“Ace in the hole”: An album cover almost killed David Lee Roth
Rock and roll rebels against conformity by definition. Its essence lies in defiance, tracing back to its anti-establishment origins.
Skyscraper, the second album by David Lee Roth, was embued with controversy from its outset, not least because it saw the artist ditch his earlier sound for a more overt glam rock feel. For the singer, however, nothing compared to creating the extremity depicted in its album art.
The months before Skyscraper‘s release were a little strange, and not just because of Roth’s departure from Van Halen. Of course, the reshuffle forced Roth to quickly assemble a team of his own, comprising Steve Vai, Billy Sheehan, and Gregg Bissonette, and come up with something that outshone the original band’s 5150.
By the time they hit back with Skyscraper, however, there seemed to have been some controversies behind the scenes, given that Sheehan had already been replaced by Matt Bissonette, with Vai not lasting much longer until following suit. Although the first single, ‘Just Like Paradise’, became a popular chart-topper, most of Roth’s loyal Van Halen audience lost interest due to the new sound.
Clearly, Roth’s climb to commercial success wasn’t as linear or effortless as he might have once thought. None of that seemed to compare to what the musician endured while shooting the album cover, however, despite having significant climbing experience prior to the pursuit of the spectacle. Still, assistants Werner Braun and Ron Kauk felt that not much was needed to pull off Roth’s vision.
For Roth, the album cover needed to reflect the same larger-than-life attitude that defined his stage persona. Rather than settle for a conventional photoshoot, he wanted an image that captured genuine danger and spectacle, something that would match the flamboyant ambition of his solo career. Hanging from a sheer rock face thousands of feet above the valley floor certainly fit the brief.
It also reinforced Roth’s reputation for pushing every idea to the extreme. Throughout his career, he treated rock and roll as both performance and theatre, constantly looking for ways to turn even the smallest detail into a dramatic statement. If Skyscraper was meant to symbolise a new chapter for him, then posing on the edge of Half Dome ensured that the image would be impossible to ignore.
The team headed to the eastern end of Yosemite Valley in Yosemite National Park, California, best known as Half Dome. Rising nearly 5,000 feet above Yosemite Valley and 8,800 feet above sea level, the dangers of Half Dome cannot be understated, and while many have climbed – whether that’s free climbing or assisted – the batholith possesses an incredibly complex structure and has paid witness to around 40 to 60 deaths.
On the day of the shoot, Roth’s team made their way to the Half Dome Summit and waited while adventure photographer Galen Rowell chose the ideal location. After spotting “his ace in the hole,” according to Braun, he instructed Braun and Kauk “to set up David at the spot you see on the cover,” noting that he wanted Roth “out in some no man’s land with very little features”.
Although he raised his concerns about there being nowhere to sturdily hammer in an aid, Rowell urged him to push on. Placing a piton that was “sticking more than three-fourths of the way out,” Kauk hoped that it would be able to secure Roth and his weight. Luckily, everything worked out fine in the end, but given the fact that parts of Half Dome have a high technical difficulty grade, things could have turned out very differently.
