From Burrn! Magazine - Japan:
Van Halen bassist Michael Anthony was interviewed in February 2006 for the
April issue, which is out now. The Magazine is printed in Japanese but the following are excerpts werre translated by melodicrock.com:
Michael Anthony commenting on -
The Van Halen 2004 reunion tour:
"Well in general the reunion tour was great because it had been since 1998
that we played as Van Halen anywhere and it doesn't take very long for me
after we finish a tour, it only takes a matter of weeks before I'm ready to
get up and play in front of people again. So in that respect it was great
getting out there and playing again and you know it's like when everybody
got back together again, from outward appearances everything seemed fine but
we had a few bumps because old things came back up again from time to time
on the road between Sammy and Eddie so it was a little bit shaky. Actually
the tour didn't end with as much fanfare as I would have liked it to or
hoped it would but we got through it."
On the new business arrangements within the band for the 2004 re-union:
"I was not going to just sit home and do nothing and that kind of upset the
Van Halen brothers for whatever reason I can't understand myself. But
basically when this whole reunion thing started Ed really didn't want me to
be part of it. I don't know how he was going to call it a reunion (laughs)
but I basically had to work out a deal with Irving Azoff's management
company in order to be part of this thing.
I kind of sucked it up a bit and I made less money but the way I looked at
it was, if this possibly was the last tour that Van Halen would ever do then
I'd be kicking myself because I wasn't a part of it and I want to be a part
of it, even more so than the money so I sucked it all up and came on and did
it. I did it for the fans."
On being nicknamed 'Cannonmouth' for his distinct backing vocals:
"They use to call me that in the early days. Basically Eddie's and my voice
were actually I think pretty much as signature as Eddie's playing or
anything else as far as the sound we had and it's kind of been that way all
the way up through the years. Unfortunately though when we did the Van Halen
3 record with Gary Cherone, Ed wanted to sing more and so he sang a lot more
of the backgrounds with Gary and I sang a lot less and there was a lot of
negative feedback about that."
On making the re-union happen and attempts previously with David Lee Roth:
"I used to needle Sam a bit and say hey, it'd be great (getting back
together). We tried to make this thing work with Roth three times and each
time it was even worse than the time before. We tried to do a new album with
him and his ego just wouldn't let it happen and the third time that we tried
to do it with him was more like, let's see if we can just play some dates
and just get along with him and he still for some reason couldn't humble
himself enough to just being one of the guys again here.
Sammy was out here at a relative's wedding I think staying down at the beach
and he actually called Al. So Al went down and met with him and they hung
out for the whole day and got along great and at that point then it was just
kind of like well, let's see what we can do as far as putting Sam and Ed
back together.
I knew that Al wanted to get out and play again too because he basically had
done nothing because the only person that he plays with is Ed. He doesn't
get out and jam with anybody else. So one thing led to another and then
(laughs) there was my involvement. You know, I'm the guy who kind of helped
put this thing together and then Ed didn't even want me to be a part of it
(laughs). I thought it was kind of funny."
On the 2004 tour and tensions within the band:
"We got along great. Obviously there was tension between the brothers,
basically Ed and Sammy's tequila thing because he was never happy about
that, the whole Cabo Wabo thing. And a lot of these arenas that we were
playing in sold Cabo Wabo and even though that really had nothing to do with
Sammy because he sells to people and then the buildings, the venues buys the
stuff and Sammy doesn't sell to them. So I think Ed would get a little put
off when he'd see a lot of Cabo Wabo banners up around the arenas and
sometimes that would even create some tension onstage and offstage. There
were nights where you know you have that after the show flight on the jet
and things would sometimes be a little tense on that plane and without
getting into any great detail there came a point to where we actually split
it up and we traveled on two different jets; Eddie and Al would fly on one
jet and Sammy and I would fly on another. This was only to keep the peace
and that sucks just like anything else that even turns into a big business
you know, sports or anything. A lot of times you almost lose the reason in
the first place of why you got into doing it you know, making music and
getting laid (laughs) and it all turns into big business.
It got to the point to where I couldn't even see this thing going on much
longer without either somebody blowing up on somebody or whatever. So Sammy
finally said, I'm not doing any more dates because this is just not working.
When we first started out I was fully ready to do it because I thought we
were going to go to Japan, Europe, South America, you know, do the thing
that we should have done, like, big band reunites but unfortunately that
wasn't going to be.
