While David Lee Roth returned to Van Halen a few years ago for their 2007/08 reunion tour, it’s the February 7 arrival of “A Different Kind Of Truth” that really seals the deal that both Roth and the mighty VH are back.
The project has the weight and distinction of being the first new VH music in 8 years; the first new album in 14 years, the first new music with Roth in 16 years, first new album with Roth in 28 years, and the first recordings with bassist Wolfgang VH.
“Tattoo,” the first single, is up and running at your favorite rock radio station; it’s one of several cuts on the new disc that are based on songs written and/or demoed in the band’s early years.
"It's material that Eddie and I generated, literally, in 1975, 1976 and 1977," Roth tells the Los Angeles Times. "Usually fellas in our weight division will kind of gamely — or ironically, wink, wink — try to hail back to it [but] keep a safe, mature distance from it."
Instead, Roth said, he and the band have tried to do a sort of collaboration with their past. They can't be the same people — too much has changed — but Roth said there's interesting experimentation in the era-spanning synthesis of self.
The process started with Eddie Van Halen and producer John Shanks (Bon Jovi, Keith Urban) sifting through archival material, looking for the nuggets that could be mined.
"Some of it was recorded in Dave's basement when these guys were kids, and, sitting there next to Eddie, it was pretty cool just to go through that journey," Shanks said last week by phone from New York. "And then when the sessions started just seeing how Eddie and Alex play together — there's such a synchronicity in their feel and rhythm and their playing. There were times, honestly, I was just moved by it, not just as a musician but as a human being. The nuances of the way they communicate is staggering."
Roth is keenly ware of the VH legacy and the urgent need to live up to it with the new album and tour.
"Are there second chances? I don't know, Mr. Faulkner, I'm tending to agree with you: No," says Roth. "We've managed to stretch our adolescence like a Chiclet to the moon and maintained the respectful dignities along the way that got us on that turnpike up in the first place. We love what we do for a living. Even in our wildest, most beer-soaked days we never missed rehearsal."
Read more at the Los Angeles Times here.
Tattoo - Single - Van Halen Van Halen – Tattoo
See also:
AUDIO: Van Halen – Bullethead preview
AUDIO: Van Halen – China Town preview