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SLAWTERHOUSE MAGAZINE INTERVIEW W/ DIAMOND DAVID LEE ROTH PART I

It all began with a toast. We all stood around the coffee table, glass raised in hand and...

Slawterhouse Magazine: ...to a great year.

David Lee Roth: A spectacular year. Glad to share the kick off with y'all.

SM: Well Dave, guess the first question should be, what made you decide to write a book, an autobiography?

DLR: I was fourteen years old and I was in Tahiti and I don't recollect if this is in the book, it was the first real family vacation and my pop had just established his practice as a eye doctor. And I was kinda left to my own auspices, I couldn't spell it then, but I kinda new what it felt like. And I was left to my own, hey, I was wandering around. It was my initiation rights, so to speak, of entering manhood. Jesus, topless women, people who spell foreign languages and quite efficiently. Foreign food and girls, girls who were looking at me in my bathing suit. I had read about such a thing, many times, that's in the book. And I saw a fella who was lounging at the bar. And he was elbows onto the bar and he was looking off, it was late at night, my parents let me wander off on my own, it was hot. Super tropical humid, it was August, it was 100 degrees at night, saturation, humidity, sign me up. It was like every book you ever read where a sailor could name the 7 seas. You know with the ponytail and he had an earring , 1967, earring, wow. Reality check, this is very different. And he had big crows feet on the sides of his eyes you know, and furrows in his face. And a mustache, a Fu Manchu mustache, in 1967, wow this is out of James Bond shit. And he was that scary skinny. Do you know when you train super hard, when you see somebody's whose training for super hard for something that is life or death, you get that scary skinny [pauses] kind of a look. While people who circumnavigate the globe in a 32 foot sailboat held together by chicken wire and spit are scary skinny. Because they're about life and death. It's adventure, it's romance, it's poetic and it's about you can fucking die. And this fella was scary skinny. From sailing and so forth. You knew it right away. Tahiti is the farthest point from land from anywhere on earth. A couple of bad jokes,my parents used to say that about me or something. And you could tell this fella is going around the globe. And he had that look. And I said I gonna to be that guy, I want to be that guy, he's got stories to tell. He has seen there, been there, done that.

So I told my parents, "The next thing I'm gonna grow is side burns, [pauses] when I'm able." There was even a dispute about that at that point in time. This is the story. The kind of writing that I wanted to propose, create or send up, was storytellin'. So that's such a classic, ancient, old art form. And particularly now I'm more aware of it than ever, because we live in a society where you sit down, whether it's with somebody's who 's making absolute minimum wage and then working the 6th day so they can take their kids to the Seaquarium, or fashion geeks with 20 stamps in their passport by the time their twenty. Storytelling is a forgotten art. Rolling cigarettes and sitting and telling stories, that to me is so important. That's something I really look for when I bump into somebody, a stranger at the local drinking, some of our finer local drinking establishments, what's the story? And as we tell as story, it's not linear. We go off on tangents, I was going to say we go off passionate. There's a little slip. And you take a drink and you've been talking about the state of Panamanian politics, and you go, [picks up a glass of Jack Daniels, takes a sip and slams it down ] "You ever ask a chick to leave her shoes on?" And we do that dramatically with each other. Sudden reversals, quick left hand maneuvers, the Statue of Liberty play, to reek and render each others attention. And I know that if I was old enough, and acceptable enough at that point in time, that I would hear all those stories. And it would bob from everything, every subject known to man. That's part of the reason that you quote unquote put out to sea. The great adventure, the unpredictable finish. I'm exactly like Christopher Columbus. A guy that had no idea where was really going, told everybody he absolutely did. Didn't really know where we were while we were there. So damn difficult to know that your in an era while your in one. Or that you were the era [laughs]. I wanted the stories that kind of now voyager could bring to us, and write it into the book exactly as am were, OK. Yes it does come out from left field, it is informal, but all the subjects are very...of substance. Even in it's most lighthearted tone, everything here has a backbone to it, or it is of meaning to me. It's bound to go over some people's heads. Because it doesn't follow standard "I was born a small black boy." And on and on in a purely chronological order , which most autobiographical tomes ascend towards. And I did this in a succinctly storytelling fashion.

I'm just gonna sit and story tell with you. I am now that guy. At the bar. OK. You ran into me, we're gonna have a time. And bounce around and what have you. I have enough distance to have stories to tell, to be able to reflect. I have some philosophy. C'mon, I was in jujitsu the other morning and I said "Ascend to the treasure mountain, destroy all before and return honorable and victorious." hey said "Whoa dude is that the bible?" I said "no it's Spiderman, now get your fucking arms up." "Where'd you learn that?" Picked it up along the way, and now I got some way that I picked it up along. What I did, is, I said ok, I'm gonna tell my story and I hired, what I perceived to be the most difficult audience, namely one person, that I could possibly find. And through my pal Henry Rollins, who is a stellar wit, and our resident Kerouac in progress, book company owner, musician, he's a true artist, found me a gal who is a Princeton graduate, front of the class, OK, comes from academic family, and plays roller hockey full contact, 2,3 times a week, and I mean full contact. She's taller than me, and stronger than me, discovered that first time we went kayaking. Dry, critical, sarcastic, elitist, distant... hey baby want to get married? [Laughter]

I said, you know what, I'm gonna sit with this gal and I'm gonna tell her my story, chronologically. But spinning off into tangents. We just started off with 1954. What do you remember? I told her every single thing that I could possibly remember about each year for the first few hours, and then as the tangents came up I just kept notes on the tangents, so when we hit Big Daddy Roth right around 1964, I continued on with my chronological experience and then we spent a hour on Big Daddy Roth and the '57 Chevy Belaire Coup and it's impact on our culture, today. I said if I can make this girl, this woman, this child, all of the above, laugh, cry, weep, get horny, feel philosophical, throw a punch at me, feel like apologizing for the punch, [claps hands] we got a book!

And I said when I done with that and we transcribe it, you have quintessential storytelling. And then I hired an editor, Paul Scanlon, who was the managing editor for Rolling Stone in all of it's heyday , it's golden years, from the late '60's up until early '80's, when all of the great writers were there. At the end I had a 1300 page manuscript and he chopped and channeled it down to the 360 whatever pages that you have. So that what you have in your hand is quintessential storytelling. Just as it was told. And If you read the book with that it mind, you think "Well, now that was a night, whoever that masked man was. Did we have a time or what? We laughed, we cried, and we learned a little bit about each other." Sounds like an ad for the Big Chill. Boom, it is that experience. You ran into me at one of our local cantina's and we commence to story tell. "So where you from Dave?" "Bloomington Indiana 1954, you know what?" and we're off. "What are you drinking?" "A lot" "How's that?" "Because I hurt" First chapter "Not a day goes by...

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SM: In all of your interviews, you have never mentioned much about your personal life or your family, but you have done that in your autobiography "Crazy From The Heat."

DLR: Usually what folks want to hear when they interview me is energy, the spirit. What is the spirit? The great intangible. It's like sitting down and watching a great swordsman at work. You know instinctively that you're not going to gleam any technique at all. There's no single move you'll even be able to capture without rewinding 38 times on video, and even then your gonna fuck it up unless he's right there to correct that elbow. What you will gain is the passion, the power, the authority the absolute control or the desperation. Even more importantly desperation is lord of the impossible. You show me something impossible and I'll whip his ass with desperation. That's why were sitting here today in the United States of glorious America talking about any fuck shit cuss subject that we so desire. That's what you gleam from my interviews when you know that you have 25 minutes, 38 minutes, what have you. You instinctly know. You want to hear, I know if I got 28 minutes with my pal Keith of the Stones, I want to hear some war stories. Philosophy takes longer and that's what's sacred to me. To explore and investigate.

SM: Why now?

DLR: Because we have way more than 25 minutes. It's not a threat, sit back upright. We're here for more than that. And the book is certainly more for that, more time than that. With a book, kinda like I said, again and again and reinvestigating subjects and going off on tangents again and again and again and again. And these are things are all within me. Now we can begin to explore, we're not cleaning out, this is not therapy, this is the best goddamn conversation you ever ran into. You know what I'm saying? It's the kind of thing where you actually wave the waiter away for a change. And I adore my family, I really do. I'm proud to be Jewish, I really am. We live in a nation that has a spiritual and an articulate backbone that's as strong as a spine in a chocolate eclair. Let's forge ahead and investigate. And here you will find all of those things. I never hid anything. It was a question of, I am you, and I know what I'd like to hear if I only got 35 minutes over the telephone. I want to hear the tone of voice, I want to hear where the guy sniffs when I ask a certain poignant question.

SM: To some of us, it's not all that strange that you would write a book. You've written and directed videos, you write lyrics...

DLR: My father would always say "Sounds like one for the book kid." That was a confirmation that you live gloriously for, that I lived gloriously for. For somebody to give you that. My pop always called me Old Paint, and he'd rub my shoulder "well old paint, that sounds like one for the book." And the more trenchant and horrifying and desparated it sounded he'd go "sounds like one for the book." Hey Pop I just lost my arm , "Sounds like one for the book kid. Want to have dinner."

SM: You have said that you write lyrics from your personal experiences, are there things in the book that we might recognize that coincide with certain songs?

DLR: All of it. The reason for conversancy and dialogue and wheelin' out my people skills and my language abilities and what not, is to illuminate precisely what you're hearing. When you know what really inspires me and you go back and hear the passion and the tone from an early album, you know why it's there. It's way more intriguing and energizing to know why they built the pyramids. So in terms of that it's all written from my experiences, not note for note, not the exact experience per say, but these things have impact on you. If you have a few episodes in your young adult, old adult life where you think you're gonna die when your looking down the barrel, then your going to have a resounding, resonant emotional impact and it will change you. And when you hear some of my experiences and some of my emotional background and what have you, you come to know, now that's why he talks like, that's why he uses that word. When I described you my contact with uniforms, military, paramedic, then you begin to understand my martial vocabulary. "we'll forge ahead," that's not a rock star word. That's Sherman's' desperate march to the sea. The fact that I even know the expression, will indicate to you why the torrent. 'Cause we're marching, we're not talking. What is the great visual symbolic of our martial spirit in America? Those three guys, the Battle of Concord, the guy with headband, the guy with the torn pants and the drummer whose obviously been wounded. I've just described Guns n' Roses. Now we begin understand Axl a little better. He's on a march. I don't know if he's in retreat or he's storming the gates of Leipzig with the Le Grand Armie. Probably half way in there somewhere.

SM: Do you plan to do a second book?

DLR: We have several books. To cut 1300 pages down to 300 and change like that, is a work. And there's so many subjects that come up, so many stories, so many recollections, so many historical points that transpired, that if I tell you "oh well then this happened at that time period" oh I get it. It all throws more light, or throws more shadow, which is even more fun. That's part of storytelling too. Here let me completely confuse the issue, oh I like this part of the jungle, I do believe gentleman we've become entirely lost. As opposed to somewhat lost. Now you're readin'.

SM: In the last year you been involved with 2 greatest hits cds, what made you put out a greatest hits now?

DLR: Cause it should have been put out years ago. Warner Bros is caught between a rock and me.

SM: You're speaking of the Van Halen catalog?

DLR: Yes. Warner Bros is sponsoring a formidable vale toto, no holds barred match between me and Van Halen. I am belligerently enthusiastic to go. I'm good to go, as you can see. Against tiresome and tireless strategizing, tactical thought, maneuver, the antithesis of where I'm coming from. And Warner Bros is stuck between a rock and a hard place because.... I just never go away and Van Halen, they got a big grub steak involved there with that band. And they're waffling around with second best. It's the difference between a word. The last singer was a singer, I am THE singer. The new singer is a singer, I am THE singer. You will always have great champions, alright. You will always have a Holyfield, you'll always have a Tyson or whoever involved, but there will only be one Muhammad Ali. There are stellar martial artists out there in the world, there will only be one Bruce Lee. There's so many swashbuckling guys that if Rambo 5 showed up, I'd go guys if we get done quick enough we should go see it, absolutely, but there will only be one Errol Flynn. I'm the one.

SM: Most people feel that same way, that's there's only "one." We thought that "one" was going to happen last year...

