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Van Halen played a concert in Washington DC at the end of 1970s where they were opening for Ted Nugent, they handed Nuge's head back to him when they performed their opening set. Back then a very unknown band who had released their self titled debut which includes that Eddie Van Halen's immortal 'Eruption' solo (which spawned million neo-classical clones throughout the 80s) .

David Lee Roth (a.k.a Diamond David Lee Roth) is possibly the most charismatic frontman in Rock n Roll / metal history, a lesser known fact about him is this post du jour.

Diamond David Lee Roth (DLR for short, the acrobatic frontman of Van Halen, who also has a Roth Army and many other fan clubs, a published author and Radio DJ) is quite a brainiac, very literate and erstwhile known as 'the Mark Twain of metal' for his ready quotes for any occasion to blow away the listeners and boy, can he form a sentence!

I came across some of his wise quotes some years ago, since then there have been several places where his quotes are stored online. Well, here goes an almost definitive list of DLR quotes and decide for yourselves whether the guy lives up to the claims I made earlier. Some of his quotes have become so popular that one can easily mistake them for repeating a pop quote!

Inspiration doesn’t come from nowhere. You don’t lay in a dark black room and suddenly a burst of light and the hand of the lord comes out and says “here, have a song”

I'm a family-oriented guy. I've personally started four or five this year already.

Money can't buy you happiness, but it can buy you a yacht big enough to pull up right alongside it.

I used to jog, but the ice cubes kept falling out of my glass.

After all these years of bright lights, I still don't need glasses--I drink straight from the bottle.

The perfect woman has an IQ of 150, wants to make love until 4 in the morning, and then turns into a pizza.

I won't go down in history, but I will go down on your sister!

Hey, hey! Don't squirt water at me pal! I'm gonna fuck your girlfriend! [On stage - Us Festival 1983]

I used to have a drug problem, but now I make enough money so that it's not a problem anymore.

If you put a Van Halen album in your record collection it will melt all the rest of your records. [MTV interview quote ~1981]

I don't get all the women that I want--I get all the women that want me.

Young musicians are always coming up to me and asking 'how do you know when you've made it?' When you can spell 'subpoena' without thinking about it, that's when you know you've made it.

It's not who wants to sleep with you; it's who wants to sleep with you again.

Some people say that life is a cesspool of darkness and despair. Well, we in Van Halen are sailing through it on a yacht.

I think people want balance more than ever. You know, feed an Ethiopian, plant the rain forest, save the ozone layer--you gotta have that, "oh woe is me," as a form of self-dramatization; it's always fun. It shouldn't be replaced, but there should be a balance. Sooner or later, it's Miller time! Sooner or later, there is some hallelujah, watusi-tailgate, light-up-the-goddamn-sky-it's-finally-the-weekend! And I don't care whether you wear a cowboy hat or your hair is purple, I don't care if you have a wedding ring or a clit ring, sooner or later, there's Miller time! That doesn't mean simple belly laughs, and it doesn't mean high-brow. It just means, 'wanna go have a drink?'

DLR Band means Dave, Lowery, and Ray. I named it that because it sounds more like a band than David Lee Roth, which just sounds like a person. When you hear David Lee Roth - you think of a person. When you hear DLR Band - you think of a band. Just like when you hear Eddie Van Halen you think of a person, and when you hear Van Halen - you think of David Lee Roth!

Between my Huck Finn existence running barefoot through the great outdoors and having the best seat in the house for arguably the most important decade in the history of pop music, I had a formidable education.

I simply have to be creative all the time. I have to create new things. I never have writers block. You wanna figure out something to shoot? This is not an issue. You want some lyrics? This is not a problem. All of the ideas are constant. If nothing else, I am aware of what's going on around me. I always feel like I'm missing something unless I stay completely applied.

...Art is struggle. I love the struggle more than ever before. It's about dangerous waves of consequence. If there's no conflict I seem to create it, doc. Once something is stabilized, go bigger. We aren't innocents but we are abroad.

A banker will take a guitar and play three notes on it. A rock star will take a guitar and throw it across the room.

People come out of our concerts and feel invincible. They feel like a building could fall on them, nothing would happen. They feel like a car could hit them, nothing would happen. Frequently cars do hit them.

When I die, sprinkle my ashes over the 80's.

