David Lee Roth has nine lives. The original voice of Van Halen went off on his own after Van Halen’s 1984. His campy take on the Beach Boys’ “California Girls” worked for him. He parlayed that into a pair of albums with guitar virtuoso Steve Vai, which resulted in the hit “Yankee Rose.”

Years later, Roth hooked back up with Van Halen for a short while, apparently just to make some money. Then he was gone again. After that came a fantastic bluegrass record with John Jorgensen that featured cover tunes of some of Roth’s Van Halen hits.

Then came a real reunion with Van Halen. A treasure trove of early-Van Halen outtakes was worked into a viable batch of tunes called A Different Kind of Truth, released in 2012. Critics raved that Van Halen was back to classic form.

Since then, fans have waited for another Van Halen album. Roth promised back in December that it looked like a new release was 18 months out, but was absolutely coming.

Now news comes that Roth actually has a solo album in the can, waiting for who-knows-what. This news comes from John 5, who had worked with Roth back in the late 90s, before joining Marilyn Manson, and later Rob Zombie.

John 5 told Mitch Lafon (transcribed by Henne Music):

“[Dave and I] just made another record, and it’s, like, the ‘California Sessions’, he was calling it. And it’s 11 of the greatest songs you’ll ever hear, and it’s just me and Dave, and we had Gregg Bissonette play drums on it. And it’s unbelievable. There’s a song called Somewhere Over The Rainbow Bar & Grill. And you know, just great, great songs. And hopefully sometime it’ll see the light of day. But he’s, of course, busy with Van Halen and all that stuff. But it’s an incredible record.

“It was made not too long ago – like, probably, maybe, a year and a half ago or something like that. ‘Cause I always go over to his house and we write music and things like that. It’s a lot of fun.

“And it’s so great. I mean, it sounds like just Dave from that Van Halen I or II or Women And Children First era … It’s really incredible. He loves it too, so maybe it’ll see the light of day sometime.”

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