DLR: You did?! Hey, you , me and 10 million of our closest buddies. Don't forget I'm up here in the peanut gallery with you guys alright. The best I can tell you is I know what quarter it is. But I can't tell you what that strategy is they're using down there. I haven't seen anything like it.

SM: How did this happen? How did Diamond Dave and Edward Van Halen get together again and say, "Hey we're gonna record a song, two songs?"

DLR: I finished my book some months before the episode transpired. The only thing that's new, pursuant to that episode is "Reunion Blues," Van Halen thing. I called Ed to say "Hey, I'm tired of the constant back and forth, because all it does is disappoint people." I sell smiles, that you can sum it up like that. And I'll use whatever, I'm a highly specialized artist, that big stage in the arena and stadium is my instrument. It's hypercomplex and everything I've ever done is designed to operate that. So I called up and said "hey, enough is enough, we disappointment people in a world, If I could take Ed Van Halen into some of these great neighborhoods here and show him people who hate their jobs. Who make their living under incandescent lighting in windowless rooms in jobs they deplore. With bosses named Carl that give them nothing but shit in the wrong language. The ability to sell that person a smile. Usually a reporter from Playboy magazine might stop me at that singular juncture to go "to make millions." Yeah we already know that, my driving gear is that we have the capacity, instantly to sell that person deliverance for several hours, several weeks. I can take you away. I can make you feel young and impulsive and enthusiastically belligerent and ready to ride. Roll out ol' Texas moon. "Well I'm from Jersey," roll out ol' Texas moon like I said. Come on all you bikini babes and you saddle aces, hat up and lets roll.

To deny people that...is a sin...for me, I know it's a sin. If you have that capacity, at least for myself, to deny people that, is selfish. When I say belligerent I mean you're included. But I use the words belligerently enthusiastic I mean larcenous. Somewhere between shoplifting and manslaughter is larceny. Great. And I feel terrible. I feel guilty that my team cannot convene and simply walk out on that aircraft carrier deck and throw light. 'Cause I can take ya away. Most of us hate what we do, we deplore it, we need this, more than anything. And that's so important to me. Anytime that Eddie and I would fight, or the Van Halen's would, what Alex's soapbox called? The Outsider, Insider, no Outsider. They don't sell smiles, they don't sell that passionate spirit. Take to the skies. It disappoints people. Whenever Eddie starts talking about "we got another singer Cherone and whatever." That's a disappointment. When the sky fills with rumor, and the sun goes away and the birds get quiet and all of a sudden Pillsbury Danniels, their manager, shows up and says "nah it's a rumor, we got Cherone out there in Howdy Doody mountain." Nobody's relieved. There is no collective sigh of jubilation. I wanted that to cease, stop. I have a contribution to make, we have a contribution to make. That is gloriously of my major value, and I wanted it to finish. Well it turns out that Ed is always looking for an off ramp without his name on it. And he was looking, either he's gonna fire the old singer or he's gonna fire the bass player, who knows what. I show up on the scene and show that I am genuinely flexible. And they commenced to maneuver. Mine was open hand, mine was search me I'm not carrying any weapons here. Well nobody's more afraid of being robbed than a thief is. And the most summary quote is in the book, what he said, "you know I'm pissed at you and I'm jealous." Naaah. Naaah. Say it ain't so ma. Yea, Liberace was gay. Naaah, naaah. Dave Roth smokes pot didn't you see it on CNN. Nooo say it ain't so. Oh no! It was not like Milli Vanilli, oh your kiddin'.

He's told me "I'm jealous and I'm pissed at you 'cause you took what you loved and had passion for as a musician and you pursued it at sometimes a great cost," but I did. And this causes a separation. When you move to strategy, that's war. Music is not war. You want group integrity there. You want to know every person inside and out. OK. And they commenced strategy. Ed is surrounded by a whole lot of grubs who must use strategy in order to convince you that they are not parrots, that they are not using the word "A" in their job description. "A" manager, not "the" manager. And on and on.

They began to strategize and maneuver for high ground instantly. And I maintained that placid posture, I absorb. OK, maybe things will go, maybe things will reverse, maybe light will come on, maybe the sun has not gone away forever, maybe it's an eclipse. And I'm not asking you to give me all your gold when I took away the sun.

And the maneuvering destroyed it.

You have so many people lined up against Diamond Dave, actually it's quite flattering. You have a marriage-drug counsel-therapist-psychologist, you have an entire management team, you have a production manager, even the pencil dick kid who's supposed to glue his guitars together is putting off body language. You have a producer, you have a record company, you have an agent, all involved in this supposed sting. All of them lined up against one man. I would insist to go up onto that mountain alone, repeatedly, repeatedly. No, I was never accompanied, and I would show up for a band meeting and there'd be nine people there. [Laughs]

SM: Back in the old days, how many people were there?

DLR: Two, maybe three. Me and Ed, maybe Al got in somehow. It's ok, you always need one guy on the rope going "fuck this mountain and fuck you." Those guys make it to the top frequently.

SM: So you show up to do these two songs and there are 9 people there....

DLR: A little support goes a long way. I'm the best, I'm the right tool for the job. But I say that to make you smile. Because I gotta have all those other lug nuts in the box that we come in. Look what the Marlins have done with a little support . You can zoom. A little support a little "hey your the best, you can do it, hey you can do this" goes a very, very long way. And I had hoped that that would be there, it was not at all. So I had to dig very deep. All these philosophies, and analogies, these Asian witisms and Kentucky drinking metaphors, well now's time to test the theory kid, do they work? Because you're out on the field of fire. And that's the only thing you brought up on the hill. I didn't bring my Emerson CQC civic combat titanium-frame fighting knife. I did not bring man mountain ["BIG Ed" Anderson]. It's like rolling a tank through your little village. Just the sight of a centurion gyroscopic cyto-turret is enough to quiet most tribes down. I brought none of it. I walked in in a loin cloth.

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SM: So how could you work under those conditions?

DLR: Well these theories all work. All of this spirit, all of this enthusiasm, this passion that you hear in my voice is legit. It's real and it really works. All of these aphorisms and axioms that I use, they really work. And this was a time to truly test it. This was rough water and gail force. Gail Force, is she still dancing? Hot, hot! Tell her I said.. you better not.

It works and I dug deep, dug deep. And there were, it was not absence of the knock down. But my heroes are not guys who don't get knocked down. They're the ones who get back up. That's the yard dog you want to have in your house. That little ankle bitter, who could get kicked over with a blown breath. Just gets back up, get back up. That's what integrity is about. It's not smoking, drinking, or how much or how not, did you get back up when life throws a blow at ya? Hey if everything's coming your way in life, your probably standing in the wrong fucking lane.

I did not isolate from contact with the guys, that's the part of getting back up that defeats most people. Always close, stay close, contact. But if you're going to be rebuffed and bitch slapped, and knee kicked and tag teamed from the rear, it's a big get back up. And there were points when I felt, just like most of the great working class of America...Fuck This!

I'm just like you, look, over at the left, that's me sitting next to you in the peanut gallery . And just like you, at that point in time, I would go through that phase of 6 times a day of going "Fuck this, I'm not valued, I'm not respected, I don't make enough, this is making me old and I'm fighting with my old lady, my pet does not respond to my commands and I haven't seen my children in six months."

And just like you, if I'm doing that 6 times a day, 7 times a day I go "This is great, I'm the best, you're the best, this is the best, let's be the best." Then that carries me into the next day. But it was very difficult, very difficult. You're surrounded by conspiracy and it presents itself like the plot of Donnie Brasco. Slowly but surely you realize, "oh my God, he's in on it too." You can tell by the body language, "He's been told." And even realizations like that burn big calories 'cause I want so desperately to do what I do.

People say "Dave you should act." "You know what? You'd be great as this!" ah " You should do such and such." "When are you going to do this and that?" Those are vacations for me. The Las Vegas show is a vacation. No, not every vacation for me is a six month foray to Borneo. Most of my vacations are "Hey lets' go into the studio, lets' rev up something colorful, what not." The Vegas band, that was a three, four month vacation. That's how long Borneo will take ya. That was one grand vacation. We did it right. The Ice Cream Man Band, done in a weekend. California Girls and Gigolo was done in four days from thought to bought. [Lowers voice] I think positive.

SM: Well those four days changed a lot in video making. Your videos changed the face of videos.

DLR: Well vacations change a lot in me, what about you? If your lucky enough to get a good one that is colorful and dynamic. And the best vacations go like this, I'm gonna give a wrong vacation, a lousy one. Ask me "Dave how was your vacation?"

SM: Dave, how was your vacation?

DLR: "Oh it was great, extraordinary, plane was on time, food was elegantly served, natives are so fine, the weather held beautifully for the whole time, got along with the old lady marvelously," zzzzzzz. Ask me "Dave, how was your vacation?"

SM: OK, Dave, how was your vacation?

DLR: "I am glad you asked. Never, ever take Jim Croce Airlines. I saw my life pass in front of my eyes so many times the last time I rewound I saw your life and I said wait a minute I don't even know this guy yet. This is too scared. Anyway the plane crashed on the tarmac we're the only survivors, I spent 4 days in customs and my old lady runs off with three black guys." Now your listening 'cause you know the monsoons are gonna arrive early in the next three paragraphs. Anyway "the monsoons arrived early... and I spent four weeks in the tunnels of coo-chie..." This is where you start waving the bartender away, something I rarely do.

SM: What did you think of the Best Of Volume1 as a final product?

DLR: This music is way too important to take seriously. And when you do, you hear it. You smell it coming off your little electrolytically plated compact disc, it fills the room with tar like smoke. These jeans must have holes in them. You will not polish my favorite boots, and when you begin to do that, they become something other. So instrumentally, I hear aspects of that. I have not changed, other than somewhat cosmetically. And even there, hey, for $10,000 to my favorite charity, I'll walk into Howard Stern's interview in my Speedos. Money where your mouth is, part one, my special guest, David Lee

SM: Dave, you haven't changed at all, not one bit.

DLR: Thank you. And I say that in terms of, I think you're meaning my enthusiasm, my delight to share with you. This is part of the gig, this is my drum solo.

SM: We've been listening to Van Halen 1 since we were 13.

DLR: I was 13 years old when I sang it. No, think about it, I'm talking spiritually. When you're 13 you have no responsibility, you don't think about fixing a certain note, you don't fear about what the critics say, you don't have a whole coterie of people warning you off of it. C'mon, the last voice that we'll ever hear when the world explodes into a million tiny nuclear fragments is "that can't be done, you shouldn't do that."

SM: You've always showed that it can be done...

DLR: It can be done. It is be done. People hear it in the voice, perhaps later we'll walk down the street, people stop, taxi drivers, cops, whatever, lean out and make the power symbol and go "Your the man Dave! Alright! Great stuff!" Whatever. They're keying off the spirit, they're keying off the attitude, way more than my sonorous tones. And what makes the tone in my voice is that enthusiasm, that spirit.

SM: It's contagious. When you walked out on the stage at the MTV Awards, people, even people with children now said they were jumping up and down in their living rooms.


DLR: Well they're watching me, where do you think the children came from. We won't be speaking about that later.

It's amazing what you can do with a little support, and your support has not been little. Cause we struck down, Oh sure I'm back up, back up part 19th time. But we all lost a lot. Again, not in terms of finance. You see how I travel, how much does one of these bags cost? How much do these boots cost? We lost a lot. Because it goes way beyond simple music, it is an experience. It is the same feeling, I think, when I read where the Stones go on tour. I don't even have to go to the show, it's an island that I can to go away to in my mind, in between phone calls. I'm imagining now what that must be backstage, I know that feeling, I wear that badge too. I know that feeling on that deck, and I love being in the audience, I know that feeling too. See, I'm just going off and I'm there and you are too. That's what Van Halen is. It's a very small select group. Even just the words that we may be reconvening, boom, I've just brought that island back into your hemisphere. You can go to it. You can sit in front of a computer terminal and you are carried away. Right away to a place, to a feeling.

SM: We'd like to talk about that now historical open letter you sent out last year. Why did you send it?

