David Lee Roth on the Origins of Van Halen

This is our 50th year, Alex and I. That's crazy. Why is it crazy? This is amazing, you know? Crazy in a wild and awesome way. You know, the fact that you guys have been doing music for that long, I mean, that's pretty incredible. We came out of this music three weeks out of high school graduation. Okay, our parents were very insistent. I feel like I'm watching a movie. I've seen it all play out right now. Yeah. The Van Heelens, their father, their mom said, you're moving out. Okay, they had jobs set up for them at the airport. No, she had his baggage handlers. Okay. I had been tossed out of my house by mom mostly halfway through high school. Okay. Halfway through high school, she said out? Yeah. What did you do? Well, I made my way. Ultimately, I moved in with dad, but I finished high school. No, but I mean, what did you do that made her kick you out of the house? I was a troublesome kid. Okay. I was in and out of the busing program. It was a wild and colorful time. All right. This is the sixties you follow. And there was constant conflict in terms of where the Van Heelens went to school, for example, as Pasadena high school, it was 90% Caucasian, we'll call it, and other. I went to the schools that were all black and Spanish speaking. So when I say, I mean it. Alvin Heelen owns a 1956 Bel Air coupe. Okay. With the slicks on the back. Now you're talking. It's sad. Okay. That's Pasadena high school. I own a lowered 66 Volkswagen with a 383 Chevy engine in the front. Okay. It's like the balance that made our music colorful. The Maimonica Diamond Dave comes from when I would go over to the Van Heelen side, that's like Ridgemont High. I went to like Cooley High. All right. And their music was all Led Zeppelin, Stons, The Who, Sabbath, like this. And starting at the seventh grade Youth Club dance for me, that was all Motown, which, my record collection was everything from Rick James and the funk. I took Eddie Van Heelen to his first black concert at the Forum. I think it was the only one that he ever went to was Earth, Wind, and Fire. Wow. You saw Earth, Wind, and Fire live. 1976 when all the hits lifted up. Every famous Earth, Wind, and Fire like this, because I was gang signing the whole alphabet from seventh grade on. Come on. We knew where to go get clip-on ties and see-through socks at A Meals. When Alex Van Heelen and I made our first lawsuit for 150 bucks on somebody who welched on a check, we went to A Meals. We got clip-on ties and we got proper socks and we went out and sued them. You follow? You sued someone? For 150 bucks? Well, somebody said it was the, and I say with respect to Mayfield School, the holy child of Jesus Incorporated, Joe. They said, and this was 1973, they said according to the contract that we had been smoking marijuana. No. I know I came to the right place, but save your almonds. As a fact, we did not. That was not possible because we didn't have enough money for it. We would have. Full disclosure. Full disclosure. Yep. It's for 150 bucks. So Al and I, and I know Al is listening right now. We laugh like pirates on the phone. Okay. And he and I went to A Meals and we got clip-on ties. And we went and we filed in the small claims division. We stood in there and the school showed up. There were two nuns and a family. A father, a mother, and two young daughters. It was quintessential. This is 1973. In these days, like for example, here in Texas with long hair, whoa, you better watch out over your shoulders. A very, very different background. Okay. This is now, we'd take any kind of haircut goes these days. But remember, long hair in 1973 in a court of law. Wow. You were already on your back foot. And we stood up, thought we were fooling the magistrate. You follow with our long ponytails. Remember what I used to look like, Joe? I used to look like Tarzan who read a few paperbacks. Come on. I was you, Joe. Look at you. Look at you in that. Exactly. And you know, cheekbones for days, man. You can sharpen a hunting knife on those cheekbones, huh? Look at those cheeks. Look at those cheeks. That's right. What a beautiful man you were. There we go. That was gorgeous. Beautiful man. Man, I launched a thousand hips. Wow. When you look back on that life. No, no, no. I'm not a sex symbol. You dig? I'm not a sex object. It's I symbolize it when you guys feel sexy. I'm the MC. I make other people feel sexy. You come and you listen to Van Halen music. You give me three songs. You're going to feel young and skinny. You, Joe, will feel invincible. And your old lady will feel eminently desirable. How much is that worth? You got some good marijuana. I'll