a bass like a guitar sometimes. Lottie fucking da.

I think it is pretty clear that Vai and Sheehan were using Dave as a stepping stone and nothing more. Which is fine. Dave's mistake was a marketing mistake - he made the EEAS band his product, rather than simply making Dave himself the product. As a result some fans were disappointed when Vai and Sheehan left.

And oh yeah by the way in case you are deaf Skyscraper is Dave's greatest CD ever - even better than all the Van Halen CDs.

Originally posted by bad_muthafucker
Yup. Billy left because of the production....AKA the bass being way too soft for his liking. Listen to that album again. You can hardly hear the bass. And Vai left because he didn't like the overall sound of what they were doing. Dave says that Steve "just hated" the song "Just Like Paradise." He says that Steve didn't want to go in the musical direction that Dave wanted to go in...which was more traditional 4-bar bombastic arena rock. Vai wanted to go off into his own little world of unusual chord structures and time signatures and explore.

And yes, I'd call having himself producing "Penny Pinching" because he saved all that extra money on having to hire a producer. And then after he lost Vai and Sheehan, I think he realized what a mistake it was to do that, so he then figured that he'd better get his act together and just spend the fucking money and hire a real producer. Which is why ALAE and YLFM have someone other than Dave himself doing the producing. Unfortunately, I think it was a bit too late as Dave's popularity had already dwindled by that point. But you can't blame a man for trying.

[Vivian Campbell]

Re: What is the biggest career mistake David Lee Roth has ever made?

I thought the band he assembled for the first two albums was his biggest mistake. It’s been well documented that after 1984, Eddie totally scraped the Van Halen formula in favor of the Hagarized brew we all choke on today. While we all fault Eddie long and loud for that decision, Roth also forgot what drove the success of Van Halen when assembling the “Eat Em And Smile” band. Classic Van Halen was all about the non stop energy that resulted from the combination of Dave’s lyrics and personality, Eddie’s wild playing, and Michael Anthony’s amazing back up vocals. The original DLR Band completely failed to compensate for the latter two ingredients. Dave was the master at utilizing a chorus to electify a song, but in thw first two albums the backing vocals are surely lacking. While Steve Vai just didn’t fill the void of Eddie.


If Roth’s original lineup was Matt and Greg Bissonette, Brett Tuggle, and an equivalent to Jason Becker, Dave would not only have stayed in the spot light, but would have matched VH in album sales. That lineup and the album it produced, ALAE, had all the markings of a “Van Halen” record that the previous two albums lacked.