DLR: People ask me "so what about Van Halen today?" I tell 'em "hey I'm not in it, I don't give a shit." They say "so what about Valerie Bertinelli?" I say, "same answer." [Laughs]

Valerie Bertinelli and Yoko Ono, the two most successful contracts in rock n' roll. [Laughs]

I can only maintain hope and denial and faith for so long before you gotta address the reality. The doctor says "you got something in your arm there." You can only wish, pray, hope, go to so many Shaman, so many medicine men before you finally gotta look in the mirror, mirror over the bathroom sink and go "ok, something's got to be done here, something very tangible." Well I knew all the way along, hoping that maybe I'm wrong. Maybe they're not playing chess on me here, maybe they're just floundering.

No. They were gonna keep me on, make a video, allow everybody to believe that there was going to be a tour. Just like when the Stones are going on tour, none of us care what's now, what's next with The Stones, we want to see the tour. And if I know he's going, they're going, I'll buy the record 'cause it helps me remember. That was the ploy.

Well that's manipulation. A venial sin I think Catholics call it, the sin of omission they call it. "Your honor I didn't actually say anything," No, fuck you. And what a let down that would have been later. And it all would have pinned on me. "Oh well, we tried, we tried and Roth fucked it up." No, just no. This is not a time and a place for maneuvering and strategy and politic. It effects the music, it effects the impact on the audience, and it effects the impact on me. So, let's tell the truth openly.

That was not the case with the fellas. When I began to see that this was irreconcilable, they were bent on destruction, self or otherwise. Hey, I'm gonna announce it, I gotta announce it. I will not lead you on. I do not create for you a character or allow you to think something about me because maybe it'll sell, maybe it'll be productive commercially. If you find out I was lying to you as a friend, down the line, how are you going to feel? Same way I would with you all. Miserable.

It's like sitting in a conversation with somebody all night long, and at the end of the night they finally go "so look, I was just wondering about that raise." And you realize that they were not interested in the conversation all night. They were never actually a participant in it. They were looking for the opening. It was purely strategic, what a miserable feeling.

SM: We don't understand what they hoped to gain at that point.

DLR: They hoped not to gain. They perceived that decimating Diamond Dave and the heroics and all the carry on that comes with, that would be a gain for them. That it open the files.

SM: Let's speak about the future. So what do you have in store for everyone?

DLR: Well, now is to do, we begin the great march. We deal with the press and we alert everybody that the game is afoot. We're into the game Watson.

SM: How soon before we see you jumping off a drum riser? High kickin'...

DLR: I'm not gonna do any club tours, there's not gonna be any theater tours, it's not my instrument. I'm a specialist. Old school specialist. If there is a reaction to that and they give me that instrument, and you only rent these instruments in our business, they're never permanent, whatever instrument you play.

I'll be there and we'll be having a conversation much like this one backstage, somewhere at an arena or at a outdoor venue. And there are so many people calling up. Carmine Appice is on the phone regularly. One of the most stellar riff drummers played with everybody from Jeff Beck to Rod Stewart and in between. Billy Sheehan...

SM: Whoa this is great, Billy's back?

DLR: Billy is ready to go hunting. That's just the start, that was in 24 hours of phone calls. And there's so many calls coming in. Again, what you've seen with my Vegas show, with my California Girls, these are vacation pictures. This is how I take a vacation. Yes, I'd like to think everything's forever, but I'm obsessive compulsive and I eat red meat. But they're vacation shots. My driving gear, what makes the boat float, the wind that fills my sails in spring, is hard rock. Hard, Hard, Rock. Guitars, guitars, low slung. Always has been, always will be. What do you think I was doing in the shower when I'm getting ready to do a Vegas show.

SM: So, we can expect Diamond Dave to return to hard rock?

DLR: Absolutely. Now a standard answer to that is "Oh I never left." Yeah I left, that's what vacation is about. Goodbye, 1-800 See Ya. And you come back with that scary skinny. Look at me. I came back from a grand vacation, cool. Got me just up and surfing good, dying to return to the war.

SM: How soon can we expect to hear something with the new band?

DLR: I can convene the team of hunter shooters before you put that cigarette lighter down. As fast as you can say Bob's your Uncle. I'll be there. Send me right to the front, I want to go right where the trouble is. Just like you I threaten retirement 4 times a day and I threaten never to retire 5 times.

SM: Don't ever retire Dave.

DLR: No, it's just not an issue, it's drama, but it's not an issue.

[twonabomber]

SLAWTERHOUSE MAGAZINE INTERVIEW W/ DIAMOND DAVID LEE ROTH PART II

Slawterhouse Magazine: We'd like to talk about "A Little Ain't Enough." That was definitely one of the albums that should have been hailed more, it's a great fuckin' album.

David Lee Roth: Thank you.

SM: And "Your Filthy Little Mouth," you went out and took so many chances on that...

DLR: Ain't that rock n' roll. In terms of commercial. It augured in, that's an aerospace term. It means I left a divot big enough to park a lot of Jeep Cherokee's in. Ain't that rock n' roll. Then they did to me the same thing they did to Dutch Schultz, they capped my bony ass. There's not even a plaque. Ain't that rock n' roll.

SM: Warner Brothers Records sucks! You are rock n' roll Dave.

DLR: Thank you.

SM: On "Eat 'Em & Smile," which was a true hard rocking album, you decided to add the track "That's Life," which is not typically the standard thing to do on rock albums. How did you come to that decision?

DLR: I defy any 75 members of the OzzFest audience to accompany me to one of our finer lap dance establishments, share strong drink with me with great abandon, listen to hallelujah, storming thunder, hard rock all night and at the end of the night "That's Life" comes on, and we toast to closing hour as we stumble off into the airbrushed sunset, saddle up our rhinos. So off into what we tell everybody is the future. I defy any of those 75 not to smile and spill their beer intentionally when that song comes on. It reeks of attitude. Again, rock n' roll attitude. No, that's song's not rock n' roll at all, but it's a vacation. We're not here forever, it's a weekend, enjoy it. Shut up, take your clothes off.

SM: Of all the albums you have worked on, which one would you hold up and say "This is me?"

DLR: The greatest hits. The greatest hits is a combination of all my fascinations with music. You begin to see that thread, that attitude, the vibe, the groove is succinct all the way through, whether it's "Sensible Shoes" or "Yankee Rose." Just the title "Don't Piss Me Off," you're smiling, you don't have to hear the song to go "That's Dave!" As soon as you tell people the title of the song, they go "I don't even need to hear it." I gave them back that island, now they have that in their head. What does it say on the flag under the picture of me, it says "Don't Piss Me Off."

SM: Are you proud of the greatest hits as a whole?

DLR: Yes, very much so. And a lot of it is, you cannot see the mountain when you're on it. People say "Hey what was climbing Lobuche Peak like? What's it look like?" It looks about 18 inches going from left to right and 18 inches north to south, 'cause that's all you're looking at on the rock. You pay a lot of attention to the rope too. And there's a rope running right through the middle. Soon you back away later and you begin to go "Look at the size of that beauty. Oh, and it's all pointy on top." Stand back and you can see the whole mountain. That's the thrill that I take from listening to the greatest hits, as a fan. Because I've forgotten a lot of the maneuvers inside each song, "Oh, right, we modulated there," "Oh, right I forgot that lyric," "All right I remember when so and so thought up that lick and said let's just throw it in there." So, it's new to me. I never read my own press, ever. Nothing could ever be good enough, and even the slightest salacious tone would ruin my night. What does Eddie's drug counselor call it, "I will not give you that power."

SM: Eddie didn't share all that psycho-babble shit with you, did he?

DLR: Oh, yeah. Absolutely. For hours and hours at a time. Hours and hours at a time.

SM: We're sorry to hear that Dave.

DLR: Like when somebody says "I have good days and bad days." I smell Prozac. This was not on the hill, this is an analogy again. But you dare not say "OK, so you're about to tell me that you're gonna use a therapeutic tranquilizing drug management tool, so you can establish a base line mood level." As opposed to bipolar, because then they'll know you can smell Prozac. You go "good days and bad days, so how do you get in the middle?" I had to go through that process. But that's always been it. He's [Eddie Van Halen] got the spiritual spine of a chocolate eclair. And as he's hobbling around, and God bless him, I wouldn't wish that kind of daily pain on a canine. I worked in surgery for a while. We used to call hip transplants, hip surgery, carpentry. It was the messiest clean up job, it meant you were gonna miss your union break. I was the one who took apart the Black & Decker tools, the stainless steel tools. This was the early 70's and I'm sure they've improved on the procedure, but it meant that you were gonna be mopping the ceiling for a couple of hours. That kind of pain and that kind of a place to arrive at is terrifying. I would not wish that on anybody at all. He has that distraction. And he has his own form of rationalizing, Ed Van Halen, The Unabomber. People have their own logic. I'm not trying to compete, just to get to know, to hang with. Being in this tree is a good place to hang. Nevertheless, it's a distraction. The actor Billy Zane came up to me, downtown, a few weeks ago and he said "Dave I always use one of your quotes in my interviews, thank you very much, you're the man!" With that kind of handshake where he holds your hand, handshake wise regular, with the right hand, then he puts his left hand over the back of your hand to show "I really fucking mean this." And I said "What quote is that Bill?" And he said "This stuff is way too important to take seriously."


SM: I can't remember the original question, what was it? Too much Jack Daniels.

DLR: I'll take yours! (laughs) The trick to Jack Daniels, and here's the difference between bourbon and just regular whiskey. Bourbon comes from Bourbon County, there's a juncture where Kentucky, Tennessee whatever is right there, all bourbon is at least 51% corn mash. This is Indiana talking to ya, all right. Corn, being a yellow vegetable, is packed with sugar, all your favorite fruits are yellow right? There's 9 bad jokes there, and I'm not going in after any of 'em sarge, fuck you. All your favorite fruits are yellow right? Pineapple, mango, it's because yellow means it's packed with sugar. And when you drink Jack Daniels, now Jack is probably up around 74% corn mash, by law, all bourbon must be at least 51% corn mash on the mash bill, the recipe. And it's that sugar load where all the love affairs and broken toilet fixtures come from. Anyway, the trick is to take little tiny sips, it's like eat eating a five pound bag of M&M's one by one, like the bicycle racers do it. One by one, it keeps the sugar thing going, you'll be percolating.

SM: What are you talking about, we've been drinking this stuff for years, thanks to you!

DLR: Now I'm telling you how to drink it! Now I'm showing you some tricks of the pros!

SM: We stopped a while ago.

DLR: So did I, what time is it? This equally incenses Eddie and his brother.

SM: Did Eddie really stop drinking?

DLR: Ah.... No. I just want to say something, I don't give a fuck what you eat, drink, snort, smoke, as far as your sexual orientation, I don't care what's on your breath after midnight, I don't care what your haircut looks like, I don't care what kind of car you drive, just shut the fuck up and plug in! I'm not an unplugged motherfucker. Pick up your sticks and play. I don't care what you eat or drink at all. It may, in fact, add to the over all foment. You got Eddie being upset "Goddamn it, Diamond Dave is jumping, he's wrestling the Gracie Brothers, he's out there." I was with a girl not terribly long ago and she said "Mr. Roth, I think you're the oldest person I've ever been with." I said "Honey I was gonna say the same thing to you." Talk about pissed and bitter. My musical vocabulary, my general musicality and enthusiasm thereof expanding exponentially, geometrically. This is physics at work here. And that incenses them, that I have that capacity and I'm still ready to conjoin.

SM: What is it the brothers want to see from you?

DLR: They would like me to contribute as much as a cowbell. There is a jealousy there. Eddie said it to me. There is a jealousy there, an apprehension. It's a self esteem gig. Alex waxes and wanes as very eccentric, everybody buys a normal color car and Alex picks the Irish green. Do you know what I'm saying? There's a self esteem thing there. Most eccentrics are simply ashamed of who they are, that's why they create a persona to throw you off the scent. The fellas know this and they're pissed and they're angry, and they're vehement. They're losing sleep. They're fighting with the old lady at night, right, and all of that goes into the music. It channels right into that music. It comes out of your hands, comes out of your guts, comes out of your fly. Boom. And that's why they play just as strong and as sharp and as solidly sent as they do. I wouldn't change a bolt sir. It buffets at 20,000 feet, but I still wouldn't change a single screw in the fuselage.

SM: As far as guitarists, do you feel that Eddie is the best you've worked with?

DLR: If I'm with him. You need a coach. Every Rocky needs a little Burgess Meredith in the corner with a beanie and a bucket and a brush, going "nah, the left, the left." I can't throw a left, but I can sure see it when he ain't.

