The David Lee Roth performance Eddie Van Halen didn’t like: “I don’t think he sang as well”
Not every rock and roll band has to have God’s gift to vocalists everywhere as their frontman. Any singer can try to be the next Freddie Mercury, but there are just as many who want to try their hand at being Tom Waits and getting their signature growl going whenever they perform. Although David Lee Roth didn’t really fit into either category, Eddie Van Halen believed that he left a lot to be desired when making Fair Warning.
Granted, ‘Diamond Dave’s voice is something that many people usually have to get used to the first time they hear it. It’s one thing for Roth to have his traditional blues-soaked singing on some of the band’s early work, but there are just as many moments where he goes for his signature screams and doesn’t quite get to where he needs to go.
Half the time, does that really matter, though? Roth’s only job in Van Halen seemed to be the emcee of one of the biggest parties on Earth, and it wasn’t like he was incapable of getting people on their feet. After all, he was a glorified cartoon character onstage, and some of his best songs saw him putting that personality onto vinyl.
On Fair Warning, hardly anyone seemed to be focused as much as Eddie was. After coming off yet another mammoth tour, it would be understandable if none of them wanted to perform together for a little while, but Eddie was more than happy to keep his head down and play as much of his guitar as he wanted.
For all of the great music that was on Fair Warning, though, Eddie thought Roth wasn’t really pulling his weight as much as he should have, saying, “The truth is, I don’t think he sang as well as I played. Like always, we went back into the studio pretty quickly after the tour. Dave took his two weeks off while I worked my ass off getting some ideas together.”
It’s not like that hard work doesn’t show, either. On nearly every song on the record, Eddie pulls out something else from his bag of tricks that no one would have been thinking about at the time. One minute, he would be playing drums on guitar on ‘Mean Street’, and then something like ‘Sinner’s Swing’ would come on with a solo that sounds like it’s ripped from some wild Frank Zappa record.
If we’re being honest here, it’s not like Roth did a terrible job on the record or anything. There are definitely some sore spots, like on ‘Push Comes to Shove’ or when he doesn’t bother showing up for ‘Sunday Afternoon in the Park’, but a song like ‘Mean Street’ has all the swagger that you would expect out of Roth at this stage, even managing to get a little more dangerous over time.
And if nothing else, the album should be commended for giving us one of the greatest exchanges in Van Halen’s history. Towards the mid-section of ‘Unchained’, hearing Ted Templeman say, ‘C’mon Dave, gimme a break’ followed by Roth saying, ‘One break coming up’ before going right back into the chorus is the epitome of what the frontman was all about. It was a little rough around the edges, but it’s hard to picture anyone else singing a line like that.
