(Reuters) - Veteran rockers Van Halen said on Friday that they will kick off a North American tour with original lead singer David Lee Roth in mid-February, shortly after the release of the band's first full album with Roth in nearly 30 years.

"A Different Kind of Truth" will be released in the United States on Feb 7 but the first single, "Tattoo," and its accompanying video, will debut on Jan 10. Roth's last album with the group was the popular "1984," released on Dec 31, 1983.

The band will be joined by Kool & The Gang for select dates on the 40-plus city tour, which opens at the KFC Yum! Center in Louisville, Kentucky on Feb 18 with over four months of dates through the New Orleans Arena announced so far.

Tickets go on sale on Jan 14.

Van Halen's relationship with Roth has been a stormy one over the years. Roth left the band in a bitter breakup in 1985, only to rejoin for a performance at the MTV Video Music Awards in 1996, then quickly depart in another bitter split.

He returned to Van Halen for a tour in 2007-2008.

The band, whose early hits include "Runnin' with the Devil" and "Dance the Night Away," was among the leading rock acts of the late 1970s, 1980s and into the 1990s, when Sammy Hagar replaced Roth as singer.

Michael Anthony was the original bassist, but alongside Hagar he has joined another band, Chickenfoot. Wolfgang Van Halen, Eddie's son, took over on bass.

(Reporting by Elaine Lies; editing by Paul Casciato)

Earlier today, Van Halen released the video for “Tattoo,” their first song with David Lee Roth since those cuts from Best Of Volume I. But as it turns out, that new song might not actually be a new song. According to Rolling Stone, former Van Halen singer Sammy Hagar, the guy who replaced Roth when he parted ways with the band, claims that the forthcoming album A Different Kind Of Truth is made up of songs that the band wrote back in the early days: “Ed and Dave didn’t actually write new songs. They took old stuff from previous sessions, and then maybe Dave had to go in and add vocals because they just had scat vocals, or even no vocal part at all.”

When the band announced the new-album plans with a quick set at New York’s Café Wha?, they debuted a song called “She’s The Woman,” which actually appeared on a 1976 demo. And as some fans have noticed, “Tattoo” sounds pretty similar to “Down In Flames,” a song the band played live but never recorded. Below, listen to “Tattoo” back-to-back with a version of “Down In Flames” that they played on New Year’s Eve in 1977.

As the story goes, the band slipped in that seemingly inconsequential detail as a test to see whether the venues they were visiting had adhered to more important considerations regarding safety and treatment of the crew.