Celebrating the 40th Anniversary of Eat 'Em and Smile!
Gimme a bottle of anything...and a glazed donut...to go!
This hard rockin’ guitar-laden album was released on July 7, 1986.
This is an image of the cover art for the album Eat 'Em and Smile by David Lee Roth. Copyright Warner Bros.
After releasing Crazy from the Heat, an EP of lounge standards that became a surprise hit during early 1985, and subsequently parting ways with Van Halen while the band was at its commercial zenith, Diamond Dave assembled a new backing band: bassist Billy Sheehan (later of Mr. Big); drummer Gregg Bissonette (later of Ringo Starr's All-Starr Band); and virtuoso guitarist Steve Vai, who had played with Frank Zappa, PiL, and Alcatrazz. Roth later said that the songs written for the album were originally intended to form the soundtrack to a film, Crazy from the Heat, which was never made. The phrase "Eat 'Em and Smile" was part of a trademark registered in 1928 by the now-defunct Ward-Owsley Co candy company in Aberdeen, South Dakota. This is the first of two Roth albums to feature the duo of Steve Vai and Billy Sheehan on guitar and bass respectively. Throughout the album the two often synced complicated basslines and lead guitar parts, as on tracks such as "Shyboy" and "Elephant Gun". The album brought Steve Vai into the public eye. This album features some of Steve Vai's most renowned guitar work. The album was a critical and commercial success. Many reviews compared Eat 'Em and Smile with Van Halen's synth-heavy 5150 (which featured Roth's replacement Sammy Hagar), often favorably. In 1987, Kerrang! magazine reviewed the Diamond Dave’s Cobo Hall concert, calling it "One of the best shows I've ever witnessed" and "Pure entertainment with a sense of surprise. No one is better at this than DLR. Believe it!"
Source: Wikipedia.org
Diamond Dave, Vai, Sheehan, Bissonette. Not much more to say… Pure virtuosity!
As a lead guitarist, Steve Vai is one of my primary influences. For me, his virtuosity, specifically his Neo-Classical, Fusion-inspired guitar playing, motivates me to further my own guitar technique and to explore different musical styles. Diamond Dave also demonstrated that it is the performance, the show, those mostly visual aspects, perhaps even more than the aural aspects, that transform a musician into a “star”. Like he said, “It's not whether you win or lose, it's how good you looked doing it!”
A few more famous quotes and a little advice from Diamond Dave…
"He who knows how will always work for he who knows why."
"The world's a stage, and I want the brightest spot."
"Look at all the people here tonight!”
“Gimme a bottle o'anythin' and a glazed donut - TO GO!"
"Remember, life is just a game and no one gets out alive."