I wish they all could be California girls

David Lee Roth’s first solo record debuted at #43 on the Billboard charts and stayed on the charts for 33 weeks, reaching #15 on the U.S. charts and #91 on the U.K. charts. It has sold over one million copies in the U.S. Roth told Record magazine: “It was dreamed up at the beach on a dull afternoon. I’d had these songs in my suitcase for years, but couldn’t figure out which ones to put on a record or when I would possibly have time to do an album.”

“We were playing the Beach Boys, ‘California Girls’ came on, and one of the bodyguards said, ‘You ought to do this one, Dave.’ I said, ‘THAT’S IT!’ We packed up our shit immediately, drove through the desert … 15 hours to the airport in Puerto Vallarta, and flew directly home. Right from the airport, I went to (Warner Bros. president) Lenny Waronker and said, ‘I’ve got a great idea. In fact, I’ve got four of them.’”

Roth notes that any of the songs on Crazy from the Heat could have been recorded by the band, but Edward Van Halen’s prodigious output leaves little room for outside material. “And the fact of the matter is, yeah, I have a statement that I felt I couldn’t make enough of in Van Halen. So I had to step outside for four songs.” Read more >

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