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RARE PHOTOS: David lee roth - The Real Truth

“When I first played Jump for the guys nobody wanted anything to do with it. Dave said I was a guitar hero and I shouldn’t be playing keyboards”: The story of Van Halen’s 1984, and the end of the David Lee Roth era

Creative differences led to Roth’s departure the following year, but 1984 found the band firing on all cylinders, as Eddie Van Halen embraced his pop sensibilities while retaining the musical adventurism that made him the greatest of all time

Guitar World

“Dave had a beat-up, noisy cassette of Steve Vai. We listened together in some garage with the tape player on the fender of a car. I said to Dave, ‘That’s the guy’”: How David Lee Roth put Van Halen behind him with one of rock's greatest supergroups

In late 1985, Diamond Dave's Hollywood dreams were dashed – but with some help from Vai, Billy Sheehan, and Gregg Bissonette, he firmly established himself as a superstar in his own right

Guitar World

“What makes this album so interesting is the fact that there are guitars that are not totally in tune – but good luck trying to get a take as good as that!”: The creative genius and ‘insane’ methodology in Van Halen’s biggest selling album

“Eddie and Alex jammed for hours and hours, day after day, until they hit upon something so unique that is so perfectly natural”

MusicRadar

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"Are you ready for the new sensation?" The 10 best David Lee Roth solo songs

David Lee Roth's solo work is composed of three basic elements: flash, bang and wallop. 40 years on from the release of his killer debut album Eat 'Em And Smile, here are 'Diamond' Dave's finest solo songs

Louder

“I walked into Guitar Center, saw this Tele and thought, ‘This is incredible.’ It’s the guitar that got me endorsed with Fender”: The guitar that changed John 5’s life

The Mötley Crüe shredder owns over 100 Teles, but this one is the cream of the crop

Guitar World

“Roth came over to me – he was wearing this little vest, had a cane, and his hair was dyed like a skunk. He said, ‘How do you like my boys?’” How Michael Anthony went from playing backyard parties to sellout crowds with Van Halen

From humble beginnings to one of rock’s biggest bands, Michael Anthony revisits the defining moments of his Van Halen story

Guitar World

“I said, ‘But Ed’s still alive. He’s still making amazing records. He’s still on tour. What guitar player would ever try to imitate him while he’s still working?’”: Joe Satriani recalls being approached by David Lee Roth for a Van Halen cover band

Satch may be filling Van Halen’s shoes during the Sammy Hagar-led Best of All Worlds tour, but he was reluctant for decades to play the legendary guitarist’s parts

Guitar World

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"I thought it was the lamest song I ever wrote in my life. It took me six months before I worked up the nerve to show the guys." The story of the Van Halen classic written to mock punk and embraced by the punk rockers

Producer Ted Templeman says Van Halen's Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love is his favourite song from all those he's worked on

Metal Hammer

“Ed’s own techs said the only person that could help was this girl outta Nashville. Joe called me and said, ‘Apparently I should be talking to you’”: How Joe Satriani found the amp builder for his dream Eddie Van Halen tone

Satriani needed an amp with exacting specifications for the Best of All Worlds tour – and he got more than he bargained for

Guitar World

“We’re playing Led Zeppelin songs, and Eddie would imitate Jimmy Page… I mean, he had it down!”: Steve Farris on the time he jammed ZZ Top and Led Zeppelin songs with Eddie Van Halen

The Mr Mister guitarist got a front row seat to Eddie Van Halen's greatness when they they were both Peavey artists playing a NAMM show

MusicRadar

10 bands who peaked with the first song on their first album

Some bands just get it right first time

Louder

“I did four or five songs, then Ozzy said, ‘Welcome aboard’. I would have loved to have spent more time with him”: Randy Rhoads was his guitar teacher. Then he ended up in Ozzy Osbourne’s band

Joe Holmes looks back on his time with Ozzy and David Lee Roth, and explains why his upcoming solo album, featuring former Ozzy band members, captures everything he’s learned up till now

Guitar World

“He had an electric guitar, and his mom wouldn’t let him plug into the amp”: David Lee Roth fights tears as he recalls his partnership with Eddie Van Halen

The singer spoke of the touching “full circle” moment that bookmarked their final chapter together

Guitar World

“We were on the Howard Stern show. My personal assistant asked me, ‘Would you mind switching places with someone? I said, ‘Eff off!’ He said, ‘Let me tell you who it is first. It’s Paul McCartney.’ I said, ‘It’s done!’”: Ozzy Osbourne’s funny stories

“Sharon’s going, ‘Smile!’ And this chimp is biting my thumb off!”

