Tesla bassist Brian Wheat says David Lee Roth not only wanted Tesla to open for him back in 1987, he also wanted to manage the band.
After a series of dates supported by Cinderella during the second half of 1986, Roth tapped Tesla to open for the Eat ‘Em And Smile band in January and February of ’87. Roth had picked the band after seeing the video for “Modern Day Cowboy”, Tesla’s then-new-single from their album Mechanical Resonance.
“We were damn happy to be on that tour,” said Wheat, who was a recent guest on the Paltrocast with Darren Paltrowitz. Paltrowitz is also the author of The DLR Book: How David Lee Roth Changed The World. “He wanted to manage us. That was the thing is that when he finally did wanna see us the very last night of the tour, his manager guy Pete Angelus took us up to this room and we saw Dave and he was givin’ us “The Dave Show” like Dave does. It’s fuckin’ David Lee Roth I mean, ya know, just like you’d get the Gene Simmons show ya know what I mean? But he said to us, ‘Look, I would like to manage you guys.’ We said, ‘Oh that’s very nice but we have this management company called Q Prime,’ which was Cliff [Burnstein] and Peter [Mensch].”
Wheat has more to say about his time touring with Roth in the interview below:
Watch 1986 USA TV Interview With David Lee Roth