DLR (the only legitimate VH frontman) on Steve Vai

[jemsite]

saw this DLR blurb where he mentions his superband and Vai...

http://www.vhnd.net/articles/040413-02.shtml

CR: What about your work with guitarist Steve Vai-did you approach those projects knowing that your writing partnership with him might be difficult to sustain?

DLR: No, I approached it like a dog does: everything is forever; you take me back home, I'm gonna look at you at the back gate and go, "But I thought we were going to walk forever?"

CR: So what happened? At the time, working with Vai and bassist Billy Sheehan seemed like such a masterstroke. You trumped everyone.

DLR: It ran into the dead end that is rock-fusion jazz-blues something or other, aka "widdley-widdley". When the guitarist starts going "widdley-widdley" it's a symptom. When I made those records with Steve it was an effort to get him to go under the bar; consolidate; give your guitar solo a beginning, middle, and end. What is the development of the character here? Is this guitar solo the same guy we met in the last three songs? Perhaps one is never so much oneself as when wearing the mask. And Steve's mask is that there is something greater than writing songs and simple emotional content.

CR: Which there isn't, of course.

DLR: Well, if there is, I ain't seen it, Sarge.

Dave is the (only) man for VH, but often incomprehensible. It is interesting he prased it a "dead-end" (very true in retrospect). He seems to be saying Vai was overplaying ("weedly weedly") at the expense of songs and their emotional component or as a result that they stunk.

I don't recall him ever saying something like that before, even w/ his ugly fallout w/ Billy after the album shipped (and before the tour)... glen

[weserman]

It's certainly interesting reading. Perhaps Steve was trying to stretch out a but Dave wanted a more straightforward approach. Just listen to the difference in complexity to PAW and any DLR stuff.

Originally Posted by jemsite

w/ his ugly fallout w/ Billy after the album shipped (and before the tour

What happened there???

[darren wilson]

Well, i think it's pretty obvious. Eat 'em and Smile was a brilliant rock record. Raw and aggressive with some absolutely jaw-dropping guitar and bass playing. It was at least "honest"... it wasn't trying to be anything but a great rock album. As Dave says, "simple emotional content."

On Skyscraper, you could tell that Steve was getting more cerebral about composing, playing and producing. However, i thought it came across as too slick, too produced, too rehearsed, overplayed, and lacking in emotional conviction. It seemed too contrived to me. (I had the same reaction to Steve's Whitesnake effort.)

[ShredOrDead]

Originally Posted by darren wilson

It seemed too contrived to me. (I had the same reaction to Steve's Whitesnake effort.)

Not more Slip of The Tongue hating!

I'm going to start a thread titled "Why I Love SOTT" and you just watch it exceed 20 pages in a week.

[RaspberryJam]

Darren, spot on there with that description of what happened back then. Skyscaper had some great hook's but was soft and uninteresting to me, i too lost interest in all things Vai and Roth, Whitesnake also.

Great article, time has'nt tamed DLR one bit it seems!

Eat 'em and Smile is still on my playlist today, fantastic attitude in all the tracks, start to finish. One of the last truly great releases of that era, i'm just glad i got to see them before they disbanded.

[davester1234]

I may be wrong, but the first comment by David Lee seems to be suggesting he approached Vai and Billy like a fool. It implies that he called them up because that's what he thought was right (like a dog does what it thinks its owners want), and when they were there he seems to suggest that he was too good hearted to realize they were taking his music away from him, or perhaps not honest enough with himself to admit it may be wrong. He was unconditionally loyal to them, like a mut.

If he's saying that he didn't realize it was wrong at the time, then maybe he's suggesting some sort of irony - like the naysayers were right all along about Steve and Billy but he couldn't admit these boys were wrong for him.


The rest (for me) implies that he thinks for Steve there was more than just song writing and emotional content, there was some sort of selfish motivation, like he just wanted to proove his guitar heroics (a bad thing for David Lee)


Nonethess, "But I thought we were going to walk forever?" seems to suggest that tthey abandoned him in the cold (a strange point given how wrong for him he suggests they were).

There's only 1 David Lee I tell you!!!

[jemsite]

Granted Skyscraper is way overproduced, and pretty horrendous really, i don't recall much virtuosity on the album... it was more cookie cutter than you'd want out of those guys and the former VH frontman. Maybe it was just an inevitable clash among the trio he failed to anticipate. The whole album direction made no sense.

