In a new interview with Paltrocast, Tesla bassist Brian Wheat revealed that David Lee Roth not only desired Tesla to open for him in 1987 but also expressed interest in managing the band.
When the host told Wheat he got the impression of Tesla not being happy during their tour with Roth, the bassist stated otherwise while sharing that Roth was a nice person. He said:
“We were damn happy to be on that tour. He wanted to manage us. That was the thing is that when he finally did wanna see us the very last night of the tour, his manager guy Pete Angelus took us up to this room and we saw Dave and he was givin’ us ‘The Dave Show’ like Dave does. It’s f*cking David Lee Roth I mean, just like you would get the Gene Simmons show. But he said to us, ‘Look, I would like to manage you guys.’ We said, ‘Oh that’s very nice but we have this management company called Q Prime, which was Cliff [Burnstein] and Peter [Mensch].”
Roth Was Always In His ‘David Mode’ During The Tour
Following a series of dates supported by Cinderella in the latter half of 1986, Roth selected Tesla to open for the ‘Eat ‘Em And Smile’ tour in January and February of 1987. Roth made this decision after watching the video for ‘Modern Day Cowboy,’ Tesla’s then-newly released single from their album ‘Mechanical Resonance.’ Wheat, recalling the tour in an earlier interview, shared his experience:
“He is always in David mode, to be quite honest with you I only spoke to him one time the whole tour. We walked in a room and it was all David mode, that whole it’s Dave TV thing, that was my take on him.”
You can watch the latest interview below.