[Ed] did not want Sammy doing any promoting of his stuff at all using the
Van Halen name but a lot of that you don't have any control over. I came out
with a hot sauce about the same time we were putting the tour together and
the local radio station here in Los Angeles KLOS, they would talk about the
tour and then they would talk about my hot sauce. Well the brothers caught
wind of that and they thought that I had my people, as they would say "my
people", calling the radio station and telling them to pump my hot sauce on
Van Halen's dime here or whatever and they finally asked me to have my
people "cease and desist", I remember that distinctly. But I didn't have a
damn thing to do with that and I have no control over what the radio station
said. In fact, gee isn't this one of the benefits that you're supposed to
reap from all these years of success, that you can be able to go off and do
something like that and promote something? They went on and they (the
brothers) had their lawyers call every radio station that we were going to
play at in every city and told them specifically they were not to mention
Cabo Tequila or my Mad Anthony's Hot Sauce in the same sentence with Van
Halen!"
On Eddie's son Wolfgang joining the band on tour:
"Oh it was great. I think he has grown up to be a great kid. I think he's a
great player and he jumped up there on the drums a few times during sound
check and shit the kid can play drums too you know!"
On recording/filming the tour for possible CD/DVD release:
Well we did video every night for the screens up onstage but no, there was
no actual film crew or anything brought in.We had always talked about doing
a thing and Sammy did his called The Long Road To Cabo and I was on a pretty
major part of that.
JH: Oh is that the one where they left your ass at the hotel (laughs)?
"Yeah and as much as some people thought that we planned that out, they left
me at the hotel and one of the camera guys just happened to be back that
night because he wasn't going to the show and I called him up and told him
to get his camera and his ass over here to my room, we've got to video all
this because they have fuckin' left me here."
But you know, that would have been great to have something like that happen
with Van Halen you know; have the cameras following us around onstage,
backstage, days off, whatever. Just witnessing the way that Sammy did it, it
could have been huge if we did it because people love to see that kind of
shit. Aerosmith, everybody has done that kind of thing.
On Van Halen's failure to be nominated for the Rock N Roll Hall Of Fame:
"I would have thought that we would have been nominated, voted in and
inducted the first year that we were eligible, which would have been like 3
years ago or something like that. But for whatever reasons they have, maybe
a lot of the people that vote you in are looking at the drama that this band
has gone through and figured well, they don't deserve it yet. I don't know,
but that's the only thing that I can come up with. Other than that it's like
I have no idea. But I tell you it would be one damn interesting show when
they ask us to get together and play for the induction ceremony. I know
Dave; he'll be there a week ahead of the show just waiting."
On the last time he saw David Lee Roth:
"It was when him and Sammy toured together, what is that, four years ago
now?
He would kind of pull his hat down and just walk by me because I tell you
one of the first shows that I did with those guys I forget where we were at
but I had a few drinks and I went into Dave's dressing room after the show
and I just unloaded on him, on what was his problem that we could not make
this reunion work? And all he kept saying was, you're right, you're right. I
told him, look at them out there; when you go out there and this is the
beginning of the tour and he actually impressed me at the beginning of the
tour but as the tour went on boy by the last show they didn't even do the
last show of the tour that I was out there because they couldn't do it; Dave
just started pulling shenanigans left and right.
Most nights Sammy and I would pound on his door and say come on out and
numerous times invited him to come out onstage and do an encore, all three
of us together but it never happened."
On recording a new album with Roth:
"We were going to do videos for the songs [on the Best Of Volume 1] and
everything but Roth was really trying to take control and we finally just
said, let's not even do the videos for these songs because he's going to
kill the whole thing and so it fell apart.
But yeah, before that tour yeah, we tried to make it work. We went into the
studio and it was kind of funny because we first got together in the studio
and we were all in the one room together and we did Hot For Teacher, Mean
Street and a few other songs and it's the weirdest thing because once we
started playing it was like, son of a bitch, there it is, that's the magic!
It was like a big déjà vu because it was the original band playing again and
it sounded pretty fuckin' good too!
But then of course the longer we spent in the studio, you know we had two or
three different producers in there trying to work with us and Dave would
just come in with tapes of the Chemical Brothers, all different kinds of
weird stuff and say hey, let's do a song like this and Ed was having a hard
time dealing with him, a real hard time dealing with him and Al was saying,
well, let's do a couple of things that Roth likes to do and then let's just
do our thing. I don't know if we had a complete album's worth of stuff but
we were pretty damn close and unfortunately, there you go with Dave again
and we just couldn't finish it and all those old reasons why he left the
band in the first place they started surfacing you know. He went right back
to his old ways.
I mean even if you just wanted to look at it purely look at it from a money
standpoint that guy was hurting for money. And it was like Dave, I mean he
couldn't even put his ego aside if he wanted to go out and make $50 million
and you know you've got a pretty large ego when you're going to give that
all up even just because you don't get your way on something. I couldn't
understand it."