It is obvious Dave is his own worst enemy, perhaps not intentionally. Handing over the keys to his band (VH) instead of just taking a long break after 1984 is something he still regrets obviously. Allowing Vai to coproduce Skyscraper was a big mistake too, as was DLRs trying to persue Hollywood. But he is correct about the 6-7 year creativity lifetime with a group of people and VH was there two decades ago now... glen

[jim777]

I think I can see exactly where Dave is coming from. Remember when EVH did the Billy Jean solo and started getting raves from MJ's audience, Dave was always saying things like ,"It's the exact same thing he does in every song!?" I always thought that was pretty telling, in that it shows a basic lack of respect for not only Eddie's playing and a lot of VH's fans, but a certain lack of understanding of where he fit in the larger picture. I'm sure Dave thinks VH would have been even bigger if he could have had more control over Eddie, and he flat out states in these comments that he didn't get the outcome from Vai that he could have hoped for in a perfect world.
Dave seems to think solos should be self contained melodies, and should be as individual, as it were, as the songs themselves. It's almost as if he thinks a guitarist should reinvent himself everytime a new song starts. You can only do that to a certain extent, as we all know as guitarists, so I don't think Dave will ever be able to be completely happy with anyone long term (unless they are guitarists first and foremost, and musicians second, if at all). Dave's interest in a song philosphically is to deliver the song in a stand alone, formulaic way (I doubt anyone here thinks he's got a concept album in him). For a while he was certainly very good at it, and many people think 'Eat 'Em and Smile' is one of Steve's career highpoints, too. But it boils down to Dave being a showman and entertainer first, and a singer/songwriter second. Steve is a musician first, and a guitarist second. Steve could take the solo in "Big Trouble", make it a theme and compose variations on it for a whole album side and enjoy the writing and the playing of it, where Dave would likely not see the point in the first place. The band from Eat 'em and Smile was only ever going to be worth doing as long as Steve found it interesting, and Dave's approach wouldn't appeal to a creative musician for more than a few years. the opportunity to grow is too small, and the pace too slow.
I don't agree with Dave's stance, but he wanted Steve in a box basically and that wasn't going to happen. I also don't have any problem at all with Dave's stance, as it's shared by lots of other performers and bands. Dave's just too "Vegas" as it were for a composer to have a long term affair with.

Anyway, that's my $.02.

jim

[jim777]

LOL, between the time I started writing that post and the time I posted it, there were 5 other responses!

[babahi]

I agree with Darren about Skyscraper being badly produced. I gave it to my cousin but kept Eat 'em...

[Ancestor]

Dave really needs to rethink those ideas. When I listen to his vocals, I say, "That's Dave." It's not like he has 20 different tones that he uses, and his range is the same, too. Lyrically, I see the same themes appearing over and over (which isn't a problem for me, because I like what he does and who he is), but I'd say that Vai is way more diverse than Roth!

I could say the same thing about Eddie. His depth as a musician is far greater than Dave's.

[bpd111]

Man, you gotta love this guy. He's brilliant and he's an absolute clown at the same time. You can't take what he says too seriously. But it's also refreshing, for lack of a better term, to hear him say that the open-ended VH thing hurts.

Eddie Van Winkle

What a shame.

[vaijem777]

Originally Posted by jim777

I think I can see exactly where Dave is coming from. Remember when EVH did the Billy Jean solo and started getting raves from MJ's audience,

I think EVH even got more raves for the "Beat It" solo, which he actually played.

Sounds like Dave is just spewing more of his pseudo-psychological BS. He was a great frontman, but really shouldn't be allowed to give interviews- it just makes him sound like a moron. It sounds like he was certainly hinting that SRV was overplaying, etc. Steve had a lot of influence and input on those albums in regards to writing, composing, etc. so I tend to think that maybe what DLR MEANT to say was that Steve was interested in more than just laying down a guitar track and calling it a day.

[Two hands31]

Originally Posted by vaijem777

I think EVH even got more raves for the "Beat It" solo, which he actually played.

Sounds like Dave is just spewing more of his pseudo-psychological BS. He was a great frontman, but really shouldn't be allowed to give interviews- it just makes him sound like a moron. It sounds like he was certainly hinting that SRV was overplaying, etc. Steve had a lot of influence and input on those albums in regards to writing, composing, etc. so I tend to think that maybe what DLR MEANT to say was that Steve was interested in more than just laying down a guitar track and calling it a day.

I'm really interested in hearing this Stevie Ray Vaughan - David Lee Roth collaboration you just hinted at

[vaijem777]

LOL It's early. Late night last night. SSV, SRV...at least I've got the instrument right!