Michael Anthony at NAMM 2010

The first post on here is extremely asinine and ridiculously absurd. Jim and Steve have no idea what they are talking about! You should try to leave your biased rubbish opinions out from the facts of the matter. Anyone who believes that crap has had their head up their ass and obviously hasn’t paid attention to the interviews and attitudes of the band mates over the years. Either that or ya’ll have the same apparent deluded warped sense of reality and the negative blame-everyone-else attitude that Eddie seems to have in recent years. There’s a reason why everyone sides with Mike about the reasons he’s not in Van Halen anymore.
Here are just a few things if you’d paid attention you would already know:(that show Ed’s odd conflict with Mike)
Eddie has had it out for Mike for years and years. (For reasons I still don’t understand or have heard a logical explanation for) Wanting to replace him loooong ago. Going behind his back auditioning other bass players. Something Billy Sheehan recently admitted.
Making Mike take a pay cut. Not wanting to include him in the Hagar reunion.(Thankfully Sammy stood up for him).
Replacing his image with Wolfie’s picture on old Albums on the official VH website. Which makes no sense at all.
Barely letting Mike play at all on the last album. Not speaking with him and basically severing all ties with him without an explanation.
Hiring lawyers to execute a “Cease and Desist” order to M.A. so he couldn’t answer questions about his line of hot sauce products during interviews at time of the reunion. What kind of friend would do that? I would be more than happy to allow my friend an opportunity to promote something. Geez, I think M.A. has proven himself to be a loyal member of the band and deserves more respect than this. Eddie also has always hated Sammy’s Cabo tequila co. and night clubs. Why? I wish he wasn’t so resentful, angry, jealous or whatever it is making him act like such a dick sometimes.
I remember years ago during an interview Eddie was asked if he knew what M.A. was up to, and he said “I haven’t seen or talked to that cat in a long time” This was when VH was in a hiatus. When Mike was starting to jam with Sammy again, playing VH songs trying to keep Van Halen’s heartbeat pumping. Eddie didn’t say “Oh… Mike quit” or “Mike was fired”. He just said he hadn’t spoke with him.
What I think happened is that Eddie took this opportunity to act on his intentions of getting rid of Mike. He just let things dissolve between the two of them and then put Wolfie in place to takeover by saying Mike quit the band. Everyone knows Mike wouldn’t ever quit Van Halen in a million years. He didn’t walk out on the band or leave the band like Jim and Steve say. There was nothing to leave or walk out on. Where is the album he walked out on? The band at that time was stagnant. There was no life there. It was kaput.
Mike is a musician, he was tired of sitting around and waiting to play music. So he did the best thing he knew how to do. Go play VH songs on the road.
He was out there (touring with a former VH singer-Sammy) playing VH songs trying to keep the Van Halen spirit alive and trying to keep the VH fans happy. How could anyone fault him for that?
The few comments he has made about VH in interviews were respectful to the fans and they were his honest feelings and explanations to the questions being asked to him by the interviewer. He never took a cheap shot. He was just providing some answers to some questions that fans like me were dying to ask and hear a response to. God knows we weren’t hearing any up front explanations from Eddie or Alex. Mike always took the high road in interviews when he could have talked all kinds of shit about all of the B.S. in VH and how he had been treated over the years.
I’m glad that Mike is still kicking ass to this day, and is happy making new music. There is a reason everyone always refers to him as being a class act. Because he is.

As far as I’m concerned, all anyone needs to know in order to judge how Mike’s split from the band went down is that they tried to remove his image from the album covers. One of the most chicken-shit, childish, petty things I’ve heard of in rock-n-roll. It’s impossible to believe what Ed says after a stunt like that.

I agree with a question raised above that Eddie’s rehab was an excuse to skip the RRHOF. I’m glad he went, don’t get me wrong. It’s a good first step toward righting all the wrongs and finding peace, but the fact that he didn’t even send along a note of thanks is very telling.

Lastly, someone asked what Al ever did that Mike didn’t do. Answer: Be an enabler for Ed.

BTW, who said Dave is happy? Don’t any of you remember a happy Dave? He was loud, larger than life and being seen and heard. He wasn’t in hiding, afraid of getting cut fired again.

BRING THEM ALL BACK FOR ONE CRAZY REUNION TOUR

If Ed was making Mike sign his rights away and not letting him promote his sauce and taking a pay cut why didn’t he just back out? why didn’t Sammy just back out as well? I think some of the stuff we hear about is bull. They could of crippled that tour if they wanted to.

Does anyone know if MA still receives royalties from the albums, considering he’s been, in the words of Doc Brown, “erased from existence”??

I very much doubt he would sign those away.

Of course Ed wanted to avoid the hall of fame induction.

It’s like if you had two divorces. Your ex-wife hooked up with your other ex-wife. They had already announced that they would go to the event. If you attend, you’d have to sit at the same table with cameras hounding you. How freakin awkward would that be?
Everybody deserves to be there. You can’t not invite one of them. Hell, if that wouldn’t drive someone to drink, I don’t know what wouldn’t.

