Van Halen – who cited Clapton as a hero during interviews throughout his lifetime – regularly performed tracks from his work with Cream during the band’s early years on the Southern California party circuit.
“Eddie Van Halen was an Eric Clapton acolyte; he followed him like a disciple,” recalls Roth about that era in the band’s history. “Eddie barely could afford shoelaces when he was learning to play guitar…he had one gold top Les Paul. I used to sit right across from him in his little room, almost knee-to-knee touching. [We] slept on crates with a mattress on it. He would sit on the mattress, and I’d sit on the amp right in front of him on the Marshall stack bottom right in front of him, our knees almost touching, and writing the songs we became famous for.”
“And there was one poster who was Eric Clapton, who is the mirror image of 24 other folks that he was a disciple of, who is a mirror image, and [Eddie] started off as a mirror image of Eric Clapton and took it way beyond the curtain of space across the trackless void.”
Roth mixes his storytelling duties as host with a selection of songs in the latest edition of The Roth Show.
Pick up your copy of 1978’s “Van Halen” here.
See also:
Wolfgang Van Halen streams lead single from new Mammoth WVH album
David Lee Roth revisits retirement status on The Roth Show
David Lee Roth streams cover of Marvin Gaye classic
David Lee Roth streams new recording of Van Halen classic Unchained
Search Van Halen at hennemusic
