Kevin Winter/Getty Images for ABAIn a new interview with The New York Times, Van Halen frontman David Lee Roth suggests that, because of guitarist Eddie Van Halen‘s ongoing battle with cancer, the band may never tour again.
“I don’t know that Eddie is ever really going to rally for the rigors of the road again,” the 65-year-old singer maintains. “I don’t even want to say I’ve waited — I’ve supported for five years. Because what I do is physical as well as musical and spiritual — you can’t take five years off from the ring. But I did. And I do not regret a second of it.”
Roth continues, “[Eddie’s] a band mate. We had a colleague down. And he’s down now for enough time that I don’t know that he’s going to be coming back out on the road. You want to hear the classics? You’re talking to him.”
Earlier this year, David kicked off a Las Vegas residency and a stint as KISS‘ opening act on the 2020 leg of that band’s End of the Road farewell tour, but those gigs, of course, have been postponed because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Meanwhile, during the lockdown, the ever-energetic Roth has been creating a series of quirky, pandemic-themed cartoons that he’s been posting on a weekly basis on his social media sites since April. Many of the drawings feature images of frogs accompanied by somewhat enigmatic messages.
Roth says he’s looking forward to returning to performing, but “in the interim, I am drawing and painting every night.” As for whether he plans to sell his artwork, David notes, “[T]he fact that there’s an audience for it is quite a tickle. So of course I’ll make it available. You bet.”
Check out the full interview at NYTimes.com.
By Matt Friedlander
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