I think your all nuts VH has moved on Chickenfoot rocks and VH will have a new CD out this year i hear so all let the drama go it over we have 2 great bands who make us all happy so what the hell

I’m still not sure whether Jim was trying to be devil’s advocate. Gimme a f#@king break! Mike Anthony kept his mouth shut for years and he is last member in Van Halen (past & present) who should be criticized about anything. I can’t understand what took him so long.

“Mike then said that he tried to keep high the Van Halen flag??In wich way? Playing with an ex-member?”

If Ed really got mad about a band member playing music with an ex-member after he wrote “Me Wise Magic” with Roth while Sammy was w/his wife after a breech childbirth (meaning Sam was unaware that Ed was collaborating with Roth on music) then it would be an act of hypocrisy on the highest level.

Hey Snoova, you forgot to mention that Eddie said that if it didn’t work out with Cherone, he and Al were going to start doing movie soundtracks and hang up the rock band boots, so to speak.

Dooley- That’s right, he had to sign that horrible contractual agreement.
Clayton- There might not be so much of a “Loud-Happy Dave” anymore, so much as there is a “Quiet-Wanting to keep his job and get paid Dave” now.
Kayser Sozay- I agree. That was almost unforgivable. How unbelievably fucking lame was that.
What the hell was that? Trying to rewrite the history of VH like Mike never existed or something. Enter Twilight Zone music here……Wolfgang wasn’t even alive back then!
And the only reason they changed it back was because of the backlash of all the fans. Goes to show how out of touch the Van Halen camp is with their fans. I don’t think back-stabbing is above Eddie Van Halen. He started working with Dave while Sammy was still in the band and he was auditioning bass players while Mike was still in the band. I think Sammy has said that Ed was trying to get rid of Mike back in the days of “Balance”. But I think it was even before that. WHY?!!
Maybe Eddie even believes in his mind that Mike quit. Maybe he justified it by saying to himself that Mike wasn’t available when he had a whim to go into the studio one day. So he had no choice but to enlist someone else. (Who just so happened to be his son) But that’s freakin ridiculous anyway. Because when you’re in a band and one of your band members is out doing something and you want to jam you call the guy up on the phone and say “Hey what’s goin on, where are you, come over and jam.” You don’t go “Oh I’m not sure where Mike is or what he’s doing, I assume he quit and doesn’t want anything more to do with the band.” That’s just extraordinary bullshit.
To me it’s very upsetting and sad when band members’ friendships dissolve to the point where they’re not even hanging out anymore after the shows. When friendships turn into business relationships at best. That really sucks, especially when it’s a monumental amazing legendary band like Van Halen.
The quickest way to destroy the love and passion of music and rock and roll is to get fixated on the business (money) aspect of it. And when band members’ friendships get peppered with jealousy, grudges and resentment that is usually their demise. Of course bad management and substance abuse complicates things too. It sucks, what else is their to say, it just sucks.
My impression of Eddie’s personality is also that he is extremely over-sensitive and takes the littlest things very personally to the point of harboring a grudge for years. But even after all of the B.S. I’ll always have admiration for his Awesome talent and always even have love for the guy (which is kind of weird cause I’ve never even met him) But if he were to die I would be devastated, just like when Dimebag Darrell died. I never met him either but I loved the guy, ya know.

Took my money 3 times last tour!

site wont let me put up U TuBe link

RA 812..

Ed said if they were ever to tour with Roth again they would have to do an album first. They were not going to take our money.

Maybe we should hold Ed to that and make them halt the new album that is about done. We should also criticize Ed for touring a few years ago. It would have been so much better if they never toured, huh? Ed should never be able to change his thoughts like everyone else get.

VAN HAGAR IS STILL THE BEST FORGET ALL THE REST.BRING BACK SAM AND MIKE.

Totally agree Marcus. Wouldn’t surprise me a bit if Eddie just recorded the basslines himself again, then showed Wolfie what he did, and Wolfie can just copy it when/if they go on tour.

I’m curious though. Why do you say Wolfie is a guitarist playing bass??

Hey arthur_bishop1972,
I say wolf is a guitarist who plays bass because of his playing style, and the fact that I’ve seen some clips online of him in some highschool band playing guitar (he also played 316 on some 2004 tour dates).

On the 2007 tour Wolf played with a pick, and his tone had more treble and high end than Mikey did. Plus he seemed to play a bit more. Sometimes it was also hard to hear what he was playing i.e. didn’t have that fat bottom end.

Wolf did a good job overall, but I can’t see him wanting to be his dad’s puppet forever. He is talented, and I can see him fronting his own band one day (on guitar most likely).

JUST GET Mike Anthony BACK IN THE BAND WHO CARES WHAT HAPPEND OR WHATEVER.VAN HALEN IS BETTER WITH Mike Anthony AND THATS IT.GROW UP AND GET HIM BACK GOD.ITS NOT THE REAL VAN HALEN WITHOUT HIM I WANT TO SEE ALL 4 GUYS UP THERE ALEX,DAVE,EDDIE,AND MIKIE!