David Lee Roth is known for his over the top personality and his huge sense of humor, but the Van Halen frontman says that’s because he’s not always laughing – or something like that
Roth revealed this surprising detail in a recent interview with Forbes, which began with him being asked about his musical role models, and – in typical Roth fashion – it concluded somewhere entirely different.
“I came from classic training, which was Gershwin, Bernstein, classic music like this. That edge is in Van Halen music. That dark minor key tone is in everything we ever made and that's why we have two diamond albums . Elvis doesn't have two. He has one and it was Christmas tunes and he didn't write them.
That darkness, that little shot of sea salt in the caramel is what makes it work, the John Lennon note. Not the McCartney note. The reason I'm so funny is because I ain't even vaguely happy. And that's in your music all the time, from midrange down to here."