Why great art requires risk | Alex Van Halen, David Lee Roth, Robert Vargas

David Lee Roth (0:00)

You gotta go get your heart broken, then you gotta get it broken in a foreign language, and then you have to run away and join the foreign legion. Now you got a song.

Elise Hu (0:13)

You're listening to TED Talks Daily, where we bring you new ideas to spark your curiosity every day. I'm your host, Elise Hu. According to David Lee Roth, that's the recipe for a great song. And as the frontman of the legendary rock band Van Halen, he would know.

In this conversation, he and drummer Alex Van Halen, who co-founded the band with his late brother Eddie, sit down with world-renowned muralist Robert Vargas, the artist behind a mural honoring Eddie in Los Angeles. Together, they dig into a question every artist eventually faces. Where does great work actually come from?

Alex Van Halen (0:49)

I think that the most important thing in art is that you do your homework and you learn the basics and then you break all the rules.

Robert Vargas (0:56)

That's right.

Elise Hu (0:57)

The three trade stories about how they make their work, stepping outside their comfort zones, soaking up other cultures and keeping their audiences close enough to feel like a community. Robert, who has been painting murals since he was 10, explains his own surprisingly fearless approach.

Robert Vargas (1:14)

I don't use any grids. I don't use any projections, any stencils. I literally will eyeball something, whether it's this big or 20 stories big.

Elise Hu (1:22)

David also reveals the musical trick hidden in nearly every Van Halen harmony, one that makes a song sound happy and sad at the same time. You might never hear a Van Halen song the same way again. It's coming up right after a short break.

And now our TED conversation of the day.

David Lee Roth (1:49)

David Lee Roth at your service.

Alex Van Halen (1:51)

Alex Van Halen.

David Lee Roth (1:52)

Wow. It's a gas to be here. This is also a step towards world peace. This is momentous, a mighty time. Congratulations on an amazing work here, Rob.

Robert Vargas (2:03)

Thank you. It's great to be here. I mean, we want to talk about art, creative process and our approach.

David Lee Roth (2:09)

Well, what is the approach? Who wants to go first? Because we're diametrically opposed and who even knows what that really means. That's what makes it work. That's what makes it work.

Robert Vargas (2:18)

Go ahead.

Alex Van Halen (2:18)

Okay. I think that the most important thing in art is that you do your homework and you learn the basics and then you break all the rules.

Robert Vargas (2:26)

That's right.

Alex Van Halen (2:27)

That's how it works for us.

David Lee Roth (2:28)

What qualifies as homework?

Alex Van Halen (2:31)

Immerse yourself into it and listen and watch everything you possibly you can get your hands on, your eyeballs on and experience as much as possible.

David Lee Roth (2:39)

You got to go get your heart broken. Then you got to get it broken in a foreign language. And then you have to run away and join the foreign Legion. Now you got a song.

Robert Vargas (2:49)

That's right.

David Lee Roth (2:49)

Now you got a painting, right?

Robert Vargas (2:51)

A bigger painting, the bigger the heartbreak.

David Lee Roth (2:53)

I think, wait a minute, that's some Zen.

Alex Van Halen (2:56)

Yeah.

David Lee Roth (2:57)

Wow.

Alex Van Halen (2:57)

Can I quote you on that? You should have been in a band.

David Lee Roth (3:01)

I think what one of our theory and orchestration professors told Quincy Jones and Leonard Bernstein, a couple of big posters that were on my wall as a kid, is that your music, your graphic arts all expanded, your photography, your theater and stagecraft will never be anything more than you are as a human being. And I translated that as, I want to go everywhere in this National Geographic magazine, I want to get to know at least three people in each place, and I want to have whatever they're eating on page 26

Robert Vargas (3:38)

That's right. I mean, it informs the process, all of these human experiences. I just came back from a World Art Tour, five countries just this month alone.

I was in Paris, London, Greece, Berlin, Tokyo, and painting in all of these places, and coming in without having a preconceived idea, and letting the experience inform the process, eating the foods, having the conversations. And once I really wrap myself around why I'm doing it, then how I'm going to do it comes together.