Romeo Delight – Van Halen Tribute Band’s Buddy Blanchard Tells The Tale of Living Up to Such a Legacy

Romeo Delight

Van Halen Tribute Band’s Buddy Blanchard Tells The Tale of Living Up to Such a Legacy

by Brad Balfour

When I found out about Romeo Delight, I wondered what it takes to be in a tribute band? There are dozens of them playing the music of so many groups that are not on the circuit anymore but still have huge fan followings. Though there are always new groups and artists coming along, there are some like the Beatles who are unforgettable.

That being said, until I spoke with founder/lead singer Buddy Blanchard to do this interview, I never looked behind the faces who were performing in place of those many legendary artists.

Romeo Delight is an award-winning group recreating the Van Halen experience like no other. They've been recognized by everyone from Howard Stern to the Monkees' Micky Dolenz. Diamond David Lee Roth, himself, selected Romeo Delight's video for his podcast "The Roth Show." What's more, the band is being featured on Van Halen's news site multiple times.

This Philadelphia-based band has been widely acclaimed for presenting entire Van Halen albums in concert in the original track sequence. Romeo Delight specializes in David Lee Roth-era Van Halen, while throwing in a few of Sammy Hagar's Van Halen hits, and their Greatest Solo Hits. Having been noted as the East Coast's Most Viewed Van Halen Tribute Band on YouTube, they're also named one of the Top Tribute Bands in the United States, with Top Vocals in the Van Halen book Unchained.

As mentioned by Jacky Bam Bam of 93.3 WMMR, "Lead singer Buddy Blanchard should be the fourth singer for Van Halen. He high kicks and jumps like a young Diamond Dave. This kid needs to be in VH to keep the band I grew up with alive, and keep many rock fans' memories alive the way we grew up with VH!"

Thanks to this conversation, with Blanchard, I have a little more insight into one more way of celebrating great Rock 'n Roll.

Of all the tribute bands you could be in, was it just because you had the right hair for you to be doing David Lee Roth?

It was a combination of things. Growing up here in Philadelphia, Van Halen was such a popular band. They would sell out three nights at the big stadium with 19, 20,000 people. I would go and see them and just had a connection with the band and their performance. Then I met them and really loved the positive energy, the athleticism and the virtuosity of it all.

At the time when you started, it was something like a cover band. When did it turn into a full tribute band that would become a career? Or was it that you thought, "I'll just do this for a lark and then go back to writing my own songs"? What was the process?

The idea always was to write my own songs. That was number one. I did that for years and almost had a deal with Capitol Records. I was going back and forth with a talent buyer [like an A&R man] but that fell through. I would just really try and get out on the weekends with my friends. It seemed like the common bond was that we all loved Van Halen.

What were you doing at the time – a regular job – and then this suddenly mutated into a real job?

Exactly. I was just writing songs and putting music together. I was doing my regular job. Then we just wanted to do something that we all had fun doing and enjoyed where our heart was. But I've been doing hair for a living all along.

Oh, you do hair styling. That fits. If there was ever a hair band, so to speak. I never thought of Van Halen as a hair band but more as a progressive metal group where there was real, obviously massive, musicianship for sure. So, you're in Philadelphia. You grew up there?

I grew up in the heart of Northeast Philadelphia. Right by whenever they win the big sports games, Eagles or the Flyers. Everybody always goes right to Cottman and Frankford Avenues. I actually grew up two blocks from there and then went to school in the area. I've stayed here and became regionally known.

Were you always going to be a musician since you were a six-year-old or 12-year-old?

Absolutely. Ever since I was a kid, that's all we ever did because that's before the internet and all you had was your parents' influence in music. What I gravitated towards was just playing music and getting together with friends. That was the way we would play. We would interact that way. There were a lot of kids who had bands, and I would always go play guitar and would mostly sing until I got it. It just seemed like singing was the obvious choice for me.

You could always be a David Lee Roth, Sammy Hagar or whatever. But finding a guy that could be an Eddie Van Halen, that wasn't the easiest thing to do. How'd you find the guitarist?

