Van Halen frontman David Lee Roth discussed getting Dengue Fever in a new Your EDM interview.
“Approximately 20 years ago, I caught Dengue Fever in the South Pacific and broke my two molars. I walked around without the two teeth in my upper side [of my mouth] for almost two years before I got it fixed. And I swore from that camping trip forward that I was going to remedy everything that I had gotten wrong. Because I am an expert in everything you can do wrong. Everything you shouldn’t do. Have you seen the free solo film with Alex Honnold where he solos El Capitán?”
He added, “Every climb he did, I thought to myself, ‘Oh, I almost killed myself on that one. Oh, almost killed the team on that one.’ [laughs] And this extends to going out in very harsh conditions and unforgiving environments. An event like Ultra Music Festival that is all day, fourteen hours in the sun, wearing a jacket and pants in the Mojave, getting lost somewhere in a fourth world nation as a means of recreation is the background for all our products that we make for people with tattoos. People with tattoos have very specific requirements for their skin. Especially, when they go through the time, the trouble, the expense and the pain.
Tattoo consumers like myself will tell you that the pain is like a cat scratch. But the truth is it is like a cat scratch from a hungry, 300 pound Bengal tiger! [laughs] And we’re not even talking about people who get tattoos all the time. If you take that approach with hitting those weight stacks at the gym in your 20s, you’ll fool ’em by about twelve summers when you get to my age! [laughs] If you wait at my age, you’ll look like a 60-something who goes to the gym a lot. So here I am to save your day early.”