To me, it's not rocket surgery. It's very simple to put together. [About a possible Van Halen reunion]

"Hey, your girlfriend was partying with us backstage before the show, and she had a message for ya: 'mmfp mmf umf fmff mmm.'"

I support same-sex marriages as long as both chicks are hot!

Call me retro, I'm still hetero!

ProTools is not an instrument!

We call our selves the Fabulous Picasso brothers because Picasso represents fine art... and brothers..makes it sound like pizza delivery...

It's not whether you win or lose, it's how good you looked while doing it.

"Fame is like a flame. Some people burst onto the scene burning bright red, then in a coupl’a days the flame dies and there’s nothin but smoke. Some people burn yellow, slow and steady, they stick around for a long time and every once in a while you can warm your hands on ‘em. You get these real talented fuckers who just explode and burn white hot; these guys make it in the big time. Me? I wanna come at ya burnin bright blue.. cuz when that happens ya just go "Woh! I wanna wear that guy’s T-shirt!!""

"I feel like a shining example, but I'm not sure of what."

"Audience participation should extend from onstage to backstage to under the stage."

"I'd say in that whole 10 years that Van Halen were together, we got in a good 7 or 8 hours of rehearsal."

"Van Halen's not about the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow… its about the rainbow itself, baby !!"

"Its all just entertainment, baby! But its got to be from the guts and its gotta be real. If you can't do it in a white t-shirt and a pair of jeans under one light bulb, you shouldn’t fucking do it at all!!"

"There’s a place for everything..This go this way; this go that way; this go in your mouth!"

"Nothing last forever. . .but I am good for an entire night"

"I take care of my road crew ........ It's like this, When I've got food, they've got food. When I've got liquor, they've got liquor When I've got WOMEN, they've got....... LIQUOR!!!

"He who knows how - will always work for he who knows why."

"No California, that's not a microphone in my pants, I'm just happy to see ya!!!"

"We woke up together in the hotel room the next morning, and she says to me, 'Dave...what is it that you like about me so much?' The next thing I remember is when I looked down, deep down into her BIG RED EYES...and said, 'Honey, I just can't wait to FEEL YOUR LOOOOOOOOOVE TONIIIIIGHT!!"

"We wouldn't lie to ya, Cleveland! We just met ya! Lying's for later in the relationship..."

"All my flavors are g-g-g-guaranteed…..to satisfy….Sorry honey, I only got two flavors left: bubblegum and dick--an' it looks like we all outta bubbleguuuuuuuum!!"

"I'm gonna stand up for rock and roll tonite baby... actually, by the time we hit the stage I'll be lucky to stand up at all!!!"

"I always give three answers to my interviewers. The first one is: Okay, you're asking me this--but I'm gonna talk 'bout whatever the fuck I want. The second answer is: Before I answer that question let me say this, then I'll talk about whatever the fuck I want. And the third one is: Oh, I see what you're asking...but I'm gonna talk 'bout whatever the fuck I want. It's like 'open forum with Dave."

"The girls in Sweden are fantastic. Last night when I went to bed in my hotel room, there was a girl banging on my hotel room door. She screamed and begged me to open the door. I kept shoutin’ at her to keep it down. Finally I had to get up… and let her out."

"There's a spark. Its inside us. Some kind of crazy wild energy. Energy is what it's all about. When you celebrate something, you're making energy. When you have a thought, you're making energy. When you make love, you're making whole bunches of energy. And the saddest things in life are loss of energy. Somebody dies, something dies, …loss of energy. Something stops, your car grinds to a halt, and you gotta leave it there by the side of the Santa Monica Freeway, …loss of energy. And it takes different buttons to hit that spark in each person. Some people need a hockey game, some people need a political rally, and for the rest of us…there’s Van Halen!!!"

"When you get something like MTV, it's just like with regular television. You get it, and at first it's novel and brand new and then you watch every channel, every show. And then you become a little more selective, until ultimately..... You wind up with a radio."

"We’ve all got our vices. Self-destructive bad habits. The trick is to find the 4 or 5 you personally like the best, …and just do those all the time."

