‘Diamond’ Dave Lee Roth is best known as the lead singer of Van Halen (or at least, the lead singer of Van Halen in the years 1974 to 1985, 1996, and finally from 2006 to 2020). He also had a successful solo career as a singer. If you are at all familiar with Roth onstage presence and public persona, it will probably not surprise you to learn that Roth was diagnosed as hyperactive in his childhood. Roth was born in Bloomington, Indiana, but the family later relocated to Pasadena, California – where Roth met the Van Halen brothers, and they formed a band.
The band’s first demo was paid for by Gene Simmons of Kiss in 1975, and did very little for them. Two years later, their self-titled first album was a hit, and the band began its climb to stardom, with Roth’s smiling face always front and centre (except as noted above).
