It’s no surprise to most that there was some dysfunction in the Van Halen camp over the years, but David Lee Roth has posted a bizarre rant online in which he calls out Wolfgang Van Halen over ejections that he claims occurred on the band’s final tour.
The post is titled “This Crazy Kid,” and was posted with multiple mentions of “The Roth Show,” the singer’s comedy podcast, throughout. Roth’s first swipe at Wolfgang is that he feels the bassist was complaining about the singer not giving him enough attention during their touring together.
“This fuckin’ kid. He’s complaining the entire tour like I’m not paying enough attention to him onstage,” starts Roth. “Like Santa Claus coming down the chimney and popping out on Christmas as if no one’s paying attention. Shalom to the dome homey. I’m giving them the best, everything I’ve got in front of 20 or 30 thousand people at a clip and he’s complaining to everyone around me, the business manager, the security guy, the clothing lady, ‘Dave’s not paying enough attention to me.'”
From there, Roth shares two additional incidents he claims took place on the band’s final tour in which he alleges Wolfgang booted guests that Roth had invited to the show, unaware of who these people were to the band.
The singer sets the stage of the band playing to the New York audience at Jones Beach, reminiscing about how many times the band had played there, when he alleges that Wolfgang had his guests kicked out.
“What I don’t know is this kid, this schlemiel kid has commandeered a couple of monkeys to go in back, behind my back, over to the side of the stage and throw out these two great dames that I invited to be my guests to the show,” says Roth. “These dames are in their 40s, okay. They’re business women. In fact, you’re not gonna believe this …. but this fucking kid, he doesn’t know that these two dames work for the accounting firm that represent him, not me.”
He continues, “As usual, he, just like his uncle and his uncle’s brother, stiffed ’em for tickets. I’m not gonna do that, so I got ahead of things and I said I need tickets. I put ’em way off to the side, and I’m not talking Motley Crue groupies here. This is the real deal … and here we go, he throws them out of the building. He’s teaching me a lesson. This fucking kid doesn’t know, they’re carrying the paychecks for the 82 people on the road crew.”
“They think I’m gonna freak out,” says Roth. “I laugh so hard I spilled my Snapple.”
The second incident that Roth alludes to took place at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles toward the end of their touring. “It’s the Hollywood Bowl, I’m about to launch into ‘Ice Cream Man,’ and this fucking kid. He commandeers to muscle monkeys, locates the one dame that is my guest, she’s off in the wings of the Hollywood Bowl. They find her, make her do the walk of shame past the other guests and out into the parking lot and throw her out of the building,” recalls Roth.
He continues, “Wolfie Van Halen’s gonna teach me a lesson by throwing out what he thinks is my girlfriend. But guess what? Not only is this an accountant again, and not only is she carrying the paychecks for 82 of us on the road, but she’s carrying cash bonuses for everybody there. You may want to pull over on this next one. You’re gonna pee your pants. Remember New York City? It’s the same fucking lady. This fucking kid. This fucking kid.”
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We reached out to Wolfgang Van Halen’s reps, but the musician, who is in Los Angeles to appear on Jimmy Kimmel Live with Mammoth WVH this evening (Jan. 24), was not available for comment.
David Lee Roth Calls Out Wolfgang Van Halen in Bizarre Rant
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