Stand Up

You Zoo Freaks out there in the listening audience, the Zoo Crew just dropped the needle on "Stand Up" from Diamond Dave's second solo album Skyscraper, and if that funky groove and those keyboards don't get you moving then nothing will. This track came out as the second single in the spring of 1988 after the album itself hit the streets in January, and it was written by Roth along with keyboard player Brett Tuggle, who brought the whole arrangement in pretty much ready to go with a lot of synth bass already locked in. Steve Vai later talked about how Tuggle's contribution fit the more polished direction they were chasing on that record, and Billy Sheehan didn't even end up playing on the cut because the synth handled the low end so well. It climbed to number five on the rock charts and made it to sixty-four on the Hot 100, which turned out to be the last time one of Roth's solo songs cracked that particular chart.

The whole Skyscraper record had that sense of reaching for something bigger, and Roth co-produced it with Vai in what both of them described as a pretty forensic process since it was their first real outing behind the board. Vai has said in interviews that a lot of his guitar solos on the album came straight from the demos because Dave liked them so much he didn't want them redone. That included some of the wilder moments that didn't change much from the rough versions they sketched out. The band on those sessions was the same tight crew from the Eat 'Em and Smile days—Vai on guitar, Sheehan on bass, Gregg Bissonette on drums, and Tuggle on keys—but the vibe in the studio shifted. Sheehan has talked about how they recorded one player at a time instead of all hanging out together the way they did on the previous album, and he felt the fun kind of drained out of it. He left after that record wrapped, saying it just wasn't his thing anymore even though he gave Dave credit for having the guts to turn in a different direction.

Then there's the cover, which is pure Diamond Dave. Roth had gotten into climbing, and for the photo he went up on Half Dome in Yosemite with adventure photographer Galen Rowell and a couple of experienced riggers named Werner Braun and Ron Kauk. They set him up on a spot with very little to hold onto, and one of the pitons was barely stuck in the rock. Roth took one look and said he wasn't hanging off that thing because it would pull out and he would die. He was shaking. The climbers kept reassuring him that it was solid and that the rigger never lies, and eventually he bought it, climbed on, and put on the smile between the deep breaths while Rowell burned through the film. After the shot the piton came out with one easy pull. Roth gave the two guys gold-plated carabiners engraved with "Diamond Dave" as a souvenir. In interviews around that time he talked about how climbing gives you the same feeling in your stomach whether you're on a twenty-foot wall your first day or a two-thousand-foot face later on, and that the whole album was about sticking your neck out a little farther and seeing how high you could reach.

On the tour that followed, Roth would lower himself onto the stage on a rope like a climber when they played the title track, and the shows stretched across North America, Europe, Japan, and Australia. The set mixed the new songs with Van Halen classics and a few covers, and the stage had all kinds of wild touches including a boxing ring at one end where he would climb a ladder and sing from up there. It was the last tour with Vai in the lineup before the band started changing again.

That brings us around to how Diamond Dave even got started in the first place. He was born in Bloomington, Indiana, back in 1954, son of an ophthalmologist who played him records by Al Jolson and Ray Charles when he was little. His uncle ran the Cafe Wha? down in Greenwich Village, so he got an early look at all kinds of performers coming through that room. The family moved out to Pasadena when he was a kid, and he was the hyperactive type who would burn off energy doing comedy routines and singing during what the family called monkey hour. He started singing in local bands, including an R&B-leaning outfit called the Red Ball Jets, and he was working as a hospital orderly to pay the bills while he gigged.

At Pasadena City College he crossed paths with Eddie and Alex Van Halen, who were playing in a band called Mammoth. They would rent his PA system for their backyard parties and club shows, and after a couple of auditions he ended up joining them as the singer. When they found out another group already had the name Mammoth, it was Roth who pushed for changing it to Van Halen so they would have something that stuck. He brought the street-smart showmanship and the soul influences that helped set the band apart once they hit the Sunset Strip and started building a following. Gene Simmons even paid for an early demo after catching them, but it was Ted Templeman who finally signed them after seeing a show at the Starwood. From there it was the self-titled debut in 1978 and the rest is history, though Roth has always said his real education came from watching people like Wilson Pickett, Sam and Dave, and the Stones rather than from any formal music school.

You can dig deeper into all of this and catch what Dave is up to these days on his official website, and follow along on his Facebook, Instagram, and X accounts where he posts about the road and whatever else is on his mind. Fans who want to talk shop about the solo years and the old Van Halen days hang out over at the Diamond One section of VHLinks. Meanwhile the Zoo Crew will keep spinning the deep cuts and the hits for you Zoo Freaks right here on THE ZOO, commercial-free and freeform the way rock radio ought to be. Stand up and turn it up loud, brothers and sisters.