DAVID LEE ROTH Blames Grunge For Career Downturn

According to The Pulse Of Radio, David Lee Roth gave a pretty candid, if somewhat sprawling interview to Buzzfeed.com, in which he talked about VAN HALEN, his personal life, and the down shift his career took in the 1990's. Roth blamed the grunge scene for turning fans off of his live show, saying, "Two words: Kurt Cobain. I went from playing to 12,000 people to 1,200. From arenas to casinos and state fairs and the local House Of Blues. That will cause you to reflect a lot more clearly on your values. Fun wasn't seen as fun anymore."

He went on to speculate about his life and career had he and VAN HALEN not acrimoniously parted ways in 1985. "I wonder who I might have been had I stayed in the band," he said. "Not as interesting, not as involved. I probably would have followed the more traditional, long, slow climb to the middle. Enjoying my accomplishments, living off my residuals. I wouldn't have half the stories to tell."

Roth shed some light on his romantic life after laughing off rumors that he's been involved in a long-term gay relationship for years. "I've lived alone my whole adult life," he said. "I've had girlfriends, I've had love affairs. Never longer than a year and a half. I'm the drunk who won the lottery, I'm going to be very difficult to convince of a lot of traditional things. I put off getting married when I found out, oh, you don't really have to. I just saw somebody discussing this recently, I think Gloria Steinem — same thing as her life story. There's a lot of us out there."

David Lee Roth told The Pulse Of Radio that these days bands just don't make their bones playing out the way the pre-fame VAN HALEN did in the first half of the 1970s. "Used to be, you would play in clubs five, six, seven 45-minute sets a night," he said. "The mighty classic VAN HALEN, when I was quarterback, must have learned 400 songs by other people, ranging from KC & THE SUNSHINE BAND, doing four-part harmony on 'Get Down Tonight'. We played LED ZEPPELIN, and we played OHIO PLAYERS, and we played ZZ TOP. Somewhere in between, you had a balancing act there."

VAN HALEN's next U.S. date is set for July 20 in Oshkosh, Wisconsin at Rock USA at Ford Festival Park.