Desmond Child has written for a litany of rock greats, but in the mid-’90s, Van Halen became the one that got away.
The producer and songwriter has helped shape hits like Aerosmith’s swaggering “Dude (Looks Like a Lady”, Bon Jovi’s talkbox-powered “Livin’ On A Prayer”, and Kiss’s disco hit, “I Was Made for Lovin’ You”. He’s got a proven track record of helping rock songs resonate with massive audiences, which often puts him in high demand.
Yet, remarkably, he found himself in line to work with both David Lee Roth, whose commercial star was waning, and his former band, Van Halen, within just a few months in 1996. Both gigs ended up intertwining in an unexpected way.
First, he was in line to enter songwriting sessions with Diamond Dave when the singer rocked up to their first meeting armed with two things: a cassette and strippers.
“He was going to explain what his music was all about, so he gave me a cassette and said, ‘Put this on,’ and it was like real old-fashioned stripper music,” Child told Chuck Shute. “Then all of a sudden the strippers, who wear trench coats, fedoras, and stiletto heels with nothing on underneath, slip in, and then they start doing all these moves. And this was in an office that was like a little closet.”
For most artists, this would seem a surprising and highly unprofessional move – even if it did hit the nail on the head, aesthetically – but for David Lee Roth, it feels incredibly on-brand.
“Then suddenly he turns off the music,” says Child, “and they jump up, grab their coats, and they say, ‘Give us a call if you want some more inspiration!’”
There was no second meeting, although Child says that was on Roth.
“He didn’t come back, maybe I didn’t enjoy the strippers enough for his taste,” he jokes. But he see the singer again not long after.
“I think Hagar had left, and now they were looking for a new lead singer,” he says, referring to his potential collaboration with Van Halen. “I was recommending Mitch Malloy, who is a great rock singer. I thought he could pull it off and, you know, he had the golden locks.”
Malloy would go on to audition for the gig, which Extreme vocalist Gary Cherone ultimately got. But for Child, his time with the band was about to get a whole lot weirder. Dave Lee Roth was still in the picture, and about to make a brief return to the band.
“I went up there, and he [David Lee Roth] shows up, top down, looking like a video shoot,” he says. “Then he gets out of the car, and before you know it, no song was started, and I had to leave. He came in there and busted it all up. I never got asked back.”
It’s strange that Van Halen were even considering outside help with their songwriting, considering the fallout of Eddie’s secret guest solo on Michael Jackson’s “Beat It”. The rule in the band was ‘Van Halen, nothing else.’ Maybe that, rather than Roth’s actions, was the reason the collaboration never happened.
But how did Roth know what was going on?
“Somebody must have tipped him off,” Child guesses. “Who knows how that transpired, like ‘We’re writing with Desmond Child, we don’t need you!’ There was a high school-ness to it all.”
Either way, the party was crashed, and Van Halen never worked with Desmond Child. Instead, they pressed on with Cherone and released Van Halen III in 1998 before going on hiatus.
As for Roth, who had handpicked Steve Vai to help launch his solo career, he went on to form the DLR Band with future Rob Zombie and Mötley Crüe guitarist John 5, but not before he tried to recruit Joe Satriani for a Van Halen tribute band. Satch couldn’t believe the cheek of it.
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