SM: What is your opinion of the last 12 years of "Van Halen" without you?

DLR: I describe it like a condom advertisement. Thousands of tiny little notes urging you to let go, with music so thin, you feel like you're hearing nothing at all.

SM: We just want to let you know that your fans really thank you for writing that open letter last year, and letting us know that you were not in the band, as we were led to believe, before we purchased the "Best Of Volume One." The press seems to have picked up on the titles of the two new songs, "Me Wise Magic" and "Can't Get This Stuff No More," as being ironic.

DLR: The irony was built in. I could see the pattern forming. Like in every Sherlock Holmes novel, by the 110th page, he turns to Watson and says, "Just then I began to discern a pattern." I had discerned a pattern and I write from experience, personal or otherwise. So it is very, directly applicable. It is about it. The very first words from, "Can't Get This Stuff no More," I have every right to be conceded although I'm not at all. Lets' just investigate the first verse. "I got a date with a supermodel," no, not Christy Turlington, the Van Halen brothers.

SM: So the "supermodel" is the Van Halen brothers?

DLR: Oh yeah. You know the definition of a model right? A small replica of the real thing. "I know, I know, I'm thinking fuck it." I knew better, but I figured what the hell. "Dinner at the hotel, champagne bottle, steak and potatoes," this is the big time thing. Followed by "a feather in a bucket," well, you know, make myself barf. Actually there's a little more reality to that, 'cause I did go to the Fashion Cafe to have something to eat. And I didn't know what to order, so I said "Well give me what the supermodels eat." They gave me a steak, a potato and a bucket with a feather. So I kinda switched it a little to apply to my own personal experience. "Can't get this stuff no more," you cannot break up a dynasty. Faulkner wrote "America does not give second chances." That's because we're so human. I'm lucky enough to have that first chance. And if my guitar player showed up for rehearsal tomorrow, kaboom, it's there. "Me Wise Magic," the guys were off into self investigation, self exploration, relearning, reinventing themselves, finding themselves and so forth. Great, I can follow that, but my take on that is a bit different than the average guy. Again, all in one, one in all. I'm in you man, I'm part of you, I'm not separate. I have an interesting way of getting dressed, according to customs, but, he appears to be trying to communicate sir. So, OK, I'll follow that Zen tact, but you read my Zen poem, about a Maserati. That's my version of Zen. My version of Zen is confounding to those who only read about it or actually practice or follow through. It is that stiff stone statue. My poem is "I have a statue of a Buddha in my driveway," boom, that's rock n' roll, you can see it. "rigid and stiff, that's where the bird's shit and he deserves it. Me like a blade of grass, I bends profoundly. No raindrops on me, wind blow 'round me." And that kind of cynicism is part of Zen, it's integral. There's an irony there.

SM: Have you spoken to Eddie at all?

DLR: No. Not at all.

SM: And in the prior 12 years?

DLR: None, except our brief encounter out on the great highway. That was it.

SM: When he gained something like 30 pounds or so.

DLR: Yeah, oh yeah. He looked like a pair of panty hose stuffed with cottage cheese.

SM: Well, is this the same guy you knew as kids, when you grew up together playing in the band?

DLR: In terms of the antagonism and distance and that beleaguered communication, absolutely.

SM: So nothing has changed at all?

DLR: Nothing's changed, nothing's changed.

SM: What about Michael Anthony?

DLR: Somebody has to be the center. Somebody's got to be a tackle on that scrimmage line. How often do you interview that guy? How often do we buy a T-shirt with that guy? Now you got the answers already. Now here's another answer that you're gonna find within yourself. How often do you win the big ball game without that guy?

SM: That's very kind of you to say about him.

DLR: It's not kind, it's real. Don't get me wrong, I'd just assume separate his shoulder as shake his hand. And that kind of conflict is what builds big ball teams like the famous Oakland Raiders of the late '70's. And when I say, "Eddie Van Halen's a weakling and his brother is a triple weakling," they know it. They're pissed, they're furious, and when they pick up their instruments it all comes rushing out like the torrential wild sea. You betcha man, don't try to drain it out of that horse.

SM: Don't you think the more they go on, doing whatever it is they're doing, the more they realize that it's not "Van Halen," that it's not you. Don't you think that must make them angry in some way?

DLR: Could you imagine if we reconvened tomorrow? The anger, the fury, the passionate whatever, would just make for some fine warfare.

SM: Are you aware of all the stuff they've been saying in the press about you and the reunion?

DLR: Sure. Because I know the horse. Nothing's changed. Not for a single minute, did it? There was never a brief moment of sunlight. The clouds never broke. Never a brief moment. It's like when Eddie comes clean, and says "I'm pissed at you and I'm jealous." Nah, say it ain't so.

SM: Most of the fans feel this is very different from 1986 and they are tired of hearing what the Van Halen's have to say about you and the original and only Van Halen that ever mattered. Enough!

DLR: It's vitriol, it's anxiety and it delivers disappointment. I'm going to make a grotesque generalization and say we're not street fighters. I am. I train religiously, 5 and 6 days a week with the Brazilians, the same guys who win all the Ultimate Fighting contests. I always told you I was and I always demonstrated it on the deck, in the music. But indeed, I'm too skinny and small to be of any threat. All this "I'm gonna kick your ass, I'm gonna throw you through the wall," that just sells disappointment. And an occasional exclamation point from me "I see you got the hat. You got the pants to go with it homeboy?" Hey, that's good. Just a little shot of hot sauce, don't kill the taste of the dish. Alex hasn't thrown a punch at a moving human being in thirty years. And we all know it. And we're tired of hearing about it. Shut up and plug in. Shut the fuck up and plug in. I'll handle all that dissonant discord. I'll wrangle 'em.

SM: What do you think of the fans that are finally giving back to the Van Halen's all the crap they've been spewing for years?

DLR: Cold shot of harsh reality. Sometimes you need a two by four in the back of the head to make lights come on.

SM: Sheryl Crow had made a comment about how unbelievably passionate the fans of the original Van Halen are. Why do you think that is?

DLR: That's because I'm still here. I still exist and I'm better than ever at my own specialized, highly specialized, department in my tiny little corner of the universe. Have I changed my life? No. But I now realize, for example, the difference between flexibility and strength. I used to depend on strength way more than flexibility. Turns out if I put time in stretching, I don't need half the strength to do all of those marvelous kicks and exclamation points on the deck that 'causes you to buy black T-shirts. I wake up at dawn, before the birds start singing. I used to wake up on the tours, and have a candy bar. Big Ed used to carry a big sack of candy bars. I love candy bars, I love ice cream cones, that's Ed "Big Daddy" Roth to me. That's part of my childhood history. I eat an ice cream cone, I'm 12 again. More 12, than usual. I couldn't figure out all those years why I was so tired. By the time the limo arrived I was fuckin' asleep. "That's because you're eating a fuckin' Snickers, Dave." I don't eat a Snickers anymore when I wake up. Little fine tunings there. I realize comprehensively that I'm a super-specialist. just like in the old days, you did one job and you did the shit out of it. Do what you do and be proud. Whether you're a waiter or a rock star. I understand these things more. The first chapter starts "Everyday I hurt, I know the floorboards," and I invoke the tone of "Oh God, this is a monkey on my back." I now realize that the whole thing of stretching is a whole other art form unto itself. Not something I gotta go through for ten minutes. It's a whole 'nother sport that enables me to communicate with you better on stage. So now I spend an hour and a half every single day doing my stretches. And perfecting... Don't get me wrong, I smoke and watch CNN for an hour and a half while I do it. But do you see the difference? It's not like "Oh, I'm on a schedule, I got a coach out here." We're gonna do Howard Stern in the morning, that means I gotta get up 5:30, 6:00, in order to be vital and alive for a 7:30 in the morning shot. I used to abhor the idea of it. The last few days I've been getting up at the right time so it's an easy groove, it's my way of cutting a corner. This is not archdisiplinary practice. I realize, OK, here's the routine. I didn't have that ten years ago. And I relish it. I'm getting ready. I'm putting on the armor. What's the opposite of armor? That's what I'm putting on, 'cause with Howard that's what you gotta do. You don't put on armor, you put on what absorbs. Cotton. Those things have all changed for me. Now, I get it. OK, I see it. It's not for nothing. I put the last twenty years in, and I got the worst teacher going, experience. Rahway is full of guys with experience. I know those things now. Come' on, I'm the drunk who won the lottery, you could convince me of anything.

[twonabomber]

SLAWTERHOUSE MAGAZINE INTERVIEW W/ DIAMOND DAVID LEE ROTH PART II

Slawterhouse Magazine: We'd like to talk about "A Little Ain't Enough." That was definitely one of the albums that should have been hailed more, it's a great fuckin' album.

David Lee Roth: Thank you.

SM: And "Your Filthy Little Mouth," you went out and took so many chances on that...

DLR: Ain't that rock n' roll. In terms of commercial. It augured in, that's an aerospace term. It means I left a divot big enough to park a lot of Jeep Cherokee's in. Ain't that rock n' roll. Then they did to me the same thing they did to Dutch Schultz, they capped my bony ass. There's not even a plaque. Ain't that rock n' roll.

SM: Warner Brothers Records sucks! You are rock n' roll Dave.

DLR: Thank you.

SM: On "Eat 'Em & Smile," which was a true hard rocking album, you decided to add the track "That's Life," which is not typically the standard thing to do on rock albums. How did you come to that decision?

DLR: I defy any 75 members of the OzzFest audience to accompany me to one of our finer lap dance establishments, share strong drink with me with great abandon, listen to hallelujah, storming thunder, hard rock all night and at the end of the night "That's Life" comes on, and we toast to closing hour as we stumble off into the airbrushed sunset, saddle up our rhinos. So off into what we tell everybody is the future. I defy any of those 75 not to smile and spill their beer intentionally when that song comes on. It reeks of attitude. Again, rock n' roll attitude. No, that's song's not rock n' roll at all, but it's a vacation. We're not here forever, it's a weekend, enjoy it. Shut up, take your clothes off.

SM: Of all the albums you have worked on, which one would you hold up and say "This is me?"

DLR: The greatest hits. The greatest hits is a combination of all my fascinations with music. You begin to see that thread, that attitude, the vibe, the groove is succinct all the way through, whether it's "Sensible Shoes" or "Yankee Rose." Just the title "Don't Piss Me Off," you're smiling, you don't have to hear the song to go "That's Dave!" As soon as you tell people the title of the song, they go "I don't even need to hear it." I gave them back that island, now they have that in their head. What does it say on the flag under the picture of me, it says "Don't Piss Me Off."

SM: Are you proud of the greatest hits as a whole?

DLR: Yes, very much so. And a lot of it is, you cannot see the mountain when you're on it. People say "Hey what was climbing Lobuche Peak like? What's it look like?" It looks about 18 inches going from left to right and 18 inches north to south, 'cause that's all you're looking at on the rock. You pay a lot of attention to the rope too. And there's a rope running right through the middle. Soon you back away later and you begin to go "Look at the size of that beauty. Oh, and it's all pointy on top." Stand back and you can see the whole mountain. That's the thrill that I take from listening to the greatest hits, as a fan. Because I've forgotten a lot of the maneuvers inside each song, "Oh, right, we modulated there," "Oh, right I forgot that lyric," "All right I remember when so and so thought up that lick and said let's just throw it in there." So, it's new to me. I never read my own press, ever. Nothing could ever be good enough, and even the slightest salacious tone would ruin my night. What does Eddie's drug counselor call it, "I will not give you that power."

SM: Eddie didn't share all that psycho-babble shit with you, did he?

DLR: Oh, yeah. Absolutely. For hours and hours at a time. Hours and hours at a time.

SM: We're sorry to hear that Dave.