tell you that. When I walked in here, like when I got to the studio, it was like the fog was thick in the building. As I passed through, I thought, Mike, Dave must be here. Yeah, well, I think there's definitely benefit in kids learning martial arts for sure. And learning martial arts in the same uniform, there's a real benefit in that too, because you realize it's not about the uniform. It's not about what you look like. It's about getting things done. Then as you learn and grow and become more accomplished, then you receive these belts. And so then you have goal attainment. And goal attainment is an amazing thing for kids, an amazing thing for adults. There's a real benefit in knowing that you put in the hard work and now there's something that signifies it. Oh my God, I have a blue belt. And they tie that blue belt around your waist and you're not a white belt anymore. And you feel proud. You put that thing on and you feel like, I have done work. It elevates your perspective in terms of the way you look at yourself and you look at your abilities. It gives you more confidence. And it also gives you this goal. One day I want to be a black belt. And you just think about it. Like one day I'm going to attain a rank of proficiency where I'm going to be someone who's actually, to whatever level, mastered a very specific style of martial art that's incredibly difficult to learn. And that's good for everybody. You apply that now to the arts that we do for a living. McCartney can't get through an interview without telling you about his six years in the red light district in Germany. He wears it like a general's badge. Can you dig it? He's proud of it. Alex Van Eelen and I, same thing. We put in five years compared to year three. The average is two and a half maybe. Just constantly jamming, doing multiple shows, constantly. Isn't that, it's detailed in the book, The Outliers, right? Is it The Outliers? I think it is. There's a book... Outliers. Yeah. They talk about how when the Beatles emerged, people don't realize they had so many hours of playing. And it's one of the reasons why they're so good. They were playing so often, constantly. It is really hardcore training. And that's when you build who you are. That's where you develop your ingredients. Yeah. When I was coming up in music, that was the regular, because there were bands at every club, every bar, had to have a live band. To afford the speakers and the turntable and the music, you had to have a live band. And you would tear off the left-hand side of the billboard chart and learn it. Alex and I went through a list just recently that we found of 120 songs that we could play at the drop of a hat. By everybody you could imagine. From Smoke On The Water to Get Down Tonight. That's where we learned to sing. Get down tonight. Get down tonight. We didn't have a keyboard, so you better sing. You better sing a cover off that fucking ball. That's why Mike Anthony was so unique. His bass playing, now we can find bass players. But nobody sounds like that. That's Garfunkel. Simon's good. But Simon and Garfunkel. Where do you think you built that? Thousands and thousands of vocal training hours. So that when Mike and I sing, you recognize it like Hendrix's guitar. You may never have heard the song before. You go, that's Hendrix's signature sound. Like Rod Stewart's voice. You may never have heard the song before. You go, that's Rod. Yeah, it is. And in our backgrounds, like Motown, that only comes from thousands of hours. Where do you learn to have the temetry to stick with that? I learned it at the dojo. I learned it in my first singing lessons. You dig it? My first singing coach. Jesus, that was also my first real experience with tattoos. We started off talking about tattoos. My first singing coach had two tattoos. He had a number right here. And he had another number right there. And he would say, at least once a year, this is my camp number. And this is the number why I was still alive. He played piano and he sang in Auschwitz. Jesus. He was there for three years. Kurt Blumenthal. Okay. And he used to tell me, Mr. Roth, sing as if your life depended on it. Can you imagine a gig where one bad review literally puts you up the chimneys and that was another expression he would use? It's in the music. It's in my voice. It's in every Van Halen song you hear. Mr. Van Halen taught it to his sons. Jan Van Halen and I were very good friends. And he would tell his sons about when the bombing would start and they would all move into the subway tunnels and he would play saxophone for everybody hiding during World War II. Every time I sing, I sing as if my life depended on it.