"I just want to be in show biz. I want to make music and sing and dance, tell jokes and stories; make ya smile; make ya cry; and then charge you $ 8.50"

"We loved those early days- the bars and the wet t-shirt gigs. For a while we were the Rock Corporation of LA and we did the very first wet t-shirt contests in Southern California- the ones that got me busted and actually made it to the court trials. It was a great scene. I'd be the MC, with the band behind me, and I'd interview the contestant. 'What do you do for a living?' 'Oh, I'm a doughnut waitress from Canoga Park.' Then I'd make a joke and she'd jump into the pool and get wet. Then I'd say 'What song would you like to hear?' 'Oh, I'd just love 'Free Ride'. So I'd have to say 'It seems this lady would love a free ride' and the audience would crack up. We'd play the song, she'd do her twitch and bump, and the rest of the girls would bounce in. At the end, the judges were too fucked up to make any decision so we'd have to run through all the contestants again. 500 people standing on top of each other, drunk and screaming. And there was the dance contests. Well, that's how you develop your habits and your attitudes as a band and you take them with you!"

"With a little budget and some creativity, you can sell a toothbrush to a camel. With a bigger budget and some more creativity, you can sell him 2 toothbrushes. With an even bigger budget and a LOT of creativity, you can not only sell him a dozen toothbrushes, but he will walk away wondering how he ever got along without them.... and then he'll jump on your mailing list!!"

"People asks me, "Dave, what's it mean when you say somebody's rock n roll or somebody's not rock n roll"? Allow me to illustrate: There’s a guy with black socks, black shoes, blue and white Bermuda shorts, a Hawaiian luau shirt, a Nikon and a Walk-Man around his neck, zinc oxide on his nose, a pair of sunglasses, a fishing hat with all the badges on it, and he's staring up at the tall buildings - that's rock n' roll." Now, the freedom to do that is very serious, but the picture sure is a crackup."

"Saving the world is Bono's job. We just wanna save 100 cities!"

"There's a little Van Halen in all of us, and we're just trying to bring it out. It's like something that makes you not care what people around you are thinking. It makes you invincible, like if a car hit you, nothing would happen to you. It should make you feel like the Charge of Light Brigade, even if you're just going to the bathroom. When you do that on a mass level, it becomes hysterical, not political. It expands to a large group of people not caring about conventions, just getting in the thrill of being themselves. That experience is about the audience, not us. All we do is provide the soundtrack. At a Van Halen show you’re walking into a self created fantasyland where everything happens four times as quick. Whatever somebody else can't do in his 9 to 5 job, I can do for them in Rock n' Roll."

"Women are my hobby... every man needs something to keep his hands busy, and I don't have a guitar like Eddie, or drums to bash like Alex, so I have to find some friends, baby."

"A lot of bands mature, which means they get square and self-important; d then they start delivering messages in music. Hey, you got a message, use Western Union."

"If a great surgeon can insure his eyes, and a great pianist can insure his his fingers, I figure, what the fuck I should be able to insure my dick."

"Van Halen kept things simple. All we we're doing was giving our daily lives melodies, beats and titles. What we sang about is what we lived. It's the glamour, the tinsel, the non-stop, late-night, endless party that is the crest of the biggest wave with spray in your face, It's the laugh in the face of death blown out of proportion, and heightened sense of reality. That’s the wonderful, wacky, crazy, world of rock n' roll."

"There are three rings to marriage: the engagement ring, the wedding ring and the suffering""

"I have tried many different forms of presentation in the past years. I was proud of some and less proud of others... But I did them all superbly!"

"I've got a surgically implanted disco beat. My show has to be 130 beats a minute or better. Let's hit it! Open up them pearly gates because I am the California earthquake!"

"I was with a girl not terribly long ago and she said "Mr. Roth, I think you’re the oldest person I've ever been with." I said "Honey I was just gonna say the same thing to you."

"Whoever said that money don't buy you pleasure didn't know where to go shopping, baby"

"I would just like to say that after all these years of heavy drinking, bright lights and late nights, I still don't need glasses. I drink right out of the bottle."

"Many critics have kids of their own. It scares the hell out of them to think that their kids could be anything remotely like David Lee Roth".

"You bet your ass this real whiskey… The only people who put iced tea in Jack Daniel’s bottles is The Clash, Baby!"

It's funny---here I am the son of a Jewish doctor, and the Van Halens are sons of a musician, a world traveler. They wound up married with children, and I'm by myself, never happy staying in any one place for too long."

