David Lee Roth Is Retiring

David Lee Roth is retiring. “I am throwing in the shoes. I’m retiring,” the former Van Halen singer told the Las Vegas Review-Journal. “This is the first, and only, official announcement. You’ve got the news. Share it with the world.”

Roth’s final five shows shows will take place at House Of Blues at Mandalay Bay Las Vegas around New Year’s. “I’m not going to explain the statement. The explanation is in a safe,” he added. “These are my last five shows.”

Eddie Van Halen died of throat cancer at 65 last year, and Roth said that he’s been thinking about “the departure of my beloved classmate recently … I am encouraged and compelled to really come to grips with how short time is, and my time is probably even shorter.”

“I thought I might have been the first, frankly. ‘Hey Ed, objects in the rear-view mirror are probably me,’” Roth continued. “And my doctors, my handlers, compelled me to really address that every time I go onstage, I endanger that future.”

“I know that when I am in the audience, whether you come out with a ukulele or a marching band, all I ask you give me everything you’ve got to give. That’s what I did for the last 50 years,” he concluded. “It’s been an amazing, great run, no regrets, nothing to say about anybody. I’ll miss you all. Stay frosty.”