On those new tunes:
"For the most part it was actually pretty good. I don't think Ed would ever
let it out though. I've got some demo stuff at home, they didn't even really
want me to take any stuff home but I ended up with some stuff at home
anyway. I'd never do anything behind the other guys' backs with any of it so
it'll just sit in my box in the archives and maybe one of my grandkids or
grandkid's boyfriends will put something out one day (laughs) or steal it
(laughs)."
On the Best Of Both Worlds Compilation and those 3 new songs:
"You know when we did the Best Of Both Worlds we had problems with Roth
because of what he wanted and didn't want on the CD, how much he wanted to
get paid and so on. So there was a point to where we were just going to say
okay Dave, if that's the way you want it, we had some live versions of some
of the old Van Halen songs and we were just going to tell Dave, okay if
that's the way you want it we won't even put you on this record, you won't
make a dime off it! I mean he was being difficult on that thing and what we
wanted to do was the one disc with Sammy and the other disc with Dave plus
the three new songs and Dave was even making that difficult but in the end
he folded. I think he was just trying to pull a power play. Bad stuff
(laughs).
I knew that we weren't going to do a whole new album with Sammy on this
reunion thing. The time that it was taking in the studio to do these three
songs it would have taken us a couple of years to do an entire album. And
like I said, once it started to get put together Irving Azoff really pushed
it, speeded us along to get us out there and so it just turned out to be
well, let's just do these three songs. And to tell you the truth and I'll
say this for the record: I didn't play bass on any of those three songs on
there. I wasn't even in the band yet when those three songs were done.
I came aboard and I sang backgrounds on them but the music was already done
and I wasn't even back in the band as far as the reunion part of it yet when
the music was done. So that was kind of tough for me but it's like hey, it
is what it is and I don't think Ed really talked about it much but if
anybody asks me I'm not embarrassed to say that I didn't play bass on them
because I wasn't part of the band at that point."
On the difference between Roth and Hagar:
"There was magic with both of them. Once Hagar joined the band he brought a
new level of musicianship to the band and like Eddie always use to say, he
could play anything that he wanted now because Sammy could sing anything. He
(Sammy) definitely had a better range. When Sammy joined the band that's
when I really had to start working on the backgrounds; the background vocals
were a little bit more, uh, not tougher but with Dave there was never any
problem singing backgrounds because he didn't have a huge range like Sammy
did.
I think and there was still magic with Dave too because I mean a lot that we
did back then was really cutting edge from Ed's guitar playing to all these
little clones that Dave spawned...they were all there because all these guys
wanted to be him."
On the new side-band The Other Half:
"This stems from the fact that the Van Halen brothers, namely Ed, do not
want to go out and play Van Halen right now or anytime soon. Sammy and I
last year on his birthday decided one night that we were going to play
because normally it's Sammy's band that plays and I get up there and jam
with him and we do some Van Halen stuff and it's all fine. But last year we
decided one night that the whole show will be nothing but Van Halen; I'm
going to get up there, Sammy and his guitarist Vic Johnson and drummer Dave
Lauser and we're going to do a Van Halen set. And somehow we came up with
this thing calling us The Other Half and the show came off, I mean people
loved it!
And it came off so great that we started thinking well God, and I go on the
Internet everyday and I'm checking out what fans are saying and try to keep
in touch with what's going on as much as I can with our fan base and people
do want to hear the music. There were a lot of great comments that came from
us doing that thing down there and we were like, hey you know, we want to go
out and we want to play the stuff and the fans want to hear it. So we're
going to go out this summer, we're putting together the thing that we're
calling The Other Half and we're going to play Van Halen and do it right, do
a nice production and not me just jamming with his band; you know, we're
going to go and play it and the only reason is because the brothers aren't
wanting to go out and play it for the fans. Now if they want to come out and
play, they're invited! If they want to come out and do it and do Van Halen
and do it the right way and have fun, let's go, let's do it, I'm ready right
now. But the interest is really there and Sammy and I want to go out and we
want to play these songs.
The Wabos will open the show and we're going to put together a good
production, the lights, sound, everything will all be put together really
nice and we will play all Van Halen material. Right now we're actually
talking about me opening up the set with my solo and if we do that then
we'll probably have to go into Runnin' With The Devil or something and I'll
sing that. So we'll do a little bit more classic Van Halen, I'm digging
right now to see if we can pull a couple of more obscure ones out of the hat
and I'm going to sing them so I'll be doing more lead vocals, which is
great."
On the current status of Van Halen:
"Well never say never but we're currently in a state of limbo. After the
reunion tour ended so abruptly we all went into our own corners and
truthfully Ed doesn't want to tour right now or maybe ever again. I don't
know what he's thinking at this point. So I would say that we're on a
temporary hiatus that possibly could become permanent, you never know. With
that said I realize that's not much of an answer but that's really where
things are right now and tomorrow it could all change again."
