Van Halen front man David Lee Roth says his relationship with the band's two namesakes, Alex and Eddie Van Halen, has never been smooth.
Roth says, despite their similar upbringings, he and the Van Halens have always fought when they were together. For some reason, the friction didn't stop them from forming a band, playing hundreds of shows and releasing six hit albums.
Diamond Dave tells WTF with Marc Maron that his fit in Van Halen, musically speaking, has always been a perfect one. But he's not about to take anyone named Van Halen out to dinner. Maron asked him specifically.
"Can you sit down with the fellas and have dinner and stuff?" Maron queried.
"Nope. Nope. Not even close," Roth replied. "This is not a golf club. This is a little closer to The Wild Bunch, right? There is a fury and an antagonism and what comes out of that, when it's good, oh man, that's retina-bursting. That'll change your f---ing haircut."
Van Halen hasn't toured since 2015, and while Roth says his last run with the band amounted to some of the "best shows" they had ever done together, the arguments backstage were never-ending.
"We were at each other all throughout the tour," Roth explained. "You've got to be mature enough to understand."
The most common refrain during intra-Van Halen fighting is "What the f--k are you thinking?" Roth adds. "And it's constant. And then you assign yourself to the producer who will either take Eddie's side or my side; you're either a Dave guy or an Eddie guy. You're all mature enough to understand that we're all pirates here. Of course you're gonna betray me."
Roth doesn't seem to take the arguments with him when he's not in Van Halen land; he says it's just part of being in a rock band.
While he didn't address why Van Halen isn't on tour this summer, he confirmed that there were plans for him to meet with the band in the weeks following the interview.
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