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    Ten dollars per show ended up being a lot of money for Ed and Al to fork over every time they rented Dave’s PA. “I figured it would be much cheaper if we just got him in the band,” said Eddie. In quite a ballsy move, Dave went to the Van Halens home one day and knocked on the door. He said he wanted to sing with them. Alex and Eddie told him to learn “Crossroads” and a Grand Funk song and come back the next week. David came back the following week, and it did not go well. Eddie said, “It was terrible. He couldn’t sing.” The brothers simply did not believe that what they saw and heard that day was enough to overcome the rental fee for the PA. Dave’s versions of their beloved Cream songs were not note-for-note, spot-on, Jack Bruce sing-a-like vocals. They were described as free-wheeling. Something about the whole situation weighed very heavy on Edward though, and he actually left the room so Alex could tell Dave it was a no-go. Eddie obviously couldn’t bear Dave’s reaction when told he wasn’t what they were looking for. Ed maintained that Roth still holds a grudge against Alex for turning him down. In 1995, Ed said, “To this day that’s why Roth still has a hair up his ass about Al, because he was the one who told him, ‘Sorry, man. It ain’t working.’”
    Dave had already observed Edward from afar on the circuit. Dave had seen Mammoth “doing note-for-note, verbatim renditions of The Who, Live at Leeds , or Deep Purple, ‘Smoke on the Water,’ or shit from Woodstock, when Alvin Lee comes out and plays ‘Goin’ Home’ faster than any known human being on earth, or at least up until that time—Edward could do that lick. You know. It was amazing stuff.” Dave added, “I’ve always had a tremendous amount of respect for their musical ability—particularly Edward’s… . I listened to him play, I watched him play, and I said, ‘You know, what he does with his hands, I wanna do with my feet, I wanna do with my voice. He was kind of a mentor of mine.”
    Again, David was taking the same music classes as Edward, as well as Alex and Michael. Dave described their days at Pasadena City College as “treading water until a band got launched. I spent most of the time in junior college in music courses—theory and orchestration. I was not very good at it. Mathematically, I count to four and then start over… . The Van Halens were far superior to anything I could do in that area. So was Michael. They won all the awards.”
    Following his failed attempt to join the brothers, Dave formed Red Ball Jets, whose direction was similar to many bands at the time—vamped up seventies rock versions of fifties rock staples. Mammoth, Snake, and Red Ball Jets were constantly crossing paths on the tiny circuit. Dave said, “Playing those parties got competitive fast.” Battle of the bands events would inevitably pit one of the bands against the other. Not everybody always won. Ed’s vocals were not blowing anyone away and his stage persona was not yet hatched. He was bound to both the guitar amp and that damned microphone.
    Before long, Alex reconsidered his and Eddie’s earlier opinion of Dave and his peculiar style. Ed’s vocal struggles and hindered front man abilities got Alex thinking about a band that had the whole deal—a trio plus a front man. The 1970s rock band template was a quartet (trio plus front man, that is): Sabbath, Zeppelin, etc. Dave’s work ethic showed, plus he came with a PA, a rehearsal space, and transportation. Perhaps Dave’s unique interpretations of the Mammoth cover song bible might just provide a nice segue into original music. Dave dryly noted, “Basically what I had to offer at that time was that I knew how to dance. I knew what was good dance music, and, hence, could get us into clubs.” Eddie later maintained that he still considered what he was doing was playing in a trio, but just, in his words, “a trio with a throat.” About Dave’s vocal abilities