DLR: Like when somebody says "I have good days and bad days." I smell Prozac. This was not on the hill, this is an analogy again. But you dare not say "OK, so you're about to tell me that you're gonna use a therapeutic tranquilizing drug management tool, so you can establish a base line mood level." As opposed to bipolar, because then they'll know you can smell Prozac. You go "good days and bad days, so how do you get in the middle?" I had to go through that process. But that's always been it. He's [Eddie Van Halen] got the spiritual spine of a chocolate eclair. And as he's hobbling around, and God bless him, I wouldn't wish that kind of daily pain on a canine. I worked in surgery for a while. We used to call hip transplants, hip surgery, carpentry. It was the messiest clean up job, it meant you were gonna miss your union break. I was the one who took apart the Black & Decker tools, the stainless steel tools. This was the early 70's and I'm sure they've improved on the procedure, but it meant that you were gonna be mopping the ceiling for a couple of hours. That kind of pain and that kind of a place to arrive at is terrifying. I would not wish that on anybody at all. He has that distraction. And he has his own form of rationalizing, Ed Van Halen, The Unabomber. People have their own logic. I'm not trying to compete, just to get to know, to hang with. Being in this tree is a good place to hang. Nevertheless, it's a distraction. The actor Billy Zane came up to me, downtown, a few weeks ago and he said "Dave I always use one of your quotes in my interviews, thank you very much, you're the man!" With that kind of handshake where he holds your hand, handshake wise regular, with the right hand, then he puts his left hand over the back of your hand to show "I really fucking mean this." And I said "What quote is that Bill?" And he said "This stuff is way too important to take seriously."


SM: I can't remember the original question, what was it? Too much Jack Daniels.

DLR: I'll take yours! (laughs) The trick to Jack Daniels, and here's the difference between bourbon and just regular whiskey. Bourbon comes from Bourbon County, there's a juncture where Kentucky, Tennessee whatever is right there, all bourbon is at least 51% corn mash. This is Indiana talking to ya, all right. Corn, being a yellow vegetable, is packed with sugar, all your favorite fruits are yellow right? There's 9 bad jokes there, and I'm not going in after any of 'em sarge, fuck you. All your favorite fruits are yellow right? Pineapple, mango, it's because yellow means it's packed with sugar. And when you drink Jack Daniels, now Jack is probably up around 74% corn mash, by law, all bourbon must be at least 51% corn mash on the mash bill, the recipe. And it's that sugar load where all the love affairs and broken toilet fixtures come from. Anyway, the trick is to take little tiny sips, it's like eat eating a five pound bag of M&M's one by one, like the bicycle racers do it. One by one, it keeps the sugar thing going, you'll be percolating.

SM: What are you talking about, we've been drinking this stuff for years, thanks to you!

DLR: Now I'm telling you how to drink it! Now I'm showing you some tricks of the pros!

SM: We stopped a while ago.

DLR: So did I, what time is it? This equally incenses Eddie and his brother.

SM: Did Eddie really stop drinking?

DLR: Ah.... No. I just want to say something, I don't give a fuck what you eat, drink, snort, smoke, as far as your sexual orientation, I don't care what's on your breath after midnight, I don't care what your haircut looks like, I don't care what kind of car you drive, just shut the fuck up and plug in! I'm not an unplugged motherfucker. Pick up your sticks and play. I don't care what you eat or drink at all. It may, in fact, add to the over all foment. You got Eddie being upset "Goddamn it, Diamond Dave is jumping, he's wrestling the Gracie Brothers, he's out there." I was with a girl not terribly long ago and she said "Mr. Roth, I think you're the oldest person I've ever been with." I said "Honey I was gonna say the same thing to you." Talk about pissed and bitter. My musical vocabulary, my general musicality and enthusiasm thereof expanding exponentially, geometrically. This is physics at work here. And that incenses them, that I have that capacity and I'm still ready to conjoin.

SM: What is it the brothers want to see from you?

DLR: They would like me to contribute as much as a cowbell. There is a jealousy there. Eddie said it to me. There is a jealousy there, an apprehension. It's a self esteem gig. Alex waxes and wanes as very eccentric, everybody buys a normal color car and Alex picks the Irish green. Do you know what I'm saying? There's a self esteem thing there. Most eccentrics are simply ashamed of who they are, that's why they create a persona to throw you off the scent. The fellas know this and they're pissed and they're angry, and they're vehement. They're losing sleep. They're fighting with the old lady at night, right, and all of that goes into the music. It channels right into that music. It comes out of your hands, comes out of your guts, comes out of your fly. Boom. And that's why they play just as strong and as sharp and as solidly sent as they do. I wouldn't change a bolt sir. It buffets at 20,000 feet, but I still wouldn't change a single screw in the fuselage.

SM: As far as guitarists, do you feel that Eddie is the best you've worked with?

DLR: If I'm with him. You need a coach. Every Rocky needs a little Burgess Meredith in the corner with a beanie and a bucket and a brush, going "nah, the left, the left." I can't throw a left, but I can sure see it when he ain't.

SM: What is your opinion of the last 12 years of "Van Halen" without you?

DLR: I describe it like a condom advertisement. Thousands of tiny little notes urging you to let go, with music so thin, you feel like you're hearing nothing at all.

SM: We just want to let you know that your fans really thank you for writing that open letter last year, and letting us know that you were not in the band, as we were led to believe, before we purchased the "Best Of Volume One." The press seems to have picked up on the titles of the two new songs, "Me Wise Magic" and "Can't Get This Stuff No More," as being ironic.

DLR: The irony was built in. I could see the pattern forming. Like in every Sherlock Holmes novel, by the 110th page, he turns to Watson and says, "Just then I began to discern a pattern." I had discerned a pattern and I write from experience, personal or otherwise. So it is very, directly applicable. It is about it. The very first words from, "Can't Get This Stuff no More," I have every right to be conceded although I'm not at all. Lets' just investigate the first verse. "I got a date with a supermodel," no, not Christy Turlington, the Van Halen brothers.

SM: So the "supermodel" is the Van Halen brothers?

DLR: Oh yeah. You know the definition of a model right? A small replica of the real thing. "I know, I know, I'm thinking fuck it." I knew better, but I figured what the hell. "Dinner at the hotel, champagne bottle, steak and potatoes," this is the big time thing. Followed by "a feather in a bucket," well, you know, make myself barf. Actually there's a little more reality to that, 'cause I did go to the Fashion Cafe to have something to eat. And I didn't know what to order, so I said "Well give me what the supermodels eat." They gave me a steak, a potato and a bucket with a feather. So I kinda switched it a little to apply to my own personal experience. "Can't get this stuff no more," you cannot break up a dynasty. Faulkner wrote "America does not give second chances." That's because we're so human. I'm lucky enough to have that first chance. And if my guitar player showed up for rehearsal tomorrow, kaboom, it's there. "Me Wise Magic," the guys were off into self investigation, self exploration, relearning, reinventing themselves, finding themselves and so forth. Great, I can follow that, but my take on that is a bit different than the average guy. Again, all in one, one in all. I'm in you man, I'm part of you, I'm not separate. I have an interesting way of getting dressed, according to customs, but, he appears to be trying to communicate sir. So, OK, I'll follow that Zen tact, but you read my Zen poem, about a Maserati. That's my version of Zen. My version of Zen is confounding to those who only read about it or actually practice or follow through. It is that stiff stone statue. My poem is "I have a statue of a Buddha in my driveway," boom, that's rock n' roll, you can see it. "rigid and stiff, that's where the bird's shit and he deserves it. Me like a blade of grass, I bends profoundly. No raindrops on me, wind blow 'round me." And that kind of cynicism is part of Zen, it's integral. There's an irony there.

SM: Have you spoken to Eddie at all?

DLR: No. Not at all.

SM: And in the prior 12 years?

DLR: None, except our brief encounter out on the great highway. That was it.

SM: When he gained something like 30 pounds or so.

DLR: Yeah, oh yeah. He looked like a pair of panty hose stuffed with cottage cheese.

SM: Well, is this the same guy you knew as kids, when you grew up together playing in the band?

DLR: In terms of the antagonism and distance and that beleaguered communication, absolutely.

SM: So nothing has changed at all?

DLR: Nothing's changed, nothing's changed.

SM: What about Michael Anthony?

DLR: Somebody has to be the center. Somebody's got to be a tackle on that scrimmage line. How often do you interview that guy? How often do we buy a T-shirt with that guy? Now you got the answers already. Now here's another answer that you're gonna find within yourself. How often do you win the big ball game without that guy?

SM: That's very kind of you to say about him.

DLR: It's not kind, it's real. Don't get me wrong, I'd just assume separate his shoulder as shake his hand. And that kind of conflict is what builds big ball teams like the famous Oakland Raiders of the late '70's. And when I say, "Eddie Van Halen's a weakling and his brother is a triple weakling," they know it. They're pissed, they're furious, and when they pick up their instruments it all comes rushing out like the torrential wild sea. You betcha man, don't try to drain it out of that horse.

SM: Don't you think the more they go on, doing whatever it is they're doing, the more they realize that it's not "Van Halen," that it's not you. Don't you think that must make them angry in some way?

DLR: Could you imagine if we reconvened tomorrow? The anger, the fury, the passionate whatever, would just make for some fine warfare.

SM: Are you aware of all the stuff they've been saying in the press about you and the reunion?

DLR: Sure. Because I know the horse. Nothing's changed. Not for a single minute, did it? There was never a brief moment of sunlight. The clouds never broke. Never a brief moment. It's like when Eddie comes clean, and says "I'm pissed at you and I'm jealous." Nah, say it ain't so.

SM: Most of the fans feel this is very different from 1986 and they are tired of hearing what the Van Halen's have to say about you and the original and only Van Halen that ever mattered. Enough!

DLR: It's vitriol, it's anxiety and it delivers disappointment. I'm going to make a grotesque generalization and say we're not street fighters. I am. I train religiously, 5 and 6 days a week with the Brazilians, the same guys who win all the Ultimate Fighting contests. I always told you I was and I always demonstrated it on the deck, in the music. But indeed, I'm too skinny and small to be of any threat. All this "I'm gonna kick your ass, I'm gonna throw you through the wall," that just sells disappointment. And an occasional exclamation point from me "I see you got the hat. You got the pants to go with it homeboy?" Hey, that's good. Just a little shot of hot sauce, don't kill the taste of the dish. Alex hasn't thrown a punch at a moving human being in thirty years. And we all know it. And we're tired of hearing about it. Shut up and plug in. Shut the fuck up and plug in. I'll handle all that dissonant discord. I'll wrangle 'em.

SM: What do you think of the fans that are finally giving back to the Van Halen's all the crap they've been spewing for years?

DLR: Cold shot of harsh reality. Sometimes you need a two by four in the back of the head to make lights come on.

SM: Sheryl Crow had made a comment about how unbelievably passionate the fans of the original Van Halen are. Why do you think that is?

DLR: That's because I'm still here. I still exist and I'm better than ever at my own specialized, highly specialized, department in my tiny little corner of the universe. Have I changed my life? No. But I now realize, for example, the difference between flexibility and strength. I used to depend on strength way more than flexibility. Turns out if I put time in stretching, I don't need half the strength to do all of those marvelous kicks and exclamation points on the deck that 'causes you to buy black T-shirts. I wake up at dawn, before the birds start singing. I used to wake up on the tours, and have a candy bar. Big Ed used to carry a big sack of candy bars. I love candy bars, I love ice cream cones, that's Ed "Big Daddy" Roth to me. That's part of my childhood history. I eat an ice cream cone, I'm 12 again. More 12, than usual. I couldn't figure out all those years why I was so tired. By the time the limo arrived I was fuckin' asleep. "That's because you're eating a fuckin' Snickers, Dave." I don't eat a Snickers anymore when I wake up. Little fine tunings there. I realize comprehensively that I'm a super-specialist. just like in the old days, you did one job and you did the shit out of it. Do what you do and be proud. Whether you're a waiter or a rock star. I understand these things more. The first chapter starts "Everyday I hurt, I know the floorboards," and I invoke the tone of "Oh God, this is a monkey on my back." I now realize that the whole thing of stretching is a whole other art form unto itself. Not something I gotta go through for ten minutes. It's a whole 'nother sport that enables me to communicate with you better on stage. So now I spend an hour and a half every single day doing my stretches. And perfecting... Don't get me wrong, I smoke and watch CNN for an hour and a half while I do it. But do you see the difference? It's not like "Oh, I'm on a schedule, I got a coach out here." We're gonna do Howard Stern in the morning, that means I gotta get up 5:30, 6:00, in order to be vital and alive for a 7:30 in the morning shot. I used to abhor the idea of it. The last few days I've been getting up at the right time so it's an easy groove, it's my way of cutting a corner. This is not archdisiplinary practice. I realize, OK, here's the routine. I didn't have that ten years ago. And I relish it. I'm getting ready. I'm putting on the armor. What's the opposite of armor? That's what I'm putting on, 'cause with Howard that's what you gotta do. You don't put on armor, you put on what absorbs. Cotton. Those things have all changed for me. Now, I get it. OK, I see it. It's not for nothing. I put the last twenty years in, and I got the worst teacher going, experience. Rahway is full of guys with experience. I know those things now. Come' on, I'm the drunk who won the lottery, you could convince me of anything.

