David Lee Roth's FIVE biggest career blunders?

[WARF]

This is pretty easy for me.

1) Leaving Van Halen - It was a stupid move plain and simple, whether or not he was fired... imagine how many great records we would have right now if this didn't happen in April 1985!

2) Roth Radio - Although the show was decent, there was no way he could be a worthy successor to the king of all media, Howard Stern.

3) No Holds BBQ DVD - Wow, this was an ill fated concept right from the beginning. It's like the WATERWORLD of musical DVD's. It also cost nearly a million dollars to make.

4) The Slam Dunk Controversy - The Producers of the 1998 Smash hit film Armeggedon wanted David Lee Roth song "Slam Dunk" on the soundtrack to this film. Dave rejected it, and it was later replaced with Aerosmith's "I don't wanna miss a thing" ... which became a #1 single.
Bad career move, considering he spent nearly a million on the BBQ DVD!

5) Roth Goes Vegas - Is there any way worse you can cheapen yourself or your music by becoming a cheesy Las Vegas act???

[Kilkmaru]

Id have to agree with all of them. And WTF at #4

[WARF]

Originally posted by Kilkmaru
Id have to agree with all of them. And WTF at #4

#4 Is a true story...
I have the whole article.
Let me dig it up for you, Brownsound will back me up on it.

[svrwthr]

Re: David Lee Roth's FIVE biggest career blunders?

Originally posted by WARF


5) Roth Goes Vegas - Is there any way worse you can cheapen yourself or your music by becoming a cheesy Las Vegas act???

Yes, playing at cheesey casinos in other states.

[Kilkmaru]

That would be awesome. Thanks warf

[Bob_R]

Re: David Lee Roth's FIVE biggest career blunders?

Originally posted by WARF

1) Leaving Van Halen - It was a stupid move plain and simple, whether or not he was fired... imagine how many great records we would have right now if this didn't happen in April 1985!

No ands, ifs, or buts about it.

[WARF]

Originally posted by Kilkmaru
That would be awesome. Thanks warf

Give me some time on this... I'm having trouble finding it.
It was from an interview with John Kalodner.

[WARF]

Honorable Mention: Dave's failure to keep a consistant guitar player.

[Terry]

Would agree with WARF on three of the five.

1) Leaving Van Halen in 1985.

2) Dave goes to Vegas. Could appreciate his said intentions, but a sure sign of being a has-been.

3) Replacing Stern. He was really doomed to fail before he even got out of the starting gate. Was a bit taken aback by how quickly he flopped, and the crater left by his fall to Earth.

4) The Diamond Dave CD. Sure, the DLR Band CD didn't fly off record shelves, but it was probably some of the best stuff I'd heard from him since EEAS, in terms of a Roth solo album from start to finish. The Diamond Dave effort was weak at best, and a foolish way to squander the publicity he had generated from the Sam and Dave tour of a year before.

5) Getting busted for pot in NYC. Some sheep even contend he did this to generate advance publicity for YFLM. Hogwash in my book, and not necessarily a calculated career move/blunder, but the bust along with the eclectic nature of YFLM made him both a laughingstock (the bust) and alienated what was left of his hard rock fan base (the album)...I often wonder if YFLM (along with Vegas) was Dave trying to run for cover in the face of the grunge onslaught; attempting to reinvent himself to a degree.

[Seshmeister]

WARF I'm amazed you can still come up with a decent thread idea after all these years...

Maybe #5 is all about timing.

I don't see Prince getting shit for doing it now.

I never knew the Slam Dunk story but it's kind of a different song from the cheesy Aerosmith one so I doubt it would have had the same impact with the middle aged soccer mum Van Hagar demographic.

Plus Hollywood is full of shit there is every chance it could have never made the final cut of the film either way.

Liv Tyler tearfully walks towards her boyfriend who returns from an asteroid after her father sacrifices his life to save her true love. As tears stream down her eyes she embraces him. {Closeup of boyfriend as Slam Dunk fades in}
SLAM DUNK!
Guaranteed To Shock
I Can't Be Stopped
Don't Need No Defense Baby
I Plays On Top
Let the Good Times Roll
My Game is Better Than Ever
Winners- They Come and Go
Legends- They're Forever


Hmmm....

