David Lee Roth surprise drops acoustic ballad

Song features piano and acoustic guitar

David Lee Roth has surprised dropped a new piano/acoustic guitar ballad, “Pointing at the Moon.” The rocker released the single on Saturday (July 10th) to YouTube, revealing no musician credits or song origins.

It’s the first new music from the former Van Halen frontman since 2020 when he included five previously unreleased songs in The Roth Project, an online comic narrated by the singer. The songs included guitar and bass by John 5, Greg Bissonette on drums, Brett Tuggle on keys and Luis Conte on percussion. The songs were recorded a decade prior in Hollywood.

John 5 recently spoke with AL.com about his work with Roth, which he says is “unbelievable.”

“You can’t deny a good song and Dave writes good songs. He’s written some of the most amazing songs of our lifetime, and Dave worked really hard on these lyrics. I’m not sure when it’s going to come out or if it’ll come out, but I hope it does,” the guitarist states.

“There’s one I’ll tell you about called ‘Nothing Could Have Stopped Us’ and it’s unbelievable. Being a Van Halen fan and a Dave Lee Roth fan, it’s unbelievable because it’s about Dave singing about Van Halen and what it was like. Really something special, so I really hope that comes out.”

While it’s unknown if “Moon” is from these sessions, it fits the singer/songwriter sound John describes Roth as creating.

“He wanted to do this kind of a more California sessions type of thing. And he’s such an artist, I was like, ‘Whatever you want to do, I’m there for you.’ So it is that kind of vibe. But there’s a lot of multi tracks and different acoustic parts that all work together. It’s kind of orchestrated, if you will,” he states.

Roth announced his retirement last fall with a “career-ending residency” at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. However, “due to unforeseen circumstances related to COVID and out of an abundance of caution for those working and attending the shows,” the entire thing was canceled, even after the addition of new shows.

“I am throwing in the shoes. I’m retiring,” Roth shares. “This is the first, and only, official announcement. You’ve got the news. Share it with the world. I’m not going to explain the statement. The explanation is in a safe. These are my last five shows.”

Roth recently shared a cryptic message with Fox News when asked about retiring.

“There’s always a tomorrow for a singer. Not so much for a trombone player these days, okay?” he says. “How many times did Rocky retire? Seven. I think number three was my favorite? How many times did Rambo have to come out of retirement in order to make the sequel?”

Roth seems to be holding up any potential Eddie Van Halen tribute that’s been rumored in recent months. SiriusXM radio host Eddie Trunk shared during an episode of Trunk Nation on SiriusXM Volume 106 last week that Roth is the reason nothing has been solidified.

“I had a very, very, very reliable source tell me last night at The Black Crowes show that the hold-up on the Van Halen anything happening is a lot of it falling on David Lee Roth, that David Lee Roth — to no surprise, it shouldn’t be a surprise to anybody — is a difficult guy to wrangle, a difficult guy to get an answer on, a difficult guy to get focused on anything, a difficult guy to get to sign off on anything. He is all over the map, as you would expect and have seen throughout history, and that the big hold-up in anything happening with Van Halen is not Alex, who wants to do it and is trying. It’s actually Roth who needs to sign off and be involved.”

Buddy Iahn
Buddy Iahn

Buddy Iahn founded The Music Universe when he decided to juxtapose his love of web design and music. As a lifelong drummer, he decided to take a hiatus from playing music to report it. The website began as a fun project in 2013 to one of the top independent news sites. Email: info@themusicuniverse.com