David Lee Roth has ‘One Foot Out The Door’, announcing his impending retirement from music.
“I am throwing in the shoes. I’m retiring…I’m not going to explain the statement. The explanation is in a safe. These are my last five shows,” Roth told Las Vegas Review Journal.
“This is the first, and only, official announcement,” he added.
Roth is currently partway through a Las Vegas residency at Mandalay Bay’s House Of Blues. He began the residency on January 8, 2020 but postponed the final five shows in March 2020, due to the pandemic. He’s slated to finish off the series of shows starting on New Year’s Eve and New Years Day, followed by concerts on Jan 5th, 7th and 8th, 2022.
David Lee Roth played an integral part of Val Halen, he was part of the band from 1974 to 1985, in 1996 and again from 2006 to their disbandment in 2020.
Bizarrely, the journalist who conducted the interview shared that Roth didn’t take a single question and compared the ‘chat’ to “more a spoken-word performance than [an] interview”.
“I ask that you bear with me here. Please try not to interrupt. I’m going to close my eyes and take you on a ride,” Roth began the interview with.
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Roth touched on the passing of his former band-mate and friend, Eddie Van Halen, suggesting that it may be linked to Roth’s decision to retire.
“I am encouraged and compelled to really come to grips with how short time is, and my time is probably even shorter,” Roth said.
“I thought I might have been the first, frankly … ‘Hey Ed, objects in the rear-view mirror are probably me. And my doctors, my handlers, compelled me to really address that every time I go onstage, I endanger that future,” Roth said, touching on helth problems.
The former Van Halen frontman wrapped up the interview with quite the figurative mic drop, “I’ve given you all I’ve got to give. It’s been an amazing, great run, no regrets, nothing to say about anybody. I’ll miss you all. Stay frosty.”
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