Van Halen's David Lee Roth On Changes In Rock

Michael Angulia | 10-03-2019

Van Halen frontman David Lee Roth is gearing up for his Las Vegas residency show and he was recently asked his views on the current rock scene and how rock fans have changed over the years.

Roth was asked by Rock 100.5 in Atlanta is he has any favorite current rock bands and he responded, "What kind of rock? Today, rock is 15 different categories. Bring Me The Horizon on the [SiriusXM 's] Turbo channel is very different than all my favorite '70s classic rock bands.

Van Halen was a construct of Queen, Bowie, [The] Who, Zeppelin, Stones, but most of those acts were acoustic. Think back to it, probably easily two-third of Jimi Hendrix, though he's famous for 'Foxy Lady' and burning the guitar, were acoustic guitars.

"Today, Ed Sheeran kills it with his one guitar and a loop station. That's an interesting way to go, sort of like busking on the corner via electronic means."

Diamond Dave was also asked how he sees rock fans have changed over the years. He said, David: "Rock fans today are more likely to have dreadlocks, a Filipino girlfriend, an Italian Vespa, smoking grape-flavored pot that was grown by an African-American Samoan who is an expert at electronic games and speaks perfect Swahili because his dad was a missionary. It's just endless. There is no one given template.

We used at things and go 'white,' 'male,' 'middle-class'... I get it. That's Bob the pool guy and Joe the gardener, but today, that's all Spanish-speaking, all very different, and there is no bigger rock fan market for guitarra and baterias than Hispanic. Van Halen had a huge, and always has, a huge Hispanic following.

"Even when I went solo and I did stuff like 'California Girls', I'd go down and lip-sync 'California Girls' to 40,000 people... that's a universal audience." Check out the full interview below: