"This is not a reunion, this a new band," swooned "Diamond" David Lee Roth at a Beverly Hills press conference Monday afternoon. "Usually, when a band comes back like us, it is rockers with walkers. This is everything but."
While the announced Van Halen tour, which kicks off Sept. 27 in Charlotte, NC, does reunite Roth, 52, with namesake guitarist Eddie Van Halen, 52, and his brother Alex, 54, absent is original bassist Michael Anthony. Taking his place is Eddie Van Halen's 16-year-old son, Wolfgang Van Halen. Wolfgang was born six years after Roth's last tour with Van Halen. "Wolf brings a young energy and spirit to this that will knock you out of your socks," the ever-vocal frontman gushed. "The vocals are better than ever, and he's a taskmaster. I can understand why Ed wanted to play with his boy, because he is amazing. And you heard me say that." When Wolfgang was asked what his mother, actress Valerie Bertinelli, thought of his going out on the road with Van Halen, the young bassist responded, "Let's just say, she's watching me closely." Said Eddie Van Halen who admitted himself into rehab in March, and looked as fit as ever at the 15-minute press conference: "This is incredible to me, I'm really excited to be making music with my son, my brother, and my new brother. It's totally blowing our minds, it is better than it's ever been.. Like his brother and son, he hardly got a word in alongside the effluent Roth. According to Roth, the band started rehearsing its 25-song set, handpicked by Wolfgang, in April. "I've done more rehearsals in the last four months than I've done in the last 20 summers, and the sound is better than it's ever been. It feels completely natural. The bar is set unbelievably high. We know what your expectations are--are you prepared for it to be better than it ever f---ing was? "There's a whole lot of change going on, [the songs] are updated, we upgraded," Roth continued of the music. "It's the same way they moved the Mustang into the future, and that's what you expect. You don't want to see the same old band, the U2 guys with the mullets, you want something that delights, that entertains and astonishes� and that's all by the second song." With Van Halen no longer a target for his jabs, Roth wasn't bashful about finding new artists to barb. "A band like this, particularly after an absence of this amount of time, can get away with a lot if you only do one tour, but that is not our ambition here," said Roth. "This is not like The Police. The idea is that this will continue on and on. You've got to get a good start for that, and we've reformed this like the brother team that it never was before. "When the Three Tenors get together, you only wait for 'Oh Solo Mio' and the rest of it you can barely pronounce. With this, you know every single song, you know every guitar, every kick, every jump and every drum lick, and we can't afford to shirk that." "None of us want to give you any less than our best," said Eddie Van Halen, "and we are at our best."
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