Mammoth WVH frontman Wolfgang Van Halen recently interviewed his mother, Valerie Bertinelli, on the latest episode of ‘Wolfgang’s Top of the Pack’ on SiriusXM for Mother’s Day Edition and shared their stories of Van Halen. Valerie stated that David Lee Roth had ‘Lead Singer Disease.’
The legendary guitarist Eddie Van Halen and the well-known actress Valerie Bertinelli married in 1981, and their son, Wolfgang, was born in the same year. However, they started to have some problems in their marriage. Thus, the couple separated in 2001, and their divorce ended in 2007. At the time, Eddie had been struggling with his drug addiction, which significantly affected their divorce.
The guitarist also started to have some health problems. He was diagnosed with oral cancer but still didn’t quit smoking. Their marriage didn’t work out due to all these reasons. While Valerie and Eddie Van Halen were together, Valerie would come to the band’s rehearsals and spend time with the rest of the band. Thus, she was a close witness to the relationships within the group.
During her recent appearance, Valerie revealed she thought for a long time that Led Zeppelin’s ‘Daze and Confused’ was actually ‘Dave and Confused.’ Watching how Van Halen members worked with each other was a new experience for her. She remembers Eddie Van Halen would say David Lee Roth had ‘LSD,’ which was the short form of ‘Lead Singer Disease.’ Everyone in the band and the crew would be careful when Diamond Dave was in that mood.
Valerie Bertinelli’s statements about David Lee Roth follow:
“I, for the longest time, thought the name of the song was ‘Dave and Confused’ because when I first would watch the shenanigans that happened, I was new to watching a band and how they worked with each other. So I would watch what would happen, and I would notice when your dad had a saying called ‘LSD.’ He called it ‘LSD’ when Dave went on his little ‘LSD rant,’ which is short for ‘Lead Singer Disease.‘
And then you’d see the crew kind of get scared and do everything, and everyone was, like, ‘LSD. It’s ‘Dave and Confused’ time.’ And you hear when someone goes, just walking down the hall. And we’re, like, ‘Oh, God. Okay, we have to be careful,’ and we’d start walking on eggshells. I always thought it was called ‘Dave and Confused’ until I realized, ‘Oh, wow. Oh, it’s ‘Dazed and Confused.’ I get it.'”
You can listen to the rest of the interview below.