We set out on a bit of a search to try and find somebody who had that virtuosity and dexterity on the fretboard. Brad Capinjola actually answered an ad that he had found. I was so grateful when I found him. He had played with one of the American Idols and also was in the Rock of Ages band. He wrote me and wanted to be in the band. I checked him out and saw his videos on YouTube. Then I met him with his great personality and sense of humor. He was a shoe-in. He was undeniable. He was going to be the guy. I was lucky to find him only a little over an hour away from my front door.

Did you put in the ad that you must play with a hammering fingering technique?

Oh yeah. All that's in there. Definitely.

How many songs do you do in a show?

It all depends. Some shows we do two one-hour sets, and we could do, I would say, 28 songs a night.

You not only have to have vocal dexterity, but also have to have physical dexterity. Given David Lee Roth, obviously, did you have to choose between doing David Lee Roth versus Sammy Hagar. Or do you focus more on Roth?

Roth is my natural way, but I love Sammy. I think he's the greatest guy too. What we do is the big ones that he wrote, and people really do love those songs. We primarily just do what we do which is Van Halen albums in their entirety. We're the only band that actually does that in the world, and then we add some greatest hits in. So, when we added the Greatest Hits, we started really stretching out to like "California Girls" and "Just Like Paradise" by David Lee Roth.

Then we thought, let's throw a couple Sammy Hagar songs in there because he did that song "Why Can't This Be Love?" which was a number one hit single. We also had a couple of other ones we were doing like "Finish What We Started." We also played that one, the other night. We threw them in too – just to really throw the audience a curve, to give them something different, something unique along with playing the albums and the entire Greatest Hits.

What happened was that when these bands started retiring or disbanding, people still want to hear the music. There is this thing of when you're doing that, are you inhabiting the characters? Are you really channeling your rock and roll essence through their music?

That's always the balance there on the scale: you want to give them the actual look and sound of the band, which we do, but we also throw in our own little bit of us there, too. That makes it feel more sincere when we perform. I see some people out there just creating it like a play, which is really nice. I like that too. We lean a little bit more towards that way but, I think, we still have our own personality and uniqueness to it because it just comes out that way.

There's that other side of performing when you're performing your own material. It's one thing when you're performing other people's material. reinterpreting is another thing. Obviously when you've made the commitment to being a tribute band, there's a certain balance between trying to sound like the original, but like you said, putting an essence of yourself into it. There's the other side of it where you're immersing yourself, not so much into David Lee Roth, but into the rock experience. People don't always understand if they're not in a band or not playing when you're on stage, it's a whole other thing. There's a whole different mindset.

True. It absolutely is. You really have to, like you said, unless you do it and you're really actually trying to execute the performance and even some of the interpretation of it, it is a mindset, and you really have to get in the zone. Whether you're singing the songs, performing live or everything, just trying to get to the show, preparing for it is a whole different thing. You have to really focus.

Getting back to the question of Sammy Hagar versus David Lee Roth, when you're channeling the lead singer, whoever that may or may not be, is there something special that you channel that's about Van Halen? Maybe in the interaction between you and the rest of the band? That was always a big essence of the show. I got to see them live. the David Lee Roth version.

We really have a lot of fun together and try to execute the performances as correctly, as best we can, like the record.  But we try to keep it light, the way we treat each other at rehearsal and when we're together and our private time off stage. We really just try to bring that to the stage, so we all treat each other very nice, and very respectful. That's the way to do it.

We're trying to be good to each other, so when we get on stage, it shines through to the audience how much the camaraderie and the balance between each other with respect is one of the main ingredients. And we try to have fun too. Music is fun and you don't have to work to play. You play to play.

You were always hard rock oriented, I gather.

I've always been into hard rock.

What do you do off stage? Do you do exercises, or do you work out or anything? David Lee Roth in his heyday really could execute some physical efforts there.

I wish I could have picked an easier front man to emulate.

You really picked a tough lead guy to mimic...

He is tough.

