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The Latest Breaking News from David Lee Roth

"I thought it was the lamest song I ever wrote in my life. It took me six months before I worked up the nerve to show the guys." The story of the Van Halen classic written to mock punk and embraced by the punk rockers

Producer Ted Templeman says Van Halen's Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love is his favourite song from all those he's worked on

Metal Hammer

“Ed’s own techs said the only person that could help was this girl outta Nashville. Joe called me and said, ‘Apparently I should be talking to you’”: How Joe Satriani found the amp builder for his dream Eddie Van Halen tone

Satriani needed an amp with exacting specifications for the Best of All Worlds tour – and he got more than he bargained for

Guitar World

“We’re playing Led Zeppelin songs, and Eddie would imitate Jimmy Page… I mean, he had it down!”: Steve Farris on the time he jammed ZZ Top and Led Zeppelin songs with Eddie Van Halen

The Mr Mister guitarist got a front row seat to Eddie Van Halen's greatness when they they were both Peavey artists playing a NAMM show

MusicRadar

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10 bands who peaked with the first song on their first album

Some bands just get it right first time

Louder

“I did four or five songs, then Ozzy said, ‘Welcome aboard’. I would have loved to have spent more time with him”: Randy Rhoads was his guitar teacher. Then he ended up in Ozzy Osbourne’s band

Joe Holmes looks back on his time with Ozzy and David Lee Roth, and explains why his upcoming solo album, featuring former Ozzy band members, captures everything he’s learned up till now

Guitar World

“He had an electric guitar, and his mom wouldn’t let him plug into the amp”: David Lee Roth fights tears as he recalls his partnership with Eddie Van Halen

The singer spoke of the touching “full circle” moment that bookmarked their final chapter together

Guitar World

“We were on the Howard Stern show. My personal assistant asked me, ‘Would you mind switching places with someone? I said, ‘Eff off!’ He said, ‘Let me tell you who it is first. It’s Paul McCartney.’ I said, ‘It’s done!’”: Ozzy Osbourne’s funny stories

“Sharon’s going, ‘Smile!’ And this chimp is biting my thumb off!”

MusicRadar

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“We did call him because we owed him that. He was important for the band”: Alex Van Halen says they tried to recruit Michael Anthony for Van Halen’s David Lee Roth reunion

Wolfgang Van Halen would take Anthony’s place, but he didn’t get the gig because of “family influences,” the drummer says

Guitar World

“This cop came into my dressing room. He's like Robocop – helmet, goggles, gun, handcuffs. He says, ‘Those little fellas – do you hang one of them every night?’”: Ozzy Osbourne’s outrageous tales of idiot lawmen, werewolves, chimpanzees and Paul McCartney

“Sharon’s going, ‘Smile!’ And the chimp is biting my thumb off!”

MusicRadar

“The original idea was Steve Stevens, but he was busy with Billy Idol”: How Steve Vai ended up joining David Lee Roth's post-Van Halen band – thanks to Billy Sheehan

While Vai wasn’t his original choice, the Sheehan-Vai dynamic proved strong enough to outlast Roth’s project

Guitar World

"As a vocalist, every word I sing in the Van Halen songbook, I wrote. I wrote every line, every melody, every harmony stack. For better or worse, if you're singing it – Roth was bringing it": David Lee Roth has clarified his creative role in Van Halen

“Our stuff is like West Side Story,” he says of the Van Halen back catalogue

MusicRadar

“We bounced around the idea of having everyone from Joe Cocker to Phil Collins to Mike Rutherford sing”: Out went David Lee Roth and Frankenstein, in came Sammy Hagar and Kramer –the story of Van Halen’s rebirth

It was the end of an era. Roth’s exit, Frankenstein's last hurrah. But it was the start of a new one as Eddie Van Halen got experimental on 1986's blockbuster, 5150

Guitar World

“I discovered that it would be harder to try to replicate his tone than anybody else”: Steve Vai has followed in the footsteps of many guitar greats – this was the hardest one to nail