"When Van Halen played the US Festival, we got over a million bucks for one night's work! But what am I going to do, sing a million dollars harder at the US Festival than at the Whisky? Honey, I sing like a million bucks every night."

"Look at all the people here tonight!"

"If you're a clever human being, if you are sassy, if you have the ability to be sexy and laugh at the same time, if you love a slam-dunk approach to music with a toast and a tear, if the bittersweet appeals to you, yet you'd rather look over your shoulder and see two hot fuck-me mambo babes scorching your retinas with alarming frequency, then my music was custom built for you."

"Love is overrated. I was in love once. Know what I found out? Love means having to say you're sorry every five minutes, and then playing with yourself at night while the person lying next to you is passed out."

"I already knew when I was seven years old, that I wanted to be on stage and entertain people. I sell laughs. The kind you’ll pay money for, cuz you’ll be giggling while you’re grabbin' your goodies. There, you just got one for free!"

"Of course I'm stoned! What do you think the fucking sunglasses are for, man?!"

"What are the characteristics of a good rock'n'roller? Rock'n'roll is in you. You either got it or you don't. You can't fake it. It has to be inside you just itching to get out. And when it does, POW! It's like a dam bursting. That's Van Halen."

"I approach my concerts as if I were having a blind date with a woman. I ask myself, `Would I still be here if I were blind?"

"My visions and fantasies are pretty standard. The only difference is I got to do it, while most people don’t. Beyond that, I'm a pretty standard guy. Give me a gal with a sense of humor, acidic wit, who’s read a few books and has a body like a Swedish speed skater, and I'm quite content."

"Van Hagar can keep trying to provide the rain but I’ll just go on and keep providing the parade."

"I wanna find me a gal who is a Princeton graduate, top of the class, comes from academic family, plays roller hockey full contact, 2,3 times a week, She'd be taller than me and stronger than me and wants to go kayaking on the weekend. She’d be Dry, critical, sarcastic, elitist, distant, ..fuck!.. hey, baby lets get married?"

"I used to make music with Edward Van Halen, Now I make music without listening to my bank account"

"Yeah, "Panama" is a pretty sexy song; I always thought that song should’ve been sung by a girl; now ya got Sammy Hagar. Any questions?"

"Old Van Halen, when I was in it-classic Van Halen-made you wanna drink, dance and screw, right? New Van Halen encourages you to drink milk, drive a Nissan and have a relationship".

"Love to me is when you can't think straight because another person is always on your mind, in a positive way. If you see something you like and think, "I wish my girlfriend were here to see this", that's love."

"Baby, don't stick that tongue out at me, unless you're gonna use it..

Whats that honey?, Ah, She says she's ready to use it!!"

"Sweetheart, I just wanna let you know that I respect you for your mind; your book learnin’, the confidence you exude, your poise, grace, intelligence and independence you demonstrate; now lose the dress and keep the shoes!"

"Oh, baby. Look at you; you’re just so cute. I’ll bet you shit sugar!"

"How many rockstars does it take to screw in a lightbulb? Just one. Just hold it in place and let the whole world revolve around you."

"In Laramie, Wyoming, they play classic Van Halen over the PA between innings. It fires the team up. It fires the fans up. Evidently it fires the coach up too, ‘cause he gets thrown out of more ball games than any other coach in America. Glad to have been of assistance!"

"Ya know, you can always tell when Gary Cherone is standing at your front door; He never really knows when to come in, and he can never seem to find the right key."

"I don’t wanna be the same guy tomorrow that I am today. Nobody really does - well, with the possible exception of Ozzy Osbourne!"

"In the 70’s things were simpler. You didn’t have AIDS; you didn’t have Moms Against Drunk Drivers with AIDS; you didn’t have Ethiopian Branch Davidians with AIDS; Life was just one long half-time party."

"Back in the day we’d play these backyard keg parties, and the cops would always bust ‘em up. We’d just go ‘man, we’re with the band. All we want is out.’ So they’d leave us alone. Then we’d add, ‘oh, and she’s with me. And so is she. Her too.’"

"Bill Gazzari, the old codger, he dug my sense of humor. For the first two years we played his club, he called me Van. Its a good thing I didn’t come from a band named Pink Floyd."