I mean, not to slack on Eddie, but what did Eddie do? He just fingered. [Both chuckle]. He might've been the genius behind it and a lot of the songs, but David was the voice and face. Obviously, you must've watched a million videos of Van Halen.

I know Van Halen in and out.

When are you going to write your book about them?

I should. Everybody else is putting one out. (laughs)

That's for sure. I saw the picture of you meeting Eddie. Did you meet Sammy as well?

I haven't met Sammy, but I would love to. He seems like a really great guy. My brother-in-Law is the lead singer for the Monkees, and he was with Sammy and he took a picture with Sammy and sent it to me.

Wait a minute, Micky Dolenz is your brother-in-Law?

Yes.

Really? So that's how you met David?

No, I met David through my own craftiness of meeting him at a radio station and also hanging out at the hotels and stuff where they were touring and staying at, and I went out of my way to try and meet those guys.

Micky married your sister – I'm assuming your older sister.

Our wives are sisters.

Wow, that's wild. But you're a lot younger. What did Micky think of you performing as Van Halen?

He's great. He's been out to shows. We did a show at The Cutting Room a couple years back and he came out to emcee the show for us. It was a lot of fun. We were actually his backup band; we actually did the Monkees Convention. It was like Van Halen playing the Monkees. We had a little fun with that.

How did you meet David Lee Roth? There's a picture of you together on the site.

I went to the hotel where they were staying at because I had this girlfriend that took me down there. We were just hanging out in the hotel, and he was walking around and we just struck up a little bit of interaction. I really got some pictures, and it was no big deal. There was no, "I'm in a tribute band" – it wasn't like that kind of thing, but it was a little interaction.

Then here at our local radio station, WMMR, I was down there because I had my original band, and we would go there and they would play our music on the radio. I knew that David Lee Roth was going to be there when they did things live back then. I met him and gave him some of my music. I got a picture. It's on the front of the website, the picture of me and David Lee Roth.

How do you and the guitarist work together? What did you learn from them to learn the interplay? Or do you interpret their interplay in your own terms? How does that work?

We interpret the interplay within our own terms with YouTube and all the videos that we have – live videos – aside from seeing them live a bunch of times. We just work off of that. We see how they put their music together and it's really different. It's not like a set formula. It's more like these guys are going to share a brain together, the way they come in and out of time signatures and how they put together pieces of music. The way Eddie did it, I always consider him the Ben Franklin of music. He's got his stuff [built] in some of his guitars. Some of the things he's invented are actually in the Smithsonian. It's a tall order to replicate it, but we deal with a lot of grace and fun. Luckily, we all have a little bit of a gift to do it with the repetition of playing the music for so long. You either have it or you don't.

The first generation of these bands were there, but now because some of the members have passed on – as we well know with Eddie and so on, and some of the groups disbanded – people still hungered for their music. The tribute band has become something more than a cover group that you go to the bar down the block to see. They're a way of keeping alive a tradition and experience. With the lack of a Van Halen out there, you are providing some special service in a way.

Absolutely. I feel like I am. When people come and talk to me, we have a meet and greet after the shows. They actually thank me for bringing back memories. I hear that one a lot. For me, that weight of responsibility hones my love for doing it. It's such a reward. It's a little bit of a gift to my soul that I can actually give people [that feeling]. I think the whole gift of a musician is to be able to give to people. Doing that for people, I think that is really a cool thing. Did I answer your question?

One of the things I want to talk about in this story is not just you guys, but the idea of a tribute band as opposed to just a cover band. In one sense you are replicating the music in another way. You are playing stuff that an audience wants to hear, but when you're a tribute band, there's a degree of dedication to the artist that you have that goes beyond just covering a song.

It's so funny you said that because I was just watching this '80s tribute band and watched them play some songs of Depeche Mode. I'm listening to them, and they sound fine, but they don't have that authenticity to them that we try to bring to the Van Halen show. You really have to make it sound like Van Halen. We put a bit of our own talent in there, but you really have to sound like the group. I think that's what people appreciate. Like you said, that's the difference between the experience and a cover band. You really want to make it an experience for people. The word we use more now is "experience," because that's really what it is.