My 5 would be similar to yours but BBQ didn't really do his career any harm because BBQ was irrelevant because 99.9% of people don't know or care that it happened. To me it's just like him buying a Ferrari and totalling it. If he was that worried about money then he would sell merchandising at his shows. As far as the radio thing well yeah it was doomed to failure but he never was a radio DJ so no career lost. At least it kept his name in the media.

Anyhoo my 5

#1 Leaving Van Halen

#2 Brett Tuggle - For blasting out keyboards over CVH songs live and cheesey shit on Skyscraper. In the late 80s as Rock music was getting polarised between grittier sleazy GNR and crappy Journey/Van Hagar AOR Roth fell into no mans land. It was Daves' band so entirely his fault. He must have told or allowed Tuggle to do it. Without this approach Billy Sheehan probably wouldn't have left.

#3 YFLM Tour
The big nail in the coffin of Daves career. I took a 5 year break from even listening to his stuff after this. In hindsight the album is ok but the live show by the time it reached me was just shit. Back to back ballads, mediocre musicians, no show to speak of, no lights, disiniterested band and crowd, it was like watching a pretty good wedding band without even the mild amusement of watching your old auntie make a cunt of herself dancing to YMCA.

#4 Reunion Blues
In 1996 and 2000 I blame the Van Halens 80% for fucking things up but Dave will be Dave and his 20% IMHO is not being able to let shit roll over him a bit more. Bandmates don't need to be your best friends, they can be your workmates. Most people have someone at work that annoys the hell out of us and talks shit but you learn ways around that, compromise and work out ways to deal with them. Plenty of bands manage this. Seems like Van Halen did for many years before they got rich enough not to give a shit with rampant ego's all over the place. If Roth had shown some of the attitude and humility he did this year on his radio show back in 1996 or even 2000 then I think they would have happened. Seems to me rockstars have the maturity of someone about 20 years younger so as Roth now moves to his mid 30s we might get a reunion...

#5 Strummin with the Devil.
5000 sales even with mainstream TV exposure says it all but unlike stuff like the BBQ video this was a failure in public. Plus as I wander the internet I see lots of people at non fan sites confused about going to his shows. Not surprisingly they assume it's going to be some country shit and don't go hitting his already pretty low crowd numbers.


To be honest I could have managed at leasr another 5...

[Seshmeister]

Damn I can't do it I need 6.

#6 NAMING THE BAND VAN HALEN.

Actually this is maybe #1.

A band is a brand. Look at Axl Rose for fuck sake.

Most people in an arena crowd don't sit obsessively reading about bands and lineups.

"Oh I see The Red Ball Jets are playing next week you wanna go?"
"The Jump band, sure"
"They have a new guitarist replacing that guy what's his name"
"Von Helsing?"
"Yeah but I hear the new guy is good"

Slight overstatement but still.

[Matt White]

5.) Blandness of Post/VH career....

After all the killer tunes he wrote in Van Halen...I've always felt he's coasted afterwards...could be the lack of talent he surrounds himself with. But his lyrical content has never measured up to his past........

4.) Abandonement of his solo career...
NOT playing solo tunes in concert for years made him into an oldies act before his time...and it hasn't helped to bring his audience back.

3.) Quiting Van Halen...
It was inevitable...but he should have had the foresight to see that they wouldn't wait for him to do the movie...and that they were petty enough to go and hire Spammy Hagar...just because DAVE hated him....

2.) Going "Vegas" way too early...
Started with the videos from "Crazy from the Heat"....took his edge away...and made him into a cartoon character...the video for "Going Crazy" was an embarrassment....
Should have stuck with the Baddass persona he cultivated all those years in VAN HALEN.....

1.) Allowing the EEAS band to dissolve...
Losing Sheehan & then Vai crippled him...not that VAI could write songs...but it lent some credence to the mudslinging that the sisters were doing...that he was impossible to work with...and made it impossible to attract musicians of his own caliber to work with in the future...............

[Seshmeister]

Originally posted by Matt White
5.) Blandness of Post/VH career....

After all the killer tunes he wrote in Van Halen...I've always felt he's coasted afterwards...could be the lack of talent he surrounds himself with. But his lyrical content has never measured up to his past........

I have to disagree a bit. Song writing ok but lyrically I think he's got much better over the years.

'Everybody wants some'?

Lyrics wise YFLM is maybe his best work including CVH.

[sadaist]

I agree with most of the above. However, I think his autobiography was a definite score in a pile of blunders.

[Seshmeister]

Why?

I think it's one of the best things he's done in the last 20 years!