[twonabomber]

and more, not from Slawterhouse, but who gives a fuck!

Interview: DLR / Caley Cook

David Lee Roth: My pleasure to meetcha.
NATN: Good to meet you too. How are you this morning?
DLR: Like a thunderbolt in your Cheerios, hot stuff.
NATN: You’re really, really awake this morning.
DLR: A missile in your "Pop Tart!"

NATN: Do you always get up this early?
DLR: I’ve been asleep since the late '70s. Where you been?

NATN: I wasn’t born in the late '70s.
DLR: Well, then you’re just in time for the dance contest.

NATN: Well, OK. Yeah, you’re going on tour man. Tell me about it.
DLR: My life is a video, [so] why stop now. People say, 'hey, what’s your life like,' and I say, 'my life is a cabaret, old chub.' It doesn't even matter where I play anymore. Between the millions of people you and I entertain by the time this stuff gets on the Internet, I think I'll be upgraded to action figure. I'm no longer a vocalist!

NATN: What would you action figure look like?
DLR: I'm the patron saint of larceny! A lot more fun than the prince of darkness!

NATN: Are you?
DLR:Oh yeah! I detect a little larceny in your voice. Does anybody else know you're a larcenist?

NATN: Me? No.
DLR:Oh! It goes with everything, are you kiddin'? You can start with a little larceny first thing in the morning and finish it up at happy hour. You have to like it, especially as a writer. There's always a little bit of the monkey stealing the coconut, then the other monkey has rage and then you have art (laughs). No rage? No art! No art? No larceny! No media!

NATN: Man, you are up. You must take your coffee at 4 in the morning.
DLR: Mmmmm, no, I have a surgically implanted disco beat. (laughs).

NATN: Is that what your album is going to be like?
DLRmimicking Transformer/He-Man voice) Do not be afraid (laughs).

NATN: I won't.
DLR:I am energy. It's not fabricated. People used to say I was hyperactive; now they say I'm really really self-motivated. They like what I do! I've done a lot of other jobs. This one is really good.

NATN: What other jobs have you done?
DLR: I worked in surgery for two years out of junior college. I was a surgical assist and what they call a nuclear janitor. Nuclear medicine was just coming in – MRIs and CAT scans were just barely starting and you had to have a nuclear designation on your union card. And you know, you had to go through all kinds of stuff and training and so forth. And I worked at all state hospitals, burn wards and so forth and I worked night shift in the barrio. I've got expertise in interesting areas, I guess.

NATN: Can you use that on stage?
DLR:I've actually used it on a few people! I've actually run into some serious accidents along the way. Rock and roll is pretty predictable -- it's the other 38 stamps in my passport that I spent the money on. Don't ask me how to spell New Guinea but I've got the pictures of both of us there (laughs)!

NATN: OK, so you're touring and you've got a new album (Diamond Dave). Is it deja vu? ?
DLR: No, it's not déjà vu. It's only deja vu if you're doing the same show and the same routine over and over again. There are some bands that are extraordinary at that. The Rolling Stones have been playing the same song over and over and over again for, what do you think, 25, 30 years? I like the song though! AC/DC has been playing the same song, album by album for 30 years but we dig the song. I do believe, however, that mankind was destined for change. There are only two things that really look exactly the same from the moment you first see them to the moment they are dead and they are a sea anemone and Neil Young (laughs).

NATN: Neil Young? There's no way he came out like that.
DLR: Oh, absolutely, I'm convinced.

NATN: Soooo.. what was this video shoot thing I read about?
DLR: Oh! Three days of fun and music. No, that was Woodstock. What I was doing was the VH1 Classic "Diamond Dave's No-Holds Barbeque and Christmas Special." Is that what you're referring to? 'Cause if you weren't, you should be.

NATN: Fourth of July? Christmas?
DLR: I just finished 70 spots of my own creation – completely of my own creation – with all the guest characters that I served you up in "Gigilo" and "California Girls," which I wrote and directed. In this we have the Dom triplets from Playboy, as pregnant white chain smoking trash and I know you're thinking, 'Diamond Dave, you don't have to be white to be pregnant chain smoking trash,' and I'll tell you, 'sweetheart, it sure helps.' Why can't they be heroes too, goddamn it (pause for laugh)? I have a low-rider donkey – don't ask, just watch – I have the security guy from the circus, Jumbo Jimmy. My hallucinations are what your reality caused me to have after happy hour. Ridicule and sarcasm were refined arts in my family and I have a black belt (laughs). I came out of the Roth family history with the scars and the bars (laughs). Stars and the scars.

NATN: You deserve it, I guess.
DLR: I don't base what I do in the eyes of others. [In French accent] What was it, Sartre? He said the most famous single sentence in all of philosophy study, um, [in French] 'hell is in the others.' You may have heard it. They teach you that within the first 30 days of any philosophy class at any university and what it means is, if you are looking to find yourself reflected in the eyes of the others or you are judging your performance or whatever it is you do by how others see it, you will be in hell. Somebody may say, 'well Dave, what about those hardcore Van Halen fans,' and I said, 'they grew up and stopped buying records.' I never really considered what 40-somethings think about music, any more than what 20-somethings think about it. For everyone reading this right now, I think I know what's best for everybody. That's where we're going.

NATN: Don't you kinda have to consider it since you enjoy your fans?
DLR: I love my fans, but it's not a love affair. What I'm doing is a vision of the world around me and all I'm really responsible for, if there's a responsibility to be had in the fine arts, is to make a perfectly clear picture of the artists' point of view at that time. Now it turns out that I'm just commercially minded 'cause that's what I grew up on. It's as simple as if you grow a little kid up in Japan, they're gonna think a squid on a stick means a Saturday afternoon. If you grew up with cheeseburgers and fries like I did on the East Coast, than that's what you'll want. Can you dig?

NATN: I can dig.
DLR: Um, I spun off for a second, umm…

NATN: That's OK. You're probably a busy guy doing these interviews in the morning.
DLR: No, you're asking interesting questions as opposed to simplistic, one-dimensional answers. Who knows? There may be a musician here who may read some element of this and who might actually go out to make a contribution to something you and I will want to buy later on. If there's any responsibility to what we do, it's to commit myself completely.

NATN:Well, it seems like you do that.
DLR: Oh! Visions of what people want amounts to Ricky Martin, which is proof positive that just because you're young don't mean you rock.

NATN:You don't think he rocks?
DLR: I think the expression "just because you're young, you rock" is not true. Proof of that is…

NATN: Some people might think he rocks.
DLR: The committee who designed him? There's nothing wrong with Ricky that wasn't wrong or right with The Monkees but it's the difference between The Monkees and The Beatles. I bought both and I can sing you songs from both many summers later. Which one was better? You can't really tell. If they made you smile, great. That's what I sell! I brought a smile to the hips of people for many summers.

NATN: Man, you must enjoy being on tour. You sound like the touring type.
DLR: Yeah, well, I have a general sense of humor about it, even if it is larcenist.

NATN: Well, what's an average day on tour. Give me an average day.
DLR: Tour is like living on a submarine. You know, there's long, long periods of absolutely nothing followed by brief intense panic. And whatever happens after the show, well, what I do before the show in preparation: the video, the interview, the recording process and so forth is kind of a combination of Groucho Marx and Kurosawa. What I do onstage is somewhere between, I don't know, Bruce Lee and the scarecrow from "The Wizard Of Oz" and what I do after the show is somewhere between Errol Flynn and that other basketball player (laughs).

NATN: Do you still have some California girls backstage then?
DLR: Absolutely. California girls now have a range – I have a huge audience at college level, I'm always on a bicycle and going places and I can't go through any college campus in 22 countries without somebody going, 'hey, you're that white guy.' Now, I've also been upgraded. I have become the king of what I call The Stairmaster Nation. I married really, really fit moms with one kid under 4. I didn't know that was a whole nation (fit of laughter).

NATN: How many?
DLR: It is a formidable voting block (fit of laughter)! My lower back has been getting a harder workout than J. Lo (laughs)! Always a good time to bring that up, huh kid?

NATN: OK. Here's one last one for you: What happened at your house recently -- an incident we all read about?
DLR: Oh, we had a little disturbance. Anybody caught here at night will probably be caught in the morning. I saw this guy race quietly across the backyard here. So, you know, I made a lot of noise and made him lay down in the sprinkler system and the cops came and took him away. You know, one of the beauties of a 20-gauge shotgun is that you don't have to point it at anybody. In 20 languages, racking that thing twice in a silent night says, 'what are you doing here?' The police said I was insensitive to the guy's needs and I said, 'oh, excuse me, was that low fat Crank in his pocket?' Shit.

NATN: So he was all drugged up?
DLR: Oh, they found some methamphetamines in his pocket or whatever, that could be anybody! That could be the mayor and that could be what's left of Axl's last band. That's anybody these days. What are you doing in my backyard at 3:15 in the morning without a backstage pass (laughs)?

NATN: Well, good. I'm glad you got him and you are all safe.
DLR: Jesus. You know, some people said that I never had a gun and that came out and I said, 'well, I never went down the driveway to show it to them and nobody asked if I had one in the house.' I said, 'well, maybe you're right, maybe the new low fat meth makes you wanna just lay the fuck down and go to sleep in the sprinklers' (laughs)! Give him my connection's phone number!

[twonabomber]

Interview: DLR / James Halbert / Classic Rock

"THE GRIPES OF ROTH"

"What is life?". asked Crowfoot, the 19th century Native American warrior. "It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset." For many, it is also the six albums that Van Halen made with frontman David Lee Roth between 1978 and 1984. Exemplars of hard rock elan, these are records which still sound daisy-fresh, much of their magic stemming from Roth's preening oomph and Edward Van Halen's innovative, incendiary guitar work.

But, like all acts, Van Halen were subject to what "Diamond" Dave calls "the friction of time". And the ego clashes that underpinned the band's existence eventually led to the group's implosion. After which guitarist Eddie Van Halen, brother Alex, and bassist Michael Anthony soon brought in Sammy Hagar, formerly of Montrose, to succeed Roth. For many, that was a travesty of frontman pizazz, and Hagar's initial attempts to ape Roth failed miserably.

Roth, meanwhile, went solo. Initially he wowed MTV with the cleverly choreographed videos that accomplished his takes on "California Girls" and "Just A Gigolo". Shortly after that he hooked up with Steve Vai-probably the only guitarist fit to try on, let alone fill, Eddie's shoes-and paired him with Billy Sheehan, the bassist who thought he was Paganini. The recorded result were two fabulous Roth solo albums: 1986's "Eat 'Em And Smile" and 1988's "Skyscraper".

Both Roth's story and that of Van Halen are still unfolding as we speak. These days, however, David and Edward tend to cross swords in the law courts; more of which in deue course. For now, though, let's away to the sunny climes of Los Angeles, California. More precisely, we're headed for The Mondrian Hotel on Sunset Boulevard, just a hop, skip, and jump from where Van Halen's story began at legendary Hollywood clubs such as The Whisky A-Go-Go...

January 2004. It's early evening and your correspondent is in The Mondrian's candle-lit and very chi-chi Sky Bar; at low tables outside, artfully strewn cushions evoke a posh harem. I hear a familiar sound. It's David Lee Roth's laugh: an infectious, booming thing that comes up from the belly to celebrate life. Every head turns as he and his bopdyguard breeze in. He looks fitter and younger than in recent photos. The lank, Jimmy Saville-like hairdo he recently sported has given way to a much shorter, infinitely more flattering one. "I'll have a Jack please, honey," he says to a ravishing waitress who has appeared as if by magic. All omens, it seems, are good.

