If one were to list the greatest rock n’ roll frontmen of all time, Van Halen’s David Lee Roth would be near the top. With a swagger and look that seemed tailor-made for the MTV era, Roth was riding high in the eighties and, for a while, was among the biggest rock stars on the planet.
Think about the greatest rock songs of the era, and I bet “Hot for Teacher,” “Jump,” and “Panama” are among the first that come to mind. All three songs came from Van Halen’s most popular album ever, 1984, but despite their insane success, all was not well in the band, particularly between Roth and the late, great Eddie Van Halen. As a result of their tension, Roth went solo in 1985, and Van Halen brought in Sammy Hagar to usher them into the post-Roth era. While the band still did well with Hagar, it never reached the same heights as it did with Roth as their frontman, and he segued into a pretty successful solo career in the wake of his departure. His cover of “Just a Gigolo” was an unlikely hit, and his next three albums went platinum. Eventually, he would return to Van Halen for brief stints in 1996 and 2001, but a full-fledged reunion only happened in 2007, lasting until Eddie’s death in 2020. Roth’s career is one for the rock n’ roll history books, and we dig into it in this week’s WTF Happened to this Celebrity, which is written (with Brad Hamerly), edited and narrated by Taylor James Johnson!
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