"Ya know how many angry militant feminist lesbians it take to screw in a light bulb?........ Two - one to change the bulb and one to suck my dick."
"I would get the classic Van Halen back together in a heartbeat. But I wouldn’t go back up there on the hill without a lawyer and a valium."

" I learned the importance of rationalizations when I was young. I’ve heard that rationalizations are more important than sex. When’s the last time you went three days without making an excuse? Me too."

"For a while on the first tour, we were opening up for Journey. Journey would have a few people backstage, but they were all married, it was very domestic. The Van Halen backstage party would be packed, so we’d regularly be threatened to be kicked off the tour. During sound check one day the singer’s got this scarf around his neck, and I said to him, ‘Why do you have scarf around your neck?’ He said ‘It was a rough night last night; strained myself a bit.’ Next day at sound check I showed up on stage with a scarf around my dick!"

"In some of the classic Van Halen tunes, the lyrics don’t exactly make sense. In the song ‘Everybody Wants Some’ for example, the original lyric was ‘I’ve seen a lot of people just looking for a moonbeam.’ That doesn’t sizzle and snap, crackle, pop for ya. So instead I sang "Sheepa latta peepah dabba lookafo a moobee," and it means so much more! Depending on what you had for breakfast you’re gonna come up with a different interpretation every time, baby!"

"Our rider said ‘Brown M&M’s anywhere in the backstage area may result in the forfeiture of the show with full compensation.’ Hey, Caruso forbade whistling backstage. Its a luck thing. I wanted to make it seem like a complete act of self-indulgent extravagance - which I’ve always found very attractive. Hey sign me up. Can she come too?"

"I found some brown M&M’s back stage one night in Pueblo, Colorado. I went into this full Shakespearean ‘What is this before me?’ You know, with the skull in one hand… and promptly trashed the dressing room. Just a little fun. Later, same night, the staging sank through the floor because the arena didn’t check the weight requirements. It came out in the press that I did $85,000 in damages because there were brown M&M’s backstage. Well, who am I to get in the way of a good rumor."

"Van Halen toured with Black Sabbath once, and Ozzy disappeared. I sat up all night with Tony Iommi keeping watch. Next morning Ozzy comes down into the hotel lobby. Turns out the guy still had a hotel key from the last city of the tour. He went up to the room number on the key, kicked everyone out of the room and went to sleep. This is my life."

"I bumped into Ed and Valerie one day not long ago. I hadn’t spoken to Ed in years. So I trot on over and go "Hey Edward, man, how are you?" and Valerie answers "He’s fine." So the I congratulate them on having their son. I wanted desperately to ask who the father was, but there’s a time for levity."

"To Do is to be... Plato said that.... To Be is to do.. Aristotle said that... Shoo-be-do-be do...Sinatra, baby!"

"Classic Van Halen was a dynasty, a team; and we could reconvene tomorrow, and then this interview would be taking place backstage at your choice, of which night at Giant Stadium. Its just that simple."

"During the break at our shows we’d have these girls come out, bumpin’ & grindin’, hot, live, and steaming for your filthy little eyes. They’d be lined up and dancing in these little vacuum packed miniskirts, up on our ten foot high stage. Look skyward, Luke, and behold the force."

"I devised a plan to have a high power squirting device built, so that I could get a solid stream of Jack Daniels to shoot fifteen feet out into the crowd. Word got around that you could see people four meter away from the stage catching it in their mouths, bathing in it, yelling ‘Heal Me!’ Now, that's entertainment."

"There are two rules to living well. The first is, don't sweat the little shit. The second is, it's all little shit. In other words, We may be lost, but we're way ahead of schedule."

"Heidi Fleiss? Yeah, I knew Heidi. But I didn’t inhale…"

"Van Halen was a very positive, uplifting, and lively thing for millions. When you’re fortunate enough to dispense that kind of magic, I think its a sin not to use it; a shame to withhold it. We’re in the business of selling smiles; for a moment; for a couple of hours; for the length of a performance - people leave the boss behind, the unhappy home-life, whatever responsibility they got, and you go to a little island in the back of your imagination; a little island called Van Halen. And, that my friend, is of immense therapeutic value."

