David Lee Roth Shares and Recalls Van Halen’s Club Life

David Lee Roth Shares and Recalls Van Halen’s Club Life | Society Of Rock Videos

via davidleeroth/Instagram

In the most recent episode of The Roth Show, singer David Lee Roth tells tales from Van Halen‘s club days.

Just two years before they signed with Warner Brothers and released their self-titled first album in 1978, the rocker recounted numerous stories from the band’s time playing in the southern California club circuit during the early 1970s. Roth said:

“It was 1975, we were at the top of our game.

“All In The Family’ was the television show, the ‘Thrilla In Manilla’, and Van Halen at our peak, and we were singing our a**es off.”

Roth also discussed the band’s insatiable desire to succeed despite watching their friends go on to what appear to be more solid futures. He recounted their weekly routine, which included two days of vocal practice, and traveling back and forth to club dates while having to load in and load out their own gear. He added:

“We lived with terror of the unforeseen finish. We watched all of our friends go to college, join the military, start travelling…get their lives started – and we spent five and a half years wondering ‘are we really gonna dance the night away’.”

Van Halen was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2007 with more than 80 million albums sold worldwide. However, five years after the band’s final performance at the Hollywood Bowl in October 2015, guitarist Eddie Van Halen passed away in 2020 from a stroke and other complications after a long battle with cancer.

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