Roth's requested drink arrives and I begin by asking him how his gig at the House Of Blues on New Year's Eve went. "James", he says, "I am New Year's Eve. What we sell here are big, fat, Technicolor smiles that go with just about any major holiday and some of the internittent. People ask, 'Dave, what's the chemistry with the audience? Why so many girls?' Well, I'm certainly old enough to think it's because I'm so handsome...but I'm also old enough to know better. What it is," he continues, "is this: after 2 or 3 of those songs-especially if it's classic Van Halen or 'California Girls'-you feel like squeezin' someone. Probably not me, but definitely someone. And that's what makes what I do permanent. We will be here ten summers on, because that feeling, that impulse, is forever!"

This is the tone that "Diamond" David Lee Roth begins with, and how our conversation will continue for well over three hours, most of what he says being punctuated by that belly laugh. Frankly, the man is a conversational rocket, "liftoff" seemingly his constant mindset. For Roth, you sense, a sentence without a gag, aphorism, pr some linguistic fireworks is a sentence wasted. And, it probably has as much to do with his low boredom threshold as it does with the urge to entertain. He has chosen this venue, he says, "because it's skinny and young and the waitresses aren't afraid to make eye contact."

CLASSIC ROCK: It's seven years since you published your autobiography, "Crazy From The Heat". Any plans for a sequel?
DAVID LEE ROTH: Everything you read in that book was reported and for real. As regards to a sequel, I'm currently trying to live page 80 [laughs]. I'm not a work of fiction; you have to participate. Consequently I feel that it will be another four or five summers before the next book has been lived, or until the allegations have been explained away sufficiently that I can do the promotion properly.

CR: Do you still follow a strict fitness regime?
DLR: Oh yes [stubs out a cigarette]. But, as you can see, it's a study in contrasts. I'm not an athlete. I'm a rock star. I'm interested in trying everything on the menu-let's visit here; let's take a plunge there. So in that sense, I'll do a few press-ups, watch what I eat or don't eat. It's all designed so that I can stay up way past my bedtime on a school night, and so that I look good naked. Hey, even a dog gets a warm piece of the sidewalk after the show, Jim!

CR: You'll be 50 in October....
DLR: God willing and the creek don't rise.

CR: Any sense of diminishing time?
DLR: Well, there never seems to be enough time to share with one community. I'm lucky enough to belong to three or four completely different ones, and one or two generations other than my own. My home is in three different places; Miami, New York City, and Los Angeles. But, diminishing time? Not really, because I'm doing the things I want to do. I'm obsessed with being an artist, but I'm not a workaholic. I have no problem with cheeseburger and fries for breakfast. With Guiness. For weeks on end. And if there's sunlight and bikinis involved it could turn into a fiscal year. My inner child has to be dealt with every morning, so in that respect I suppose I'm balanced. I'm lucky enough to still be playing football at my age, let's look at it like that.

CR: Your current album, 'Diamond Dave'-why are there so many covers on it?
DLR: Classic rock in the USA is a fixed playlist. They set them in stone maybe seven years ago. When I was doing my guest DJ gig here in Los Angeles I was sliding in Macy Gray, The Bangles, and it caused havoc in the front office. I got kicked out for play 'Walk Like An Egyptian! So I consciously did a new album that was classic, otherwise how would I get airplay? At any given time I'm reflecting the music that's around and what's popular. I mean, we're not reflect Beyonce's new single...

CR: Except maybe in the way you shake your ass...
DLR: [Laughing] Yes, but who's the student and who's the teacher here? Sit down, Beyonce! Sit Down, Britney! Let me show you how it's done.

CR: Where do you think your sense of humor comes from?
DLR: Groucho Marx is in there. There's an edge to it. There's a belligerent enthusiasm to my humor that equates more with the New York dinner table than it does with the Los Angeles soiree. That's why I knew it was impossible for the girls on 'Sex And The City' to be depicting their real lives: when one of them left the room the others only said nice things about her. That's neither real nor funny. For me, humor is the way of summarizing and enjoying life's harsh realities; it's a way of summarizing the pain of having to wait. We wait for the plane. We wait for our drinks. We're professional waiters. I laugh to win. It keeps you young and it's a way of finding enthusiasm in the most miserable of circumstances. The Spanish have a word for it: 'ajuantadora'. It means 'those who endure'. My being Jewish has obviously been a part of that. Especially my generation which was shown all the movies of WWII. Then there's the creation of Israel. I don't know if it was created or taken, and it's not a good time to bring that up [laughs].

CR: Why have you never married?
DLR: Who would you rather be, James: Bill Gates or Hugh Hefner?

CR: What about children, though? Wouldn't you like some of your own?
DLR: I don't know that I'd want a traditional family. My whole family is like this. My Uncle David didn't have his sons until he was 56. Uncle Manny was kinda the same. I don't know if it was the classic American dysfunctional family, or what. I've been in love maybe four times. I love romance in the classic, cinematic style. I suppose I live in a fantasy world, but at least they know me there. I'm a bit of a crackpot. Most of what I do is because of girls. If girls didn't exist I wouldn't have this job. I wouldn't bother with msic. I wouldn't even bother with music. There's also the issue of closure here. When I was 30 years old I left Van Halen. There's never been closure on that, and that's a huge issue for me. It's not like leaving Warrant [laughs]. To this day, the classic Van Halen band could be a stadium act. And rather like all those folks who spent time at law or med school, it wasn't something we got right away. It had to be whittled away and worked at. It's a perishable skill, for Chrissakes. And I refuse to accept that, because of the whim of one of our four musketeers, we're all gonna tear up the diploma. We all went to the college of musical knowledge together. It's why the pretty girls smiles at me. It's why my voice is in that jukebox somewhere.

CR: Back to the ladies, though. With regard to previous partners, rather than 'acquaintances', was there one that got away?
DLR: A couple of them, actually. A woman who wanted a more traditional life. A woman who wanted kids. I take kids seriosuly. I mean, how many tragic cases are there of 'Oh, daddy was never home'?I'm not someone who could have kids and then just forget about them. Had there been more closure on the Van Halen issue, it's possible that I might've followed a more traditional track. But , I'm gonna level with you, James. I'm going to a titty bar after this and you're more than welcome to join me [laughs]. In the blink of an eye we can solve this choice-fatigue!

CR: Speaking of flesh, at Van Halen's peak and beyond were there any sexual fantasies you had that you didn't get to live out?
DLR: My fantasies were always the girl next door. We started to see evidence of the professional groupie in the early 80's. Alarmingly, these girls bore a strikng resemblance to Motley Crue. For me, the best groupies were the homecoming queens who were out on a lark; the preacher's daughters out for a wild night. But I'm here to tell you I left no stone unturned. What's curious is that I still remain in touch with half these women. A number of them are married, or have been married and are now divorced.

CR: Having lived out your fantasies, didn't normal life become boring?
DLR: Of course. You begin to pursue your own paradigm, to create your own world. And the only thing that compares is the world of the best comedians. Think of Laurel & Hardy or Monty Python. They lived in their own little world with their own language and their own customs. And so long as you're a fan first, that exists in rock n' roll as long as you want it to. If you enjoy the travel and the interaction, you can keep going until they carry you off on your shield. Only when you lose your enthusiasm for the sport do you lose your cachet. As far as how people party now compared to back when, no comparison. Today is way off the hook! Anybody who has been in the middle of the Pacha dance floor in Ibeza, anybody who's wandered through Manumission [a club in Ibiza] on a good night, can tell you that there's just no comparison. Everybody's partying like a rock star now. Like Sly & The Family Stone said, 'Everybody is a star!' What were once specialized habits of trained professionals are now commonplace. Frankly, I wish I had two dicks to keep up with it all.

CR: Let's talk about the records you did with Van Halen. The eponymous first album is a classic. Did you realize how good it was going to be while you were making it?
DLR: I knew it was great, but I also knew that we couldn't look back. I realized that we had to make as many consecutive records as possible as quickly as we could. We were really living it together. And, as I tell young musicians now, when all those ingredients are present and correct, and everybody's healthy and vertical, make hay and plenty of it; get after it. As an avid reader of music magazines, I know that greatness seems to revolve around a six to seven year phase. Zeppelin: six to seven years. The Beatles: ditto. And the same with Van Halen. After that, something else comes into play, namely what the Prussian general Carl Von Clausewitz called 'the friction of time'. Ted templeman used to say that Van Halen was performance theater. There is no one song or one album that accounts for its failure or success, it had to be taken as a whole.

CR: "VAN HALEN" went gold within 3 weeks, and platinum within 5.
DLR: I believe so, I was in Aberdeen at the time, and I discovered Glenmorangie [Highland single-malt whiskey]. We were supporting Black Sabbath. It was winter and it was within the first six weeks of the album's release. But we were trained to ignore the signposts. A gold record was only division finals. Because we weren't on the singles chart, we had no real way to calibrate our success.

CR: Presumably you had a much bigger budget for "VAN HALEN II"?
DLR: No, smaller. Van Halen was always considered the bastard son of the Warner Brothers stable. We made $1.50 royalty per record that we split four ways. And this was when everybody was getting $2.50-$3.00! We toured for ten and a-half months straight, and owed the record company one million dollars. To this day I only make .30 per record. The Van Halens and the bass player make $1.00 each per old record. That's what the recent lawsuit was about. They got a royalty increase...I don't know, maybe eight or nine years ago. I didn't know about it until this summer. But the first record was considered a fluke, an aberration. And when "VAN HALEN II" was recorded and ready to go, everybody at Warners thought it was a failure. I love that record. Songs like "Dance The Night Away". which are deceptively simple in their construction, are positively combustible on the live stage. Thanks to songs like that, Van Halen are remembered and Diamond Dave is still recognized as the quarterback, It transcended the genre; it really wasn't hard rock.

CR: You recorded part of the second Van Halen album while you were in plaster, after you'd broken your leg doing the jump that's pictured on the back cover.
DLR: Yes. There was furious ambition in Van Halen. And when you have an obstacle it increases the drive. It's not adventure until the shit pours from the sky. And it goes like this: ask me, "Dave, how was you vacation?"

CR: Dave, how was your vacation?
DLR: Oh, it was great, James. The natives were friendly, the food was amazing, and I got along beautifully with the little lady [makes snoring noise]. Now, ask me again.

CR: Dave, how was your vacation?
DLR: Oh, My God! The plane almost crashed. Twice. I got hung up for 4 days in customs, and my old lady ran off with the tribal chief! You see, now you're listening, and co-conspriring. You're going, "Shit! What a bitch!" And boy, do you want to see those holiday snaps.

CR: Each of the albums you made with Van Halen clocks in at just over 30 minutes. Was it a deliberate decision to have them that short?
DLR: Yes. For 2 reasons. It's a fine line between enough and too much., as anybody who knew the Cadbury's chocolate family can attest. You cross that line. Also, with the earlier albums, when we were still working with vinyl, there was the qustion of bass response. The further apart the grooves, the more bass you could load in. And, the further apart the grooves, the less music you can put on the plastic time-wise. It's that simple. The quality of tone was of paramount imprtance in Van Halen. If your ears can't differentiate between noise and what I call 'girl-friendly' tone, then all is lost. But if you can turn it up blistering loud and nobody wearing high heels covers their ears, it's a win-win situation. Zeppelin had it. The Stones got it. The list is long. But the list of those that don't have it is longer.

CR: For me, "WOMEN AND CHILDREN FIRST" is the most underrated Van Halen record-everything's looser, punkier, more spontaneous-sounding.
DLR: It was always a struggle, with Ed specifically, to not over-refine. And you hear the difference after I left the fold. The Japanese have a great term for the appreciation of of something that's imperfect: 'wabi-sabi'.

CR: Isn't that the green horseradish stuff that comes with sushi?
DLR: Hell no, James, it's not wasabi, it's wabi-sabi! Nurse! Over here! You see, my job in Van Halen was director. The whole time I was in the band I was the boss. They hate me for it now, but I'm gonna say it upfront. I was domineering. I was demanding. I was exacting. And if things went wrong, I took the fall. One of my biggest obligations as director was to ensure all the best mistakes stayed in the movie. 'Don't sew that up, leave it bleeding! Leave it there and we'll work around it.' A lot of the time I hadn't written my lyrics, but I couldn't admit that to a superstar talent like Ted Templeman. He'd be like, "Are you ready, Dave?" "Well, yes" [laughs]. Useful little word, that. So, on "Everybody Wants Some", when you hear me say 'I like the way the line runs up the back of those stockings', I'm just reporting what I can see of the girl through the glass in the control room. Same with "Hot For Teacher". I was just improvising. Ted goes, "So what do you have planned, Dave? You singing or what?" I say, "No, no. In this one,we're all pretending to be in the classroom". Same thing again on "Loss Of Control"; all that stuff where we're supposedly talking on helicopter radio is because I didn't have any lyrics. I call it 'cold fusion'. Under-dress and you soon come up with a place to hang you hat.

