David Lee Roth takes his goofy shtick to radio.
Thank goodness for exclamation marks. Without them, there would be no way to adequately convey in print what David Lee Roth sounds like.
“I don’t think of it as morning radio,” says the former Van Halen frontman of his 6-10 a.m. EST talk show, which debuts Tuesday on stations around the country. “I think of it as after hours! It’s a bottomless cup of attitude, and the second one’s free, pal!”
Roth, who frequently broke himself up laughing during the course of the interview (and repeatedly called me Mike), brings his celebrity status, as well his endearingly goofy shtick, to his new gig. He’ll need both these resources, and more, as he faces the daunting task of trying to make his listeners forget about the time slot’s former occupant, Howard Stern. (Stern’s new show on Sirius satellite radio begins Jan. 9.)
“You could never substitute for Howard Stern, though most morning zoo teams attempt to,” says Roth. “The best you could ever be, if you imitate somebody, is 80 percent of what they were. Howard Stern is like a Les Paul guitar – nothing ever sounded like that, nothing ever will again, forever. Don’t try to imitate that! Do what Eddie did.”
He means reinvent radio, the way his former Van Halen partner, Eddie Van Halen, reinvented the art of electric guitar playing. That’s no small task.
Roth, 50, lives in New York and will base his syndicated show there. Stations in New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Pittsburgh, Dallas and other cities will carry it.
“It really is an incredible challenge,” says Tom Taylor, editor of the industry newsletter Inside Radio. “Radio is a craft, and just as the average DJ wouldn’t become the lead singer for Van Halen without learning stagecraft and the tricks of that trade, he’s got to learn the tricks of the trade of radio.”
Because of the Stern element, Roth has to do that with the kind of media attention few radio hosts have ever experienced.
“He’s going to be learning, metaphorically, with all the curtains rolled up: Everybody can look in and see him,” says Taylor.
“It’s a lot harder than it sounds. Howard makes it sound easy. So does Rush Limbaugh, so did Bob Grant. Almost everybody who’s good on the radio makes it sound easy. But it’s not.”
Roth, who has undertaken some brief stints as a DJ in the past, says he will have guests on his show, but has no interest in interviewing musicians. And he won’t play records. There will be a musical element to the show, though.
“I play parts of records,” he says. “I must have close to 400 loops that are comprised of everything from a Chemical Brothers intro to Steely Dan drum breaks. The vocals never come in; I provide those.”
He says he will be more mobile than Stern, taking his show on the road whenever the whim strikes him.
“I’m not going to be 51 and getting my first office job!” he says. “In my contract, I think it’s every fourth week, we travel to you-name-it. We’ll be event-driven. If it’s the Super Bowl, that’s where I go! If it’s the Grammys, that’s where I go!”
Sometimes, he says, he’ll present concerts in the cities he travels to.
“For example … Fourth of July in Boston, we’ll get a hotel suite by Copley Square and broadcast for five days there, and then that Saturday or Sunday night, you do your gig,” he says. “And we’ll just follow the sun. Meet me in Brownsville! Do you speak Spanish? I do! Vamanos. I’m not kidding!”
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