Last fall, Van Halen frontman David Lee Roth begin a series of online videos billed as The Roth Show.
The episodes capture Roth at his rambling best, delivering monologues full of insight and humor based on his real life travels and experiences.
The Examiner caught up with Roth Show editor Shelly Toscano to discuss the creation and development of the series.
“I was first hired by Dave to edit [his video entitled] “Scrapbook Chapter 1,” explains Toscano. “He likes the whole process of doing video work. He bought a Canon 5D and he loved it, but he needed an editor ... I got a call to go to Pasadena. I showed up at his house, we shook hands and got to work. We put together that first video and we had fun doing it.”
In late 2011, Shelly was brought in to shoot and edit the video for Van Halen’s “Tattoo,” the lead track from “A Different Kind Of Truth.” Toscano then went on tour with the band, creating images and videos for the rear-stage screen to display during the 2012 concerts.
And then came The Roth Show…
“Dave and I had talked about it before the tour,” she says. “We were going to work toward putting these videos together and have him talking. With the album and tour it got pushed aside, but it was something we were always going to do.”
“After [the] tour, we got to The Roth Show. He sat down and started talking about tattoos and sarcasm. [Videographer] Mark [Rojas] filmed that, sent it to me and we put it together. I don’t know that he knew what it would look like. He didn’t know that I was going to do the comic book stuff. He didn’t know that I was going to do The Thomas Crown Affair opening or the music. He just knew what he talked about and he gave it to me to edit. He really liked it, and since then, it’s been the same formula. I’ve gone down to film a few times, but Mark usually does the filming. There’s a wide camera, and he’ll man the close-up, they send it to me, I watch it and put it together, add the music and comic book stuff and the pictures. At first I was using Dave’s lyrics as captions for the comic book pictures. When Dave started posting to Facebook and Twitter, I saw some fun Tweets and comments, so I started using those instead. I think people like to see their Tweets on The Roth Show. To me, that’s a fun little hidden thing, a tiny Easter egg for people who are interested in seeing that stuff and who like to watch once or twice and look for all the little extras.”
Check out the full interview with Toscano at The Examiner here.
Watch the latest episode of The Roth Show here.
Van Halen See also:
Aerosmith’s bucket list includes touring with Van Halen, AC/DC
Sammy Hagar says he would rejoin Van Halen
Eddie Van Halen explains LL Cool J collaboration
VIDEO: David Lee Roth issues new episode of The Roth Show