Van Halen frontman David Lee Roth is featured in a new story by The New York Times,. It focuses on his newly introduced skin care line, called Ink The Original, which was created for people with tattoos. Following is an excerpt.

Mr. Roth has tattoos all over. While living in Japan in 2013 and 2014, he became thoroughly engrossed in the culture. He took daily language lessons and spent almost 300 hours getting tattooed with Kabuki masks and traditional Japanese artwork. Tattoos cover his chest, upper arms and his entire back.

“I don’t want to tell you how much I spent on my tattoos at $300 an hour,” he said. (At those prices, assuming no bulk discounts, the damage would have been close to $90,000.) His products must safeguard his investment. They are, he said, “designed to protect a Rembrandt, really.”

Mr. Roth also showed a surprisingly practical side. “If you use something with an oil base, it’s going to reflect back in your eyes,” he said, noting that a person with a tattoo wants to show off their ink, not blind viewers with oily sunscreen."

Read the complete story here.

Speaking recently with Vulture.com, Roth was asked about the possibility of Van Halen performing some time in the near future. Following is an excerpt from the conversation that hints at things to come, although Roth does not commit to anything even following the initial statement of "When we come back through town in the summertime and do the original thing, maybe somewhere sportin’, maybe with somebody famous, I’ll make sure we get you all tickets so you can see what we do for gainful employment. My mom still wonders."

Vulture: About five years ago, you starred in a mysterious short film called Tokyo Story, in which you murder three poker players. What was the backstory on that?

DLR: "It is the test run for a parallel project that I’ve been working on. Those characters from the short are in a script that has now been worked into a graphic novel. And it is by our accounting the world’s first graphic novel with a full soundtrack. I’ve been working on it for four years. I called Colin Smith, who’s written, I don’t know, 15 books on how to use Adobe Photoshop. He’s been over at my shop three times a week. Working with stellar talents is part of the luxury of being Diamond Dave. I’m smart enough to know these folks, so how much smarter do I need to be? And it’s art-centric. We don’t think about the price. Because, you know, next time my rock band will be playing the same place that the Yankees play. Okay?"

Vulture: Are you telling me that Van Halen will play Yankee Stadium next summer? You promised four New York copy editors free tickets today.

DLR: "Yeah, but I can’t … If I say something on tape here and everybody goes, 'Oh, this leaked…' But, the band will be — I can’t say."

Vulture: Come on.

DLR: "Well, I don’t know how far this privacy actually goes. But the band is solvent. And I can say that I contacted colleagues about being part of the show — Metallica, Guns N’ Roses, Jason Aldean, the Foo Fighters, Church, and Stapleton. And they all said that, if everything happens, they would certainly be involved."

Vulture: So, this would be a festival?

DLR: "No, all I talked about was a phone call."

Read the complete interview here.