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Wild Stories From David Lee Roth
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Apr 15, 2025
David Lee Roth is a legend. He's one of the greatest lead singers of all time, for one of the greatest rock bands of all time: Van Halen. Diamond Dave led VH from its initial success in 1978 through the coked-out, Spandex days of the 1980s, fronting the band 11 years and running with the devil every single day. A consummate rock star, Dave's over-the-top persona and insane stage antics often overshadowed the genius of the band's music, which more or less conjured the entire genre of hair metal from thin air. David Lee Roth and Van Halen had quite a run together, as these crazy David Lee Roth stories attest. David Lee Roth.
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Groupies, broken noses, straitjackets, spandex, food fights, more groupies, a weeping Steve Perry, and Colombian snow
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Lots and lots of Colombian snow. These accoutrements could only describe the life of one man
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Today, we're going to learn about some of the crazy, behind-the-scenes stories of the great David Lee Roth
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We've all heard how bands like Motley Crue and Poison had their roadies to wrangle groupies
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during concerts for post-show shenanigans. But let's give credit where credit is due
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It was Roth's idea first. During the band's 1979 tour, Roth was the first musician to incentivize his road crew
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by rewarding them with cold hard cash for bounty hunting groupies. Roth called it Diamond Dave's Bonus Program
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which kind of sounds like a credit card promotion. Here's how it worked. Before every Van Halen gig, each member of the band's road crew
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was given five backstage passes to distribute during every show. The roadies would then mark the passes with their initials
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and hand them out to qualifying women during the concert. The roadie who supplied the backstage pass to the woman
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that Roth ultimately chose to sleep with after the concert would earn $100 and receive commendation at the band's next pre-show dinner
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As an added incentive, Roth promised the Overworks Road crew that the women with backstage passes he didn't sleep with
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were up for grabs once the trucks were loaded with the band's stage gear. The program was so popular, it increased crew efficiency
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cutting the time it took to tear down at the end of the night in half. All of that groupie action also inspired Roth to get his lawyers
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to ensure his wang for a cool million dollars. Yes, it's true. At the peak of his days with Van Halen, Roth asked his lawyers if he could insure
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his mini-Dave, the same way Gene Simmons insured his tongue for $1 million and Dolly Parton insured
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her, hmm, Partons for $600,000. In an interview with Huffington Post in March 2013, Roth was asked
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whether it was true he insured his little Elvis for $1 million with Lloyds of London, a nickname he gave his member
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as a tribute to Elvis Presley I don know if Elvis would appreciate that As it turns out there some truth to the rumor Worried or inspired by a paternity suit that had been brought against Eddie Van Halen
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which was later dismissed, David Lee Roth allegedly got the idea to take out an insurance policy
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so the same thing couldn't happen to him. Unfortunately for Dave, no company would provide coverage
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Even Lloyds of London eventually refused to back such a policy. Of course, Van Halen's tour manager, Noel Monk
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thought it would make for a great PR story. and let it leak to the press that Roth had taken out a $1 million paternity insurance policy
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Whether it's true or not, we may never know. But as Roth wrote years later, who am I to get in the way of a good rumor
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Not all of David Lee's wild behind-the-scenes hijinks had to do with women and his little Elvis
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Sometimes it involved food fights that made grown men cry. When they were touring as the opening band for Journey in 1978
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Van Halen had more than a lot of downtime to get into trouble after their set
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Assuming that hot and cold running groupies got boring after a while, the boys of Van Halen had a good old-fashioned food fight
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While Eddie Van Halen ended it, Roth definitely started it, and Steve Perry got caught in the crossfire
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According to Monk, Roth kicked off the food fight by throwing a bowl of peanuts at Eddie
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Eddie retaliated by throwing a huge bowl of guacamole at Roth. But the guitarist missed and covered Perry with a delicious avocado dip
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Perry then ran to the dressing room's bathroom and wept. Here's how Monk explained it in his book
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I found Steve standing in front of the sink. From the top of his luxurious mane of silky black hair to the middle of his shimmering new sateen journey jacket
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he was completely covered in guacamole. Hey, Steve, I tried to keep my tone gentle and the sheer terror out of my voice
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You okay? Steve slowly turned around so that I could get a full frontal view of the onslaught
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I was going to wear this on stage tonight, he told me, tapping the chest of his jacket, his lower lip quivering
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Words failed him, and for a moment I thought he was about to erupt, to start screaming, to demand that we pay for damages and leave the tour immediately
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have our heads mounted on spikes and set outside the front doors of our next gig