"I love Saturday Night Fever. I’ve bought that album - easily one-third of the 20 million copies sold. You know, one for the car, one for the house, one for your sister…."

"The National Enquirer is the only paper I use for more than rolling joints. That's entertainment, baby!"

"Wanna know why "Unplugged" is so popular? Its not to see the winners; you watch Clapton, Aerosmith - stellar, right? No, we watch it to see bands like Great White or Billy Squier crucify themselves. We watch to see a car crash. Did you see Poison on "Unplugged" - my God they sucked so bad! How bad? Well, let me take about two fuckin hours of your time and I’ll tell y’all about it."

"I’m basically a one trick pony. When I’m not a rock star anymore, I’m basically out of a job. I won’t become a disc jockey. That’s a refined art form in and of itself. You wont see me produce other bands. That’s not my calling. You wont see me act, alongside thespians who’ve studied acting as long as I’ve studied music. When I’m done singing in front of a rock band. I’m done;. Then just send me somewhere there’s salt water."

"The perfect woman has an IQ of 150, legs that wrap around you twice, wants to make love until 4 in the morning, then turns into a pizza!"

"I wanna be a pirate. I wanna live by pirate rules. Desperate men in search of desperate fortunes? You bet yer ass!"

"When we get to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, I'm going to look at Mike Anthony and say, "It was a great time, and YOU were there." I’ll look at Alex and say, "We were creative and fearless, and YOU were there." I’ll look at Edward and say, 'Hey man, we made a contribution, and YOU were there." Then I’ll glance at Sammy and say, "Uh.. YOU weren't there."

"Van Halen music , when I was in it, made you wanna drink, dance and screw.

New Van Halen encourages you to drink milk, drive a Nissan and have a relationship. Any questions?

When you're on the road for nine months and you always have these cute little chiquitas running around in their halter tops, it's kinda hard to worry about things like nuclear proliferation.

"My show is the best kind of entertainment, like porno. You can't spoil the ending because everyone already knows it."

"I decided to name my new band DLR because when you say David Lee Roth people think of an individual, but when you say DLR you think of a band. Its just like when you say Edward Van Halen, people think of an individual, but when you say Van Halen, you think of…David Lee Roth, baby!"

"We’d all heard stories of rock bands throwing TV’s out hotel windows. I like getting enough extension cords plugged together so that the TV stays on, all the way to the ground. I don’t know why, its just kind of abstract, but that’s what made it aesthetic."

Check out Van Halen’s Greatest Hits CD. Half of them songs have somebody else singing, so they had to included a commemorative guitar pick in the packaging. How embarrassing! What are they gonna include on the next record, an apology?

"I’m kinda like Darth Vader in the Star Wars sequel; you know you ain’t seen the last of me, and chances are I could be your father. Heh Heh"

"Sammy (Hagar) throws a party. I am a party."

"Sammy Hagar's the kinda guy who splits a bottle with a friend. I'm the kinda guy that splits a friend with a bottle."

Phew!
That was something. Was it good for you?

Notes:
David Lee Roth (often referred to as "Diamond Dave") (born October 10, 1954, Bloomington, Indiana) is an American rock vocalist, songwriter, actor, author, and former radio personality, best known as the lead singer for Van Halen. After leaving Van Halen, Roth started his own career as a solo artist with musicians such as Steve Vai (guitar). His early albums were well received, but starting in the early 1990s, subsequent releases fared successively worse as popular musical tastes changed and Roth's band underwent numerous personnel changes.

Roth re-united with Van Halen, and the group has recently concluded a lengthy North American Tour. During 2008, an album and further worldwide touring are proposed to follow... More about David Lee Roth

Parting Shot:

The news about Metallica's new album produced by knobster Rick Rubin which is about to be released in Septemeber is making rounds all over the internet and there are hardly any Metalli-nerds left to get excited about it. Couple of days ago the tracklist was leaked and I was surprised to find Unforgiven III. No, not another James Hetfield ballad?
Any takers? I am interested about what difference could Rick Rubin make to the sold out monster that is Metallica. Rick Rubin is such a guy who used to produce the songs for AC DC and RHCP on a same day!

Well, as for me I am off to UnderGrind over the weekend at Charlie and the Gore-factory. Gonna be a major pain in the neck, I reckon.

\m/

Labels: maxMadness, maxMusic