He’s filled the shoes of Eddie Van Halen and Robert Fripp, but Vai says this particular gig was even harder

Guitar World

“I kept saying, ‘I’m not the guy. Call Nuno’”: Joe Satriani put Nuno Bettencourt’s name forward for failed EVH tribute tour with Alex Van Halen and David Lee Roth

Before embarking on the Best of All Worlds tour with Sammy Hagar, Satch was close to hitting the road for a Van Halen tribute tour with Roth and Alex Van Halen

Guitar World

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MusicRadar

“I said, ‘Sam, I’m gonna tell you what I told Alex, which is, I don’t really play like Eddie’”: Joe Satriani says he told David Lee Roth and Alex Van Halen to call Nuno Bettencourt when they called about EVH tribute tour

Satch says the tribute tour got close to a show, but after it all fell through, Sammy Hagar came in with an offer he couldn’t refuse, and he needed a new amp to nail Eddie Van Halen's tone

Louder

"I said, 'This is our last show.' He said OK. We never, ever talked about why it was so easy to break up the band." The curious story of the thinking man's hair metal band, and where it all went wrong

Two million sales. A dizzying rise. And a cataclysmic fall

Guitar World

“It was the most coveted guitar chair in rock. I adored Edward’s playing, so I understood that people would be skeptical”: How Steve Vai lived his ultimate guitar rockstar fantasy on David Lee Roth’s Eat ’Em and Smile

Working with David Lee Roth was like "being strapped to a rocket made of charisma and fueled by tequila” – and the music was pretty fun, too

Louder

"They got signed on their talent, on their original material, but also on their looks. They looked like Robert Plant and Jimmy Page." The story of the album that rescued rock'n'roll from the darkness and built a brighter future

Rock was stale, and dinosaurs were lumbering. Then an album arrived that was an effervescent shot in the arm for an entire genre

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MusicRadar

“Eddie was always experimenting. Keyboards entered the mix, but it didn’t sound like a keyboard because Eddie played this cheap little Wurlitzer blazing through Marshalls”: Van Halen's Michael Anthony on the band’s cult classic Women And Children First

Less surprisingly, he said “it was party time in the studio”

Guitar World

“He was across the hall and I mentioned my tone troubles to him…” How Steve Stevens saved Steve Vai on his David Lee Roth debut

Vai was a novice at “big rock guitar tones” at the time – but Stevens came to his rescue

Louder

David Lee Roth announces extensive North American tour

Diamond Dave will cross the continent from April onwards

MusicRadar

“Eddie told me, ‘Roth is driving me nuts. I can't take it. I gotta leave. I know you're looking for a lead guitar player. Do you want me in the band?’”: When Eddie Van Halen asked to join Kiss – and they turned him down!

Guitar World

“We parked up outside Steve Vai’s caravan. His guitar tech saw me. Next thing you know, Steve’s there, and I’m trying my best to play Tobacco Road”: He was a guitar god at 8, then he disappeared – the unlikely story of Thomas McRocklin

Vai handed him the Passion and Warfare guitar and produced his debut album, only for his protégé to give it all up. Decades later, McRocklin came back stronger – and pursued his own guitar path

Guitar World

“I thought it was the worst film I’d seen in my life! I was super-embarrassed. But that solo became part of the franchise’”: Stevie Salas on Bill & Ted, playing arenas with Rod Stewart then opening for Joe Satriani, and turning down both Van Halen singers

The ahead-of-his-time guitar great recalls starting a trend followed by Steve Vai and Tosin Abasi, why he had to quit a Joe Satriani tour, and why he sometimes aimed to be the worst player in the room

Guitar World

“I wanted to write a Montrose album, and he wanted to write an album more like the Eagles – and I hate the Eagles”: Stevie Salas on being asked to join David Lee Roth and Sammy Hagar’s bands – and why he turned them down

For a “Van Halen nut” like Salas, it was all too weird

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