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04 October 2021

David Lee Roth Announces Retirement From Music

David Lee Roth Everybody Wants Some
Photo: ZUMA PRESS INC/Alamy Stock Photo
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David Lee Roth has announced that he is retiring from music.

“I’m throwing in the shoes,” Van Halen’s frontman declared to the Las Vegas Review-Journal in a new interview to promote his forthcoming residency in the city. “I’m retiring.”

“This is the first, and only, official announcement,” Roth added. “You’ve got the news. Share it with the world.”

One of rock music’s greatest showmen, ‘Diamond’ Dave will bow out with five January shows at the House of Blues at the Mandalay Bay. Tickets for the shows went on sale yesterday, October 3.

“I’m not going to explain the statement,” Roth declared. “The explanation is in a safe. These are my last five shows.”

In a typically loquacious monologue delivered to writer John Katsilometes, Roth touched upon “the departure of my beloved classmate,” a reference to his former bandmate Eddie Van Halen, who passed away on October 6 following an extended battle with cancer.

“I thought I might have been the first, frankly,” Roth admitted, “I might have thought the Marlboro Man would’ve got me… And my doctors, my handlers, compelled me to really address that every time I go on stage, I endanger that future.”

“I am encouraged and compelled to really come to grips with how short time is, and my time is probably even shorter.”

Roth ended his ‘interview’ with Katsilometes without taking a single question from the Las Vegas Review-Journal writer.

“I know that when I am in the audience, whether you come out with a ukulele or a marching band, all I ask you give me everything you’ve got to give,” he said. “That’s what I did for the last 50 years.

“I’ve given you all I’ve got to give,” he declared before exiting. “It’s been an amazing, great run, no regrets, nothing to say about anybody. I’ll miss you all. Stay frosty.”

In March 2020, Roth postponed the final six shows of his Las Vegas residency due to the coronavirus pandemic that is spreading across the globe.

Roth’s latest Vegas residency kicked off on January 8, 2020 with a 15-song set that included 10 Van Halen classics and five songs from his solo career. Backing the now-66-year-old singer were lead guitarist Al Estrada from the Van Halen tribute band Eruption, rhythm guitarist Frankie Lindri, bassist Ryan Wheeler, keyboardist Danny Wagner and drummer Mike Mussleman.

Roth explained that he chose Vegas as the place to debut his new band because “this is where you come to celebrate and do the victory dance, whatever that means to you.”

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