CR: The "FAIR WARNING" album: was its darker lyrical content a reflection of increased tension within the band?
DLR: No, it came from somewhere else. I had bought a parrot, a big red Amazonian thing named Ricky. Man, that bird was bad clear through! It made more fuckin' noise than a preacher in a strippers' club on a Sunday morning. At the time I was living in a small apartment in North Hollywood. I would walk past Ricky's cage at 2 meters distance, and he would start up a holy shriek to raise the Devil and his henchmen - talk about anxiety overload! So, when I sat down to write the lyrics for that album, that's what I was dealing with. "FAIR WARNING", the album title, was a call-out to Ricky. The neighbors would routinely complain because they thought it was a woman shrieking in the throes of passion. Not altogether unexpected, I'm sure, but in this instance...and my neighbors' complaining led to "Mean Street", and on and on. Everything was clenched-fist and stiff-upper-lip, until in the end I gave Ricky away.

CR: Away from Van Halen for a minute. You've mountaneered in the Himalayas and explored the jungles of Papau New Guinea. When and where were you happiest?
DLR: Probably traveling around the Tahitian Islands in an outboard canoe that I borrowed from a friend. I was with a stripper from Dallas. Once I'd got her to rinse all the hairspray out of her hair and we could smell the local frangipani fruit it was great; for the first eight days Tahiti smelled like a gentlemen's club.

CR: When and where were you most challenged?
DLR: Not all my outdoorsmanship is do or die, but I suspect you're questioning the high end of the sport. I was probably most exhilarated and challenged in the Himalayas. I fell several times, all through my own mistakes,. I had 3 buddies of mine climbing with me, and we did maybe six weeks, two of which were vertical. I prepared for that for a year and a-half, and consequently the fear factor was a year and a-half long. But that's what makes pop out of the toaster first thing in the morning.

CR: Is there anywhere you can go and remain unrecognized?
DLR: Since the advent of the internet, not really, no. It even happened in the Himalayas. I did escape celebrity in New Guinea. Those guys with a bone through their nose and a gourd on their dick aren't too interested in the finer points of the "Jump" video.

CR: Five out of the 12 songs on 1982's "DIVER DOWN" were cover versions. Why?
DLR: Because nobody did covers better than Van Halen. And to take something like [Roy Orbison's] "Pretty Woman" and revitalize it as we did was similar to what they're doing now with sampling. For many people, "You Really Got Me" [From "VAN HALEN", originally by The Kinks] only exists thanks to Van Halen. "DIVER DOWN" was also testimony to how much we enjoyed playing great music, whether we wrote the songs or not. If it was a great song, we played the hell out of it. And there's nowhere to go from there but home base.

CR: Which brings us to "1984". At the time, did anybody have any misgivings about it being more keyboard-oriented than previous Van Halen albums?
DLR: We had intentionally stayed away from keyboards, because up 'til then, what instruments you used indicated which neighborhood you were part of; Queen would write things like 'No synthesizers were used on this album'. That's just affectation. But at the time it seemed important. When we moved to work on "1984", though, it was a case of inching up slowly, having previously exhausted other possibilities. I personally had always been a fan of keyboards and brass and female back-up singers and everything else that isn't supposed to be hard rock. The band was at each other's throats more than ever, but I say it with a smile. The best accomplishments are not achieved when everybody is sitting going 'You're great! Do you think I'm great, too? You do? Great!'

CR: For all the tensions in Van Halen, presumably there were times when the excitement of what you were achieving together enabled you to forget your differences?
DLR: We were always disagreeing, we were always at each other's throats about what was the appropriate thing to do, but it was that belligerent, confrontational chemistry that created the music you grew up to. When the guys became relaxed and comfortable with Sam Hagar it was lost. But it doesn't need to be lost forever. I actually consider that chemistry to be a positive force, one that could bode well for the future. We could pick up the gauntlet tomorrow. I'm completely up for that; always have been.

CR: But during the period when Van Halen were at their peak, surely there were times when you at least felt like blood brothers?
DLR: Not really. Not much. I lived in my own little world, which was informed by a thousand books and ten-thousand magazines, and the Van Halens occupied another world entirely. To this day I don't think Eddie Van Halen has enjoyed more than ten minutes of his success. He's chased, he's not chasing. He's chased by something. But I never lamented it, because it's precisely that contrast that makes the best art. And when all are comfortable, then you're stuck with songs like "Why Can't This Be Sam?".

CR: Don't you mean "Why Can't this Be Dave?"
DLR: No, because Dave would never pose a question like "Why Can't This Be Love?". Dave would assume his love bases were covered.

CR: But didn't "5150" out-sell previous Van Halen albums? It was certainly very successful.
DLR: I think our sales out-sold Sammy's three to one. We had several twelve-million sellers, and everything else went double or triple-platinum. None of it was as popular at any given time as "Finding Nemo" is today. And Jane Fonda's workout tape outsold everybody-including you, Mr. Plant! So what are digging here for, professor? I think we're digging for content [laughs]. Sam comes from a whoile other background, so consequently, both lyrically and musically, it's going to be a whole different tone and tenor. Still, even if the quality isn't there I listen for the ambition. And I think that changed when I left the band. When I was the boss we were adults acting like kids, but when Sam got in the band it became like kids trying to act like adults.

CR: Sammy Hagar also seemed to try and co-opt your sense of humor here and there. Which, incidentally, didn't work.
DLR: It's like writing the book: you have to live it first. And that doesn't mean you have to go to Algiers and become a heroin addict-although there's a book or two in that, too, of course. Sam is...a singer. I'm David Lee Roth, the singer. As a wrangler of words, sire, you see the vast yawning difference before us. Are you a writer or the writer? I rest my case.

CR: Does it sadden you that what many would cite as the key creative partnership of your career-i.e., that with Edward Van Halen-is in such a sad state of repair?
DLR: The strata that we achieved is to be relished. If you can write one great song that will be remembered, far less 20, that's amazing. It's a pride of mine. I consider it miraculous.

CR: Yes, but does the mutual estrangement of you and Edward sadden you?
DLR: It's a catastrophic waste. We haven't done enough. If somebody passed away, well, alright. If somebody lost an arm, alright. But, we're all still here and healthy. And that makes it s serious mis-step.

CR: Despite everything-the lawsuits, the insults you have periodically exchanged-you were presumably still worried when Edward had cancer?
DLR: Well, do it like a professional sportsperson, for Chrissakes. Self-medicate, and I'll see you tomorrow. I frankly don't care about your health or the family or any of it. Play ball. You're lucky enough to be able to bend it like Beckham. Get out there! Get behind the mule and go! Eddie himself did not take those illnesses so seriously. He partied all the way through them. So my sympathies are limited. At best. But beyond that, what better time to make music than at a time of severe strife? Use it!

CR: In 2000 Van Halen's record company reissued the six Van Halen albums you sang on. Conspicuously, there were no bonus tracks or outtakes added. Are there any unreleased tracks in the vaults?
DLR: You haven't heard or seen anything but one-half of an ill-conceived greatest hits. In the 18 years or so since I left the band, there should've been box sets, videos...all kinds of stuff! Just that radio interviews alone are up there with "Absolutely Fabulous"! Believe me, there is a tremendous wealth of unreleased Van Halen material. But the Van Halens have lost their way. Eddie is...how should I put this...I think the Van Halens forgot why they originally wanted to do this. At this point, to have all that missing stuff released is almost a responsibility. But the fellas got caught up with a couple of managers in the last few years who have had other agendas. One of them was attempting to foist Sam Hagar upon us. So their agenda is not at all what Van Halen's audience-or myself-has. It all reminds me of that scene at the end of the movie "Chicago": one girl turns to the other and says, "So let's continue". The other says, "But I hate you." The first replies, "So what? This is showbiz!"

CR: Mick Jagger and Keith Richards don't seem close nowadays but they can still get it together for business. Why can't you and Edward?
DLR: There's an emotional rift [he says this with absolute candor] that I think is mainly caused by drugs and alcohol. It's been there for many years. Ed's adrift right now. He's not really accomplishing anything. And for one who professes so much love for "the music"...well, how do you go 5 years without doing any? So, alright, we've got 30 great songs stored away in our private attic studio in Malibu, Axl, and we're all gonna change the face of popular music permanently and forever. But if the public doesn't get to hear it, what does it mean? It's sad, because like I said, we hit that strata. We created something that people desperately wanted to hear, and still do. In my mind that's something you are duty-bound to answer to. But there's been no closure in Van Halen for years and years. I think it's Ed's struggle with who's the boss. If you want to be leader you have to accountable and all those other Boy Scout words. I don't think Ed is ready to deal with that yet.

CR: What about your work with guitarist Steve Vai-did you approach those projects knowing that your writing partnership with him might be difficult to sustain?
DLR: No, I approached it like a dog does: everything is forever; you take me back home, I'm gonna look at you at the back gate and go, "But I thought we were going to walk forever?"

CR: So what happened? At the time, working with Vai and bassist Billy Sheehan seemed like such a masterstroke. You trumped everyone.
DLR: It ran into the dead end that is rock-fusion jazz-blues something or other, aka "widdley-widdley". When the guitarist starts going "widdley-widdley" it's a symptom. When I made those records with Steve it was an effort to get him to go under the bar; consolidate; give your guitar solo a beginning, middle, and end. What is the development of the character here? Is this guitar solo the same guy we met in the last three songs? Perhaps one is never so much oneself as when wearing the mask. And Steve's mask is that there is something greater than writing songs and simple emotional content.

CR: Which there isn't, of course.
DLR: Well, if there is, I ain't seen it, Sarge.

CR: Do you have any unfullfilled ambitions?
DLR: Yes, I know there is a place for me in what is happening right now, but I'm still working out what it is. Okay, if the Van Halens wake up and Eddie Van Winkle sees the daylight and we do a reunion, great. If it's not that, Las Vegas has been offering me millions of dollars to reprise "California Girls" and "Just A Gigolo" for the stage. I wrote and directed those videos. Those are Burlesque. Those are Vaudeville. I learned it from watching shows back in the 60's, and from going to the Crazy Horse Saloon in Paris in the 70's. If not that, then maybe it'll be spoken word. I love radio. The idea of being a DJ, whether playing tunes on the wheels of steel in the midnight hour or free-thinking on talk radio, appeals to me. I use all of that as a compelling factor in my life to keep on learning, to continue reading more than I wrote.

CR: A bit premature, this, but what would your epitaph be?
DLR: Well, one of my favorite Japanese poems is, "Go/Climb the treasure mountain and do not return emptyhanded/where are you now?". I also have a haiku of my own-a haiku being a poem that has five syllables, then seven, then five more. I call my haiku "Tiny Moth". It goes like this [counting syllables on his fingers], "Tiny moth/seeking warmth in candle's flame/[pauses a beat]Fucking idiot!". There's an old Jerry Herman song from the musical "Hello, Dolly" which goes: "Before the parade passes by/I've gotta go and taste Saturday's high life". It's not a song one could imagibe David Lee Roth singing. Largely, because he'd be the guy leading the parade-to the top of the Treasure Mountain, with three Playbot Bunnies for sherpas. I'm at the top of my game. I don't know I'll ever be any better. What I can do onstage now, no amount of production can transcend. And it is these very elements that bands like The Darkness are feeding upon. The fact that I'm still here, 25 summers later, making seven figures American, is testament to just how much this whole tribal ritual still has value. To keep up with me, you must be fast. To sing like me, you must be great. To beat me? You must be kidding?

[GAR]

GRATE reads, thanks Twona!

[sadaist]

GRATE reads, thanks Twona!

Concur!

[jero]

Special thanks! Hadn't read that in a long time.

[DavidLeeNatra]

always had it...always will...