David Lee Roth and Alex Van Halen spent decades as half of Van Halen, one of the greatest rock bands ever. Roth was not only the singer, but ringmaster, lyricist, and one of the few frontmen who could get an audience to look away for a moment from Alex’s guitar hero brother, Eddie.
Alex wasn’t too shabby himself, whose drumming was to air drumming what Eddie was for air guitarists. Their six-album run from Van Halen through 1984 produced some of the finest songs and ridiculous lyrics from the sunset strip to arenas around the world.
But like brothers, they also fought. David brought much of it on himself and his 1985 departure led to decades of one-sided arguments, reunions, breakups and competing takes of what really happened.
The most recent serious fracture came after Eddie’s death, when plans for a tribute tour fell apart after Alex said Roth resisted the idea of formally honoring Eddie onstage. By Alex’s telling, the disagreement got ugly enough that the two stopped speaking for a while.
Whatever was left of that particular beef looks considerably less radioactive now. Apparently time does heal some wounds and Roth joined Alex onstage on July 30 at TEDxFargo for their first public appearance together since Van Halen’s last concert at the Hollywood Bowl on October 4, 2015.
Nobody announced that every old score had been settled, but the two joked about their famously combustible relationship, laughed together and talked openly about the chemistry that made the band work. VHND has the full rundown.
The 15-minute conversation, titled Beyond Boundaries: How Human Experience Informs Art and Music, also featured Los Angeles artist Robert Vargas and focused on creativity, experience and what artists have to learn first before they can start breaking rules.
Alex said artists should master the basics and then throw the rules away; Roth, naturally, made the point more colorfully, arguing that you need to live enough life (heartbreak included) before you have anything worth turning into a song.
They also got into the way Van Halen actually worked.
Alex described the almost wordless musical connection he had with his brother. Roth joked about the chaos behind the scenes and the physical arguments he and Alex sometimes had over setlists.
Alex’s larger point was that the friction was part of the engine: no single creative voice dominated, and ideas got better as the four members pushed against each other.
They also talked about jazz, the often overlooked Van Halen vocal harmonies, and the idea that music itself has no real boundaries.
More on the conversation at VHND.
