Name: David Lee Roth Says Van Halen Isn't Breaking Up | Letterman
Uploaded: 2022-08-09T21:23:14.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'David Lee Roth Says Van Halen Isn't Breaking Up | Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-08-09. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'David Lee Roth Says Van Halen Isn't Breaking Up | Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-08-09. Transcript available.

we got a good show to start the new year here don't we stupendous from van halen
david lee roth is here
and of course whenever you have anybody on from van halen you have to have sex
therapist
dr ruth westheimer all right here we go are you ready my first guest uh of the
new year is the
lead singer of van halen david lee roth
how you doing oh i'm doing great dave happy new year's to you thanks same to
you all right do you have a
nice new year's the best yet we come from uh los angeles to new york city here
we did the uh we did
the countdown for mtv we did the world premiere of the video there as a matter
of fact yeah and that
was an auspices auspiscous occasion now you know cable uh cable cable
television is dead though this year
it's it well you know i i think what happens is that you know when you get
something like mtv it's like
regular television you know you get it and at first it's novel and it's brand
new and then you watch
every channel every show right and then you become a little more selective and
more selective until
ultimately you wind up with a radio um now uh tell me about the the video we
just saw there a little
bit of now what is the does this have a uh any kind of a uh uh background a
concept what is the concept
well you know we we keep trying you know in in uh van halen we kept trying to
have uh a concept you
know with the brothers edward and alex and um alex kept forgetting the concept
you know so it was
it was it was sort of up to me you know to come out with it it's a good thing
to have somebody to
periodically remind you of the concept but the big thing with this is that we
decided
that we were going to be major movie moguls and direct our own video which is
kind of an unusual thing
uh i i've always maintained that that was not too difficult and when you watch
these videos
on television what you're getting generally is the work of a producer or
director who is like a hired
gun you know like the like the little mexican village hired yule brenner to
come in and save
the day for him well usually they're hiring the beer can guy you know who did
the commercials or whatever
and i said i've always said well i don't see why this would be so difficult and
to prove it next time
that you watch mtv or one of the videos on television or something all you have
to do is turn off the sound
and you can put on some wagner or some black sabbath and it makes perfect sense
but you know that's uh
that's a good point because when uh but if if uh it's good work if you can get
it now when they when
they give out the awards for these things uh it'd be nice if the band actually
directed them that would
be an extra touch there that would be great yeah it's uh although judging from
some of my peer group i'm
not sure i would hand them the responsibility now like like who who are you
talking about when you
say some of your peer group who do we mean here well you know you can't expect
somebody who spends 10
years of their life on a postage stamp stage in a bar somewhere you know all of
a sudden be a major
movie mogul i just lucked out postage stamp stage in a bar somewhere now this
is obviously a reference to
somebody who's successful in contemporary music today now who is it well that
that is your that's
your classic background for the musicians yeah but there's somebody that you
don't like here
now you know why he's behind the desk no no just give us just give us the name
this will be great
give us the name and people will uh respond and we'll do a commercial we'll
come back and talk more
about and i can't name names i named names on the last show and i was lucky to
get on this one
now wait a minute what was what was the last show you're talking about
um so you're not going to tell us no we'll have to go into something how about
new year's resolutions
we'll take a shift here and things you make any oh absolutely absolutely and uh
you know i said it
once before i think it's better to generalize in terms of the year to come you
can't you know you
make a resolution and i and my resolution would be this year is that dog eat
dog world that it is
i think now's a good time on new year's to decide whether you're going to be a
hot dog or a little weenie
i have well i have chose beautiful i have chosen to remain a little wiener for
one more season
you're going to be a weenie for another year yeah you bet all right uh we uh we're
going to do a
commercial we'll be back uh more with david lee roth thanks paul david lee roth
is here now uh
you're doing you're doing solo work is the is the does this mean that the band
will soon be uh
breaking up no no that happens you know that does happen that's that's the
