{"id":263180,"date":"2026-04-11T23:14:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-11T23:14:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/263180\/"},"modified":"2026-04-11T23:14:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-11T23:14:13","slug":"10-minutes-backstage-with-david-lee-roth-at-coachella","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/263180\/","title":{"rendered":"10 minutes backstage with David Lee Roth at Coachella"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

David Lee Roth popped out at Coachella<\/a> on Friday to sing Van Halen\u2019s classic \u201cJump\u201d with Teddy Swims. After the show, we grabbed a few minutes with the 71-year-old rock star, who wore a beaded vest and tight silver-and-black trousers and sipped from a red plastic cup.<\/p>\n

Ted, Teddy, Theodore \u2014 what do you call Teddy swims?
I call him Teddy. Teddy Swims is one of the best names ever \u2014 everybody\u2019s saying it. All around in the city here are visitors from Germany, Holland, Japan, China, and they all know that name. Something like Greenberg? Helfenbein? [Shrugs]<\/p>\n

What if you\u2019d been Dave Roth?
My full name is David Lee Roth \u2014 it\u2019s an anagram. When I was born, I had a traumatic birth \u2014 I was backwards, I had the cord around, I was hyperactive. My grandfather, who was a 70-hour-a-week physician \u2014 graduated medical school in 1920 \u2014 took a look at me two hours after I was born and told my mom, \u201cHe\u2019s gonna be trouble.\u201d And Mom\u2019s way of saying \u201cGo schtup yourself,\u201d she added the middle name Lee. If you reverse the letters, it comes out the devil.<\/p>\n

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You ever been to Coachella before?
This is my first time on this stage, and it\u2019s the most forgiving audience. What a colorful, noisy bunch.<\/p>\n

A forgiving audience? What does that mean?
It means if you go to Kenny Chesney, you gotta have the hat \u2014 the girls have to have the cut-offs. There\u2019s rules. If you go heavy metal, you gotta cut the sleeves off a black shirt \u2014 not blue.<\/p>\n

And here it\u2019s catch-as-catch-can?
It\u2019s inventive, creative, imaginative without rules \u2014 the way artwork perhaps used to be in the middle \u201980s. In 1985, graphic art, sculptural art, automotive art \u2014 there were no rules. Today, you\u2019re not getting on any gallery walls without a political bias. And today, here, I\u2019m not sure what the bias is. I can wear something like this and it\u2019s like, \u201cToo bad you showed up in your day clothes.\u201d<\/p>\n

What is this outfit?
This is Artemis moon mission. I\u2019m vacuum-packed for your safety \u2014 kid-tested, mom-approved. She likes it because it\u2019s good for \u2019em. I like it because it\u2019s gonna taste so good.<\/p>\n

\u201cI got my back against the record machine,\u201d from \u201cJump<\/a>.\u201d Could you explain to the kids what a record machine is?
It\u2019s a jukebox. And it\u2019s a visual \u2014 like Broadway: [Sings] \u201cWhen you\u2019re a jet, you\u2019re a jet \/ All the way from your first cigarette\u2026\u201d Now, I know Tony like I know me \u2014 the playground is neutral territory.<\/p>\n

Wait, who\u2019s Tony?
\u201cWest Side Story.\u201d<\/p>\n

What\u2019s a jukebox have to do with \u201cWest Side Story\u201d?
It suggests an image of a human being leaning against a jukebox saying, \u201cI may not be the best thing in your mind today \u2014 but I\u2019m the right tool for the job.\u201d<\/p>\n

Van Halen\u2019s highest-charting single \u2014 what was it?
Either \u201cPanama\u201d or \u201cJump.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was \u201cJump\u201d \u2014 a No. 1 hit in 1984. Remember what was No. 2 behind it?
Oh my God, \u201cBoogie Oogie Oogie\u201d?<\/p>\n

\u201cKarma Chameleon,\u201d Culture Club.
OK, that\u2019s Boy George.<\/p>\n

You ever meet Boy George?
Yes, I did. Boy George would have fit into Coachella perfectly. Where is he? A Boy George comeback at Coachella? Stop lying.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s the best Van Halen song?
It depends what verb you\u2019re attaching.<\/p>\n

You choose.
Pairing, for example, the right alcoholic beverage with the right firearm is important. A light Pilsner goes with that new Czech machine pistol we saw in the last John Wick movie. And a Benelli shotgun for Guinness stout. Van Halen music is the same thing: What verb are you participating in? Are you dancing? How long? The whole night. Are we running? Sure. Who with? The devil.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s in your cup here?
This is what made me what I am today \u2014 fat and unemployed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"David Lee Roth popped out at Coachella on Friday to sing Van Halen\u2019s classic \u201cJump\u201d with Teddy Swims.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":263181,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[14934,115525,21495,115523,73644,48,52,51,47,50,49,5463,11468,1554,115527,20460,59772,2335,115524,8843,115526],"class_list":{"0":"post-263180","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-jump","9":"tag-boy-george","10":"tag-coachella","11":"tag-david-lee-roth","12":"tag-jukebox","13":"tag-la","14":"tag-la-headlines","15":"tag-la-news","16":"tag-los-angeles","17":"tag-los-angeles-headlines","18":"tag-los-angeles-news","19":"tag-minute","20":"tag-mom","21":"tag-name","22":"tag-record-machine","23":"tag-rule","24":"tag-teddy-swims","25":"tag-today","26":"tag-van-halen","27":"tag-way","28":"tag-west-side-story"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263180","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=263180"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263180\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/263181"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=263180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=263180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=263180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}