Teddy Swims, David Lee Roth Return to Desert for Stagecoach Set

Teddy Swims followed up his back-to-back Coachella performances with a potent set at Stagecoach on Saturday and once again brought out David Lee Roth for the occasion.

After singing his new single, “Mr. Know It All,” and “Some Things I’ll Never Know” from his debut studio album I’ve Tried Everything But Therapy (Part 1), Swims invited the former Van Halen frontman onstage to once again play “Jump.” Like the duo’s previous two performances at Coachella, it was a standout moment at their Stagecoach iteration as fans fist-pumped the air in dusty cowboy hats and belted the lyrics.

During Swims’ previous Coachella sets, the Grammy-nominated artist brought out Joe Jonas to sing the country-flavored Jonas Brothers ballad “When You Look Me in the Eyes” and  Vanessa Carlton, who played her resurgent Nineties smash “A Thousand Miles.”

Rolling Stone spoke to Roth right after the Stagecoach set, who called his duet with Swims a “45 [miles per hour] summer ride up to Stagecoach,” noting, “Classic Van Halen is probably 30 percent cowboy hat and boot.” When asked what made “Jump” his song of choice two festivals in a row, Roth replied that it has a universal appeal that is physical and emotional. “It’s a song about ascending, taking a shot, testing the deep end,” he said. “It’s about leading with your forehead, and I’ve been places with mine you wouldn’t go with a pistol — which is cowboy humor.”

Roth, who beams when both performing with and speaking about Swims, says they share a “wabi-sabi dispotion,” a Japanese philosophy he says means “that which is perfect because it’s a little fucked up, like my voice.” As Stagecoach embraces rock-centric acts like Counting Crows and Third Eye Blind, as well as genre-defying artists like BigXthaPlug, Roth reflected on how rock & roll has changed since his days in Van Halen.

“Culture is a verb. It’s not a thing. Culture is something you do, and it changes constantly,” he said. “Don’t just learn to do the waltz. Learn the Cha Cha and learn to enjoy it. And that’s in my classic songbook. It’s everything from West Side Story to Ricky Ricardo.”