david lee roth

After back-to-back appearances at both weekends of Coachella, David Lee Roth popped out Saturday at Stagecoach to sing Van Halen’s “Jump” with Teddy Swims for the third (and final?) time. To discuss what he called his “three-peat,” I caught up later with the 71-year-old singer, who wore a bedazzled jacket and a leather vest.

Have you bought property in Indio? Do you just live here now?
No, I’ve bought property in the American musical fabric that extends beyond time frame, that extends beyond shoes and haircuts. It includes cowboy hats and yarmulkes.

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Next weekend this place is gonna be barren. Will you be back to sing “Jump” with nobody?
There’ll be plenty of people here for the Diamond Dave Big Rig Trucking School and Day Care Center.

You’re on your own tour right now. How are those shows going?
They go exquisitely because if you enjoy what you saw onstage [tonight], it’s that times 22 songs.

Twenty-two songs in the set.
Oh yeah. I wrote every word that I sing, I wrote every note that I sing — all the melodies — and I stacked all the harmonies. Ed [Van Halen], of course, contributed all the great guitar parts. And we wrote all of those parts literally sitting in a tiny little alcove room where you put a washer and a dryer. We would sit knee-to-knee the room was so small, and he’d play the electric guitar. His mom wouldn’t let him plug in because it would be too loud, so I had to lean over. Every song that you know of Van Halen, I heard from an unplugged-in electric guitar from four inches away, going, “Too long.”

Tighten it up.
Cut it short. All great musicians finish long after the ending.

Last time we talked, you said you were wearing Artemis II. What’s the outfit tonight?
This is classic Nudie’s western wear from Lankershim. This is from the ’50s. This has been all over the world. This is made by Nudie’s of Hollywood, who made all of Roy Rogers’ and Jean Autry’s [clothes] and all of “Bonanza,” “Gunsmoke,” “Rawhide’s” wear. Look up Nudie of Hollywood, OK? This baby’s worth more than my shoes, and they’re custom-made. This jacket’s worth more than my teeth — same thing.

David Lee Roth popped out at Coachella on Friday to sing Van Halen’s classic “Jump” with Teddy Swims. After the show, we grabbed a few minutes with the 71-year-old rock star, who wore a beaded vest and tight silver-and-black trousers and sipped from a red plastic cup.

Ted, Teddy, Theodore — what do you call Teddy swims?
I call him Teddy. Teddy Swims is one of the best names ever — everybody’s saying it. All around in the city here are visitors from Germany, Holland, Japan, China, and they all know that name. Something like Greenberg? Helfenbein? [Shrugs]

What if you’d been Dave Roth?
My full name is David Lee Roth — it’s an anagram. When I was born, I had a traumatic birth — I was backwards, I had the cord around, I was hyperactive. My grandfather, who was a 70-hour-a-week physician — graduated medical school in 1920 — took a look at me two hours after I was born and told my mom, “He’s gonna be trouble.” And Mom’s way of saying “Go schtup yourself,” she added the middle name Lee. If you reverse the letters, it comes out the devil.

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You ever been to Coachella before?
This is my first time on this stage, and it’s the most forgiving audience. What a colorful, noisy bunch.

A forgiving audience? What does that mean?
It means if you go to Kenny Chesney, you gotta have the hat — the girls have to have the cut-offs. There’s rules. If you go heavy metal, you gotta cut the sleeves off a black shirt — not blue.

And here it’s catch-as-catch-can?
It’s inventive, creative, imaginative without rules — the way artwork perhaps used to be in the middle ’80s. In 1985, graphic art, sculptural art, automotive art — there were no rules. Today, you’re not getting on any gallery walls without a political bias. And today, here, I’m not sure what the bias is. I can wear something like this and it’s like, “Too bad you showed up in your day clothes.”

What is this outfit?
This is Artemis moon mission. I’m vacuum-packed for your safety — kid-tested, mom-approved. She likes it because it’s good for ’em. I like it because it’s gonna taste so good.

“I got my back against the record machine,” from “Jump.” Could you explain to the kids what a record machine is?
It’s a jukebox. And it’s a visual — like Broadway: [Sings] “When you’re a jet, you’re a jet / All the way from your first cigarette…” Now, I know Tony like I know me — the playground is neutral territory.

Wait, who’s Tony?
“West Side Story.”

What’s a jukebox have to do with “West Side Story”?
It suggests an image of a human being leaning against a jukebox saying, “I may not be the best thing in your mind today — but I’m the right tool for the job.”

Van Halen’s highest-charting single — what was it?
Either “Panama” or “Jump.”

It was “Jump” — a No. 1 hit in 1984. Remember what was No. 2 behind it?
Oh my God, “Boogie Oogie Oogie”?

“Karma Chameleon,” Culture Club.
OK, that’s Boy George.

You ever meet Boy George?
Yes, I did. Boy George would have fit into Coachella perfectly. Where is he? A Boy George comeback at Coachella? Stop lying.

What’s the best Van Halen song?
It depends what verb you’re attaching.

You choose.
Pairing, for example, the right alcoholic beverage with the right firearm is important. A light Pilsner goes with that new Czech machine pistol we saw in the last John Wick movie. And a Benelli shotgun for Guinness stout. Van Halen music is the same thing: What verb are you participating in? Are you dancing? How long? The whole night. Are we running? Sure. Who with? The devil.

What’s in your cup here?
This is what made me what I am today — fat and unemployed.