spinal tap story no i
still have very i still have very strong tribal instincts and we'll be going
into the studio like
the middle of this month and start arguing again and we'll we'll come back out
with an album sometime
this year hopefully i have uh
i have here a book called everything you want to know about van halen by gordon
matthews
do you know gordon matthews no i don't i've known
well then at least it's authentic we are indicting him though oh really there's
some heat here no not
at all well here we have a couple of passages underlined and i just want you to
respond to a
couple of these uh during the concert van halen roadies scour the audience for
the cutest girls
they can find according to legend every roadie gets five backstage passes to
hand out well we do that
every night here don't we paul uh many a girl has been known to leave her
boyfriend behind for a
chance to party with the boys oh my god uh david lee roth claims to be actively
searching out girls from
the stage that's you when he spots a girl in the audience he thinks is cute he
dances over to the
side of the stage while eddie takes a guitar solo oh this is pitiful
no i can't let me just finish this one little thing here and then you can say
whatever you want
to say night court let me take it well let me just finish there's one little
line here uh david
uh i feel like this is judge wapner
eddie takes a guitar solo there he will shout something to an available roadie
like red right
red t-shirt out of sight six feet back while david dances back to the
microphone a roadie in
the front row will receive a radio communique from the stage then he will go to
work to find the
girl and give her a pass now is is there a hint of truth anywhere in this well
it all started
it all started when you start building your own stages and you're taking your
own production on
the road and they said dave we have to build our own custom barricade out there
you know
and i said well and this was a few years ago i said well let's then let's
customize it so we can
so we can uh do exactly what you just read
and we painted numbers on the on the inside and uh you know people keep
reminding me of this kind of
crazy image people keep invoking this this wild eyed slack-jawed image and
everything and i tell you
i've been seeing the same girl now for maybe two maybe three weeks man
but uh but you know you have it down to radio communique and a grid work and
codes well this is the
80s dave you know and i was trying to i i think and i i'm sure paul and the
guys will will testify
yeah they're the they're you're laughing the loudest ain't you man yeah and
there goes the lights on him
yeah you want to interact with the audience as closely as possible music music
is a sharing experience
and um i feel that we can use technology to bring uh bring ourselves closer to
each other and even in
private uh now tell me about the brings us back to video uh tell me about the
the club you're you have
a club that's uh not actually what you would think it would be but well that's
sort of that's um that's
an enterprise that we started out in los angeles is it's very difficult to have
an after hours place
there you know everything kind of they roll up the streets at two o'clock in
the morning and we had
to have a reason for keeping a place open after two and um originally what we
would do is uh i remember
one fella came in his name was tomato tomato came in to do an exhibit it's an
art gallery is what we
called it tomato and uh and uh you know and we had it members only from two o'clock
on on friday and
saturday and uh we had to have some art on members only to keep out the goofy
people exactly and uh
and uh tomato came in to do an exhibit and he looked at the walls and about six
days later he came
back with all of his art and did the place up and everything fit just perfectly
yeah man you know
around the door jams you know you know on the cusp of the windows and up into
the corners of the ceiling
at each it was a custom-made framing and everything and it turns out what he
did is he just made it
all up on the spot he came in and measured the gallery you know and then made
it kind of to order and
everything and that's the kind of art that we had in there ultimately we just
kept the same exhibit
going and going going just covered it with plastic on friday and saturday now
this is this is not what
i was talking about it's it's a great story but it's not what i was talking
about what are you talking
well this one right there about the the jungle oh that's something else
entirely well that's what i said
well i'm afraid that you're you're talking about the jungle studs the jungle
studs
but but we don't have time to go into the jungle studs now so we'll uh we'll
have to have you come
back another time now uh is is the uh the solo uh effort out yet yeah it came
out midnight at new
year's eve which is kind of my personal holiday and uh we'll see what happens
for 1985. well good and and
so you're going to be a weenie one more year all right david lee roth folks we'll
be right back