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But instead, he simply began crying, a soft, sad little whimper. Van Halen was already an established powerhouse when MTV launched in 1981 so it made sense that the new network cozy up with the band Professionally the band and MTV got on like chocolate and peanut butter
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Some of those early Van Halen videos would be played on the hour every hour, so it makes sense that they'd become tight recreationally as well
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And if anyone was close with Van Halen, it was Mark Goodman, one of MTV's founding VJs
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He became one of Roth's closest friends at the time and got into a lot of trouble with the singer
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As explained by Goodman in the 2013 book VJ, The Unplugged Adventures of MTV's First Wave
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Diamond Dave developed a highly organized system for finding post-gig tale. When Dave was touring, both with Van Halen and Solo
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he had the barriers in front of the stage painted different colors on the side that faced him
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red, blue, and green, to denote the different areas of the audience. He'd look for hot girls in the crowd
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And between songs, go to his assistant, Eddie, on the side of the stage and say
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Green, right, 14 rows back, three seats in. The assistant would go out into the audience and stick a pass on her breasts
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So after the show, there'd be 25 girls in the dressing room who all thought they'd been singled out to be with Dave that night
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In fact, a number of them would be. The others would end up with other band members, or if necessary, the crew
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It's unclear whether this system tied into Diamond Dave's bonus program. As mentioned, Roth took to MTV swimmingly, especially the VJs, who liked to party just as much as the singer, like Alan Hunter and the aforementioned Goodman
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It was in the early 80s, and everything was done in excess. If you were in the music industry and had disposable income, it's just what you did
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For example, at some point between 81 and 85, Hunter was at a New Jersey music festival with Van Halen on the bill
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Early in the day, during the concert, Hunter went looking for Goodman, who was there as well
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Going from door to door among the backstage dressing room trailers reserved for performers
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Hunter walked in on Goodman doing lines with Roth. Here's what Hunter remembers
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I knocked on a door, opened it up, and Mark was in there with David Lee Roth
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Hey, come on in. Close the door. I walked in and they were sitting at a little table
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Dave had a big vial. They invited me to join them. Before we knew it, the trailer was packed
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No one was sitting with us because they didn't know David. We did. It was like we were royalty We were completely nonchalant about 50 other people watching us people in the TV world publicists people we didn know any of them could have gone out and said man we watching two VJs sit there with David Lee Roth
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Now, this is a legendary true story, and an event that kind of set the tone for the beginning
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of the end of Van Halen. The setting was at Roth's sprawling Pasadena home for the photo shoot of Women and Children
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and First, the band's third album. Van Halen was one of the hottest rock bands in the world
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and Roth thought that the hottest rock band in the world deserved to be photographed by the hottest photographer
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in the world. In 1979, that photographer was fashion icon Helmut Newton
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Roth hunted down Newton in a Beverly Hills hotel and pitched the photographer for him
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to photograph Roth for the cover of Van Halen's new album. There was no mention of the rest of the band
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Cut to Eddie and Alex Van Halen walking out onto Roth's lush backyard where the bare-chested singer
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was bound to a fence with chains. According to a Warner Brothers art director
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the Van Halen boys were confused that the photo shoot had already started. When they were told this was a solo shoot
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and Roth would be the only one photographed, they were understandably irate
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Newton's photos never made it on women and children first. Instead, Warner Brothers hired famed rock photographer
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Norman Seif to shoot another set of images for the album. Seif's photos are iconic, and they
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helped delay Van Halen's breakup for five or six more years. Side note, only two of Newton's images
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have surfaced of that fateful December day. An outtake of Roth on his knees, bound to a chain-link
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fence, and a portrait of Eddie that would be used for Van Halen's 1980 press kit
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The expression on Eddie's face says everything about how he felt that day
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A few days into Van Halen's 1981 Fair Warning Tour
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the band's tour manager received a distressed call from the band's road manager saying Roth had kind of went nuts
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Roth going a bit crazy was nothing new, but this time things were different
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The band's tour manager, Noel Monk, said he wouldn't settle down, so he put him in a straitjacket
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The fact that a lead singer of a notoriously famous rock band loses it on the road isn't news
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It happens a lot. But for a road crew to actually have a fitted straitjacket on hand
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shows just how crazy Diamond David Lee Roth was
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