Obviously when you began, you didn't have the kind of money that Van Halen had to replicate the bombast of their shows. Now that you've been doing this long enough, you've been able to build up the money so that you can do it. How close do you try to replicate the actual stage experience?

We have scrims and always try to play theaters with nice light shows, great sound systems. We replicate the clothing. You can't help but get into character when you're singing those songs because of all the times I see them and you start walking around like David Lee Roth. I know how he walks.

Oh, he does have a walk.

He does. That all starts coming to life. It's just a natural feeling to actually perform that way when you're trying to create the songs and you're standing in front of a thousand people or whatever.

There are competitors, other Van Halen tribute bands?

Yeah, absolutely. Sure.

Have you seen any of them?

Oh yeah. I go out and see them, absolutely.

Van Halen is maybe a little harder than other bands. Are there less of them versus others?

Oh my gosh, yes, exactly. There's less of them. You see a lot of Fleetwood Mac tribute bands and I can't think of anybody else like Pink Floyd. They're easy.

You have to have somebody who can play with Eddie Van Halen's virtuosity, that adds an extra wrinkle.

That's the wrinkle for sure. We've had guys come out to the rehearsals and they just can't play with that kind of dexterity. It is a real natural feeling. I have great guitar players that I love to go see. Great rock and roll guitar players can't play like Eddie. So, it is a big deal. It is the wrinkle for sure.

Have you ever met Eddie's son?

No, I haven't.

That's the next thing on your list.

Yes.

What's the whole thing with the JG Wentworth ad that you and the band appear in? Why couldn't you go under your own name? You had to have a name for that commercial – Juliet Rapture?

Well, the thing with JG Wentworth, there's this creative director Daniel Gray, who lives in California and is a famous photographer. He takes pictures of everybody, from Lady Gaga to Pearl Jam. When he's editing his pictures, he was listening to this famous Van Halen podcast called Dave and Dave Unchained. Those guys, Dave and Dave Unchained, actually sought me out and wanted me to do it. I've done three anniversary shows for them. I sang live on the radio on their podcast for them.

Daniel Gray would listen to the podcast and would hear them talk about me. He was in contact with the director. His name's Daniel also [Hertzog] and they were putting together the JG Wentworth commercial. They were going to get a Chicago-style tribute band with horns and everything. Then he said, "No, you got to get this guy."

When we go on stage, we create excitement. That's what we do. We're in the crowd, we're moving all over the place. We're screaming at the top of our lungs and it really gets a lot of people jacked up. And Daniel Gray knew that. He suggested we come down so they contacted me and asked me to come and perform on the commercial. That's how it all happened.

How often do you get to play New York? The Cutting Room show was a year ago or a couple years ago?

We're trying to put another The Cutting Room show together right now.

When do you think that'll happen?

I'm playing Daryl's House Club, that famous venue that's on TV.  Saturday night I'll be there.

Did you ever want to move to New York?

No. You know what? That New York scene ... I love to come to New York. I'm so close, just an hour or a bit more than an hour away. I just haven't been able to, aside from The Cutting Room and Daryl's House – that's technically in New York too, in Pawling, New York. Aside from those two venues, it's a little tricky of a market to get in there. I want to play New York more. I just haven't really set myself up 100% there.

Have you ever wanted to take and build on that in a way that would take you away from the music?

I'm really torn. I'm a Gemini, so let me start there. There are two sides. I do love that too because I love it for a lot of the same reasons. I get to see family and friends and I get to spend time with people. I love doing that. I think that's one of the reasons I feel like I collect people. The Van Halen band, that's just a larger scale of the hair. I like to do hair. I feel content with the amount that I do there. The Van Halen thing is great, another outlet for me to get out my extra energy and just to share real love.

Where do you see yourself going? You've obviously are reaching a point where you can't keep doing Van Halen, like Van Halen couldn't keep doing Van Halen.  What other goals do you hope to build out of this?

