David Lee Roth said working with Eddie Van Halen was “better than any novel.”
Despite the fact that during his time in Van Halen he often quarreled with his longtime bandmate, the former frontman expressed how much he missed the late guitarist, who died in October 2020 at the age of 65, in his latest edition of the podcast The Roth Show.
“My dear late Ed,” said the frontman. “Boy, I miss him. I had a ball with Ed. Walt Disney once said, “You know what? My romance with Mickey Mouse was better than any romance with a woman I’ve ever had.” I have to tell you: playing with Ed, writing songs with Ed, imagining these songs with Ed was better than any romance I’ve ever had. .
“And some of these songs, I think, can last forever — or until the last syllable of time, as Shakespeare said. They became hymns. Where is “Jump” playing now?
“I remember him playing [“Jump”] on the keyboard at the bottom. I said, “No.” Well, we reflect the times, and the times at that time were guitars, guitars, guitars; and Jump was one of those hybrids.”
Roth has been in and out of the band, and the last time he played with them was in 2015.
Earlier this week, Roth shared a solo version of Van Halen’s 1980 hit “Everybody Wants Some!!”.
He appeared just a few months after another unreleased track, “Nothing Could Stop Us Then,” in which he looked back nostalgically on his time at Van Halen.
Roth originally planned to retire last year and was supposed to end his brilliant career with a farewell residency in Las Vegas, but the shows were canceled due to the spread of the Omicron variant of COVID-19.