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Guitar World

“We did call him because we owed him that. He was important for the band”: Alex Van Halen says they tried to recruit Michael Anthony for Van Halen’s David Lee Roth reunion

Wolfgang Van Halen would take Anthony’s place, but he didn’t get the gig because of “family influences,” the drummer says

MusicRadar

“This cop came into my dressing room. He's like Robocop – helmet, goggles, gun, handcuffs. He says, ‘Those little fellas – do you hang one of them every night?’”: Ozzy Osbourne’s outrageous tales of idiot lawmen, werewolves, chimpanzees and Paul McCartney

“Sharon’s going, ‘Smile!’ And the chimp is biting my thumb off!”

Guitar World

“The original idea was Steve Stevens, but he was busy with Billy Idol”: How Steve Vai ended up joining David Lee Roth's post-Van Halen band – thanks to Billy Sheehan

While Vai wasn’t his original choice, the Sheehan-Vai dynamic proved strong enough to outlast Roth’s project

MusicRadar

"As a vocalist, every word I sing in the Van Halen songbook, I wrote. I wrote every line, every melody, every harmony stack. For better or worse, if you're singing it – Roth was bringing it": David Lee Roth has clarified his creative role in Van Halen

“Our stuff is like West Side Story,” he says of the Van Halen back catalogue

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Guitar World

“We bounced around the idea of having everyone from Joe Cocker to Phil Collins to Mike Rutherford sing”: Out went David Lee Roth and Frankenstein, in came Sammy Hagar and Kramer –the story of Van Halen’s rebirth

It was the end of an era. Roth’s exit, Frankenstein's last hurrah. But it was the start of a new one as Eddie Van Halen got experimental on 1986's blockbuster, 5150

Guitar World

“I discovered that it would be harder to try to replicate his tone than anybody else”: Steve Vai has followed in the footsteps of many guitar greats – this was the hardest one to nail

He’s filled the shoes of Eddie Van Halen and Robert Fripp, but Vai says this particular gig was even harder

Guitar World

“I kept saying, ‘I’m not the guy. Call Nuno’”: Joe Satriani put Nuno Bettencourt’s name forward for failed EVH tribute tour with Alex Van Halen and David Lee Roth

Before embarking on the Best of All Worlds tour with Sammy Hagar, Satch was close to hitting the road for a Van Halen tribute tour with Roth and Alex Van Halen

MusicRadar

“I said, ‘Sam, I’m gonna tell you what I told Alex, which is, I don’t really play like Eddie’”: Joe Satriani says he told David Lee Roth and Alex Van Halen to call Nuno Bettencourt when they called about EVH tribute tour

Satch says the tribute tour got close to a show, but after it all fell through, Sammy Hagar came in with an offer he couldn’t refuse, and he needed a new amp to nail Eddie Van Halen's tone

Louder

"I said, 'This is our last show.' He said OK. We never, ever talked about why it was so easy to break up the band." The curious story of the thinking man's hair metal band, and where it all went wrong

Two million sales. A dizzying rise. And a cataclysmic fall

Guitar World

“It was the most coveted guitar chair in rock. I adored Edward’s playing, so I understood that people would be skeptical”: How Steve Vai lived his ultimate guitar rockstar fantasy on David Lee Roth’s Eat ’Em and Smile

Working with David Lee Roth was like "being strapped to a rocket made of charisma and fueled by tequila” – and the music was pretty fun, too

Louder

"They got signed on their talent, on their original material, but also on their looks. They looked like Robert Plant and Jimmy Page." The story of the album that rescued rock'n'roll from the darkness and built a brighter future

Rock was stale, and dinosaurs were lumbering. Then an album arrived that was an effervescent shot in the arm for an entire genre

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