I want to keep working on my own music, which I know is a tough deal now in 2024. But I like to just keep putting that out and doing that because regionally I'm well known, for me to go out and do that. But I would want to do it in the same Van Halen style for sure. Just so expectations are met when people come out and see me do that. I still want to keep playing. With us, we're a little bit more preserved than the real Van Halen because we don't play out as much. We don't tour all the time. We don't smoke cigarettes.

I assume you didn't consume all the things that David Lee Roth consumed. He was not an easy person to stay on top of.

We're a bit more grounded. I think that that'll help preserve us. We're helping to get a little bit of a longer run out of it. I'm working on my vocals at home and that's my primary thing is health. That's where I really focus.

I didn't bring up the other two band members. You have something, tell me a little bit about them.

My drummer, Michael Natalini, he was the touring drummer for the Trammps, you know "Disco Inferno." He's excellent. I love that guy. He's another one with a great personality and an excellent drummer. He also was in a band called Teeze/Roughhouse, and they were on MTV. He's well known. He's got his own following just by himself.

In any case, what if you got offered to do one of these tribute shows like Rock of Ages, would you ever consider doing that?

Yeah, absolutely. Like I said, my guitar player already did that. He still actually does a couple touring dates with that, Brad. But I would love to do that. I mean, anything that's going to keep us out there, keep us moving, keep us motivated and create those memories for everybody. I think that would be something we would definitely be open to if it made sense for us to be able to go out and do that. It'd be fun for sure.

You guys do a lot of signings and stuff like that? Do you have CDs?

We don't have CDs, but I'm actually going to the studio. We're recording some of those Van Halen songs so we can put them out. You know what, to answer your question [about JG Wentworth]. That was another thing. We had to change the name to Juliet Rapture for the band because we weren't portraying ourselves as Van Halen on the commercial. But we kind of had that rock and roll Van Halen style. We didn't dress like Van Halen but we dressed more rock and roll.

Why did you pick "Romeo Delight" of all the Van Halen songs that could be a name for you? Why that one?

You know what, I would've picked a different name if I would've known the band was going to get so big. (chuckles) It's one of their deep cuts on the Women and Children First album. I just thought it had a good ring to it. I thought, "That's fine." But I didn't know all these years and venues later with people, the notoriety and TV. If I would've known that, maybe I would've called us something else.

David Lee Roth was nowhere near as bad a boy as say Gene Simmons. But do you have young ladies that want to enjoy your Romeo Delights? Do they think you're going to channel Van Halen or they want you?

Yeah, no, no. I've had people, they’re more like fans. I had one of my friends, she drove all the way out over 10 hours to see us at The Mauck Chunk Opera House theater last month. It's more like that. They want to come see us and come from out of state. You really have to spend time with people like that. We do that at the meet-and-greets. I write to people online all the time. I talk to fans every day on social media because if they really want to be part of the experience, they want to contact me. I'm definitely not so big that I can't contact people. I know a lot of stars don't do that, but for me, at the level I'm at, I do it.

You have all the requisite social media. Is Instagram being your biggest or you have more of a TikTok following?

We have a TikTok account. We haven't really worked on that. We do like Instagram a lot and Facebook. We have way over 30,000 on all of my social media pages. I just tallied them up – it's 133,000.

Do people think of you as Buddy Blanchard or do they think of you as… ? How do they react?

Whenever I walk into a room, a lot of heads turn because I still have long hair. I don't wear a wig or anything. It's me. I'm recognizable instantly.

You’re long past having to do a regular job now?

I still do my regular job because I love what I do and I love my clientele. I got a couple hundred people there too. I hate to say this, but really, I always think, wherever success falls, that's the road that you should travel.

For more info go to: vanhalentributeband.com

Copyright ©2024 PopEntertainment.com. All rights reserved. Posted: December 4, 2024.

Photo 1 by Brad Balfour © 2024. All rights reserved.

Photo 2. Courtesy of Buddy Blanchard. All rights reserved.