A genuinely unique character, whose taste for Jack Daniel’s is only equalled by his love for classic rock ’n’ roll, Michael Anthony has earned a reputation as one of the most hard-rocking bassists of his generation.
He’s played in several now-legendary bands, with Van Halen alone selling upwards of 80 million albums worldwide, snagging a Grammy and entering the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame in 2007.
But long before the arena tours and platinum-selling albums, Anthony was just another Southern California kid hauling gear into backyards, playing fraternity parties and dreaming of making a living through music.
“Snake was the first power trio I ever played in,” said Anthony in the November ’95 issue of Bass Player. “I played bass guitar and sang lead; we did a lot of ZZ Top, Cream, Allman Brothers, and Doobie Brothers covers. We were playing backyard parties when I first became aware of the Van Halen brothers.
“I was going to Arcadia High Schooling California, and we had a carnival on our field, and they played. Back then they were called Mammoth – it was Ed on guitar, Al on drums, and some bass player. Ed was singing lead.”
Anthony later attended Pasadena City College, where the Van Halen brothers and David Lee Roth were also enrolled.
“My father wouldn't let me major in music, so I was majoring in psychology – but I took a couple of music classes, like jazz improvisation, theory, and piano to learn how to read bass clef. After about a year, my father finally let me major in music, so I switched all my classes.
“Around that time, Snake opened up for Van Halen – Roth had just joined the band, and they asked me if they could borrow our PA. Theirs had blown up.
“I'd see Alex coming from his Jazz Improv class, and I remember Roth coming over to me; he was wearing this little vest, had a cane, and his hair was dyed like a skunk. He said, ‘How do you like my boys?’ I stepped back and thought, ‘Get the fuck away from me!’ Little did I know what it would lead up to!
"A while later, Ed told a friend of mine that the band was going to be getting rid of their bass player. My friend told Ed, ‘Hey, Mike might be interested in joining.’
“I had never played with musicians like Eddie and Al before, because Snake was straightforward 4/4 rock. I mean, these guys had played Gazzarri's in Hollywood, and the biggest thing I had done was a backyard party. They ran me through beat changes and different time signatures, and we just jammed.
“Afterwards, Ed and Al asked me if I wanted to join. I thought about it for half a second and said, ‘I'm in!’ I learned five cover tunes a day so we could play parties. We eventually started playing clubs, and we also did weddings.
“We played everything from the Ohio Players to K.C. & the Sunshine Band. You would love the sight of Van Halen doing Get Down Tonight! But by the third set, when everybody was good and tanked up – boy, we'd be blazin’!
“I soon realized that my two Acoustic 150 amps weren't cutting it, because by this time, Ed had found his 100-watt Marshall. So I bought my first SVT stack and retaliated. I remember thinking, ‘I'm in the big leagues now!’”
Anthony and the boys weren't in the big leagues yet, but they were close. In 1976, Kiss bassist Gene Simmons took the foursome under his wing and produced a five-song demo, but all it yielded, said Anthony, was “a good tape.”
One year later, at a Monday-night gig at Hollywood's Starwood Club, Warner Bros. chairman Mo Ostin and producer Ted Templeman saw the band and offered them a deal. In February 1978, Van Halen hit the stores; globe-circling tours, platinum records, and the usual rock ’n’ roll excesses followed, until the negative effects of stardom started taking their toll in 1984.
“During our '84 tour, there was a lot of tension – Ed had written Jump, and it turned out to be the biggest single Van Halen ever did. Dave never liked Ed playing keyboards, but Ed finally said, ‘Fuck you!’ Then he met Valerie Bertinelli, and I think that pissed Dave off more.
“At the end of that tour, we fired our tour manager because of some skeletons we found in his closet. So Ed, Al, and I were in the studio starting to work up some music, and Dave decided he wanted to record a solo EP with California Girls. We knew he was testing the water to see how he'd do on his own. All of a sudden, the dream was over and Dave had left.
“At that point, we didn't know if the band would continue, but we eventually realized that the music was coming from us, not Dave. A lot of people thought he was Van Halen – even our record company wanted us to change our name. When Dave left the rest of us hanging, we thought, ‘What do we do now?’”
![Van Halen - Jump (Official Music Video) [HD] - YouTube](https://img.youtube.com/vi/SwYN7mTi6HM/maxresdefault.jpg)
What they did was hook up with ex-Montrose singer Sammy Hagar via a recommendation from Eddie Van Halen's car mechanic (as fate would have it, he was Hager’s mechanic, too).
Their first collaboration, 5150, became Van Halen's first #1 album, and it has since sold over six million copies.
