MA: My father was a trumpet player, so I started playing trumpet when I was six or seven years old. I'm originally from Chicago and my dad would play all around town in big bands. I continued to play trumpet all the way up until I got into college. My dad got a job in Los Angeles and the family moved to California when I was about twelve years old. When I was in Junior High, about 15 years old, all of my friends were playing either the guitar or drums. A buddy of mine gave me an old Teisco or Tasco guitar and I took the top strings off and started playing bass. In my first year of playing, I wasn't really serious, like this was what I wanted to do with my life. I didn't even know how to tune a bass to standard tuning, so I tuned my bass to the first four notes of an open E chord. I learned how to play bass with that tuning. It was a year later, when I was really starting to get into it and I started to jam with other kids, a bass player from another band said, 'Wow, that's really weird the way you tune your bass.' I said, 'Well, how do you tune it?' He showed me the right way and I was like, WOW! I had to go back a re-familiarize myself with the instrument. I also started to play the bass left handed, too. I'm ambidextrous and at the time it felt natural playing it lefty. But, at the time I forced myself to play righty because I didn't know about left handed instruments or switching strings. Now I couldn't play left handed to save my life.

CB: Who were your influences?

MA: The first bass player I ever really heard and sat down and listened to was a guy by the name of Harvey Brooks. A session guy that played bass with Electric Flag. They had a hit called Groovin' is Easy. They had one song from their first album, a blues number called Texas (he proceeds to sing a few bars), man, that song had the coolest walking bass line. I loved his approach to the instrument. I started out playing blues. I love the blues and the whole feel of the walking bass line.

CB: How did you first meet Edward and Alex?

MA: When I finally actually met the Van Halen Brothers at this one gig, Roth was in the band and I remember real vividly standing on the side of the stage watching them play, and I'm saying to myself, 'These two guys are great. They have some incredible chops!' All of a sudden Roth comes struttin' over to me, he had some little vest on and his hair was skunked: it was dyed black with a white skunk stripe down the center. He says, 'Hey, How do you like my boys?' I was like, 'Get the F- away! Who the hell are you, you freak?'

When I first met Edward and Alex, I was singing lead and playing bass in another band called Snake. Very original name, right? (Laughs.) I knew of the Van Halen brothers because we were all playing around the Pasadena area. One night we did a gig at Pasadena High School and my band opened for Edward's band. Their PA blew up and they asked us if they could borrow our PA. I had seen them play a couple times before Roth was even in the band when Edward was doing all of the singing. They were doing a lot of cover songs, like Grand Funk Railroad, Hendrix and Cream and stuff like that. I always thought, 'Man, this guy is incredible!' The Cream stuff, he'd play it exactly to the album. They would do Live at Leeds, the whole side of the record, and Ed would just be blowing out all of these licks and he was singing all of it too. After that gig, I remember talking with Ed a lot and I found out that he, Alex and I were all going to Pasadena City College at the time. It wasn't too much longer after that that a mutual friend found out Ed and Alex were going to cut their bass player. My friend said to Ed, 'Hey, remember my bassist friend from that band Snake? Why don't you give him a call?' Ed called me and the rest is history.

CB: You've been half of the rhythm section backing one of the most innovative guitarists since Hendrix, do ever feel your talents and abilities as a musician, especially as a bassist, are overshadowed since Edward is so much of the group's focal point?

MA: Hmmmm. (pauses and ponders the question.) Sometimes I would. Especially in the early days. When we recorded our first album, Ted Templeman, our producer, was so into Eddie playing. Everything was really oriented around the guitar. I had to be really basic. But, from the first time I ever picked up a bass, everyone always said, that's not a glamorous instrument, you're going to stand there like Bill Wyman in the back and just play. (Laughs). Well, I figured, I don't care. I love the instrument, I love the way the bass felt, the way it makes your pants and everything else shake. I think maybe if I played the bass more like a Billy Sheehan, more lead bass - not that it's bad - I would be very frustrated. I come from more of the thinking of John Paul Jones kind of thing. Man, he's one of my all time favorite bass players. You just put on The Lemon Song and sit back and you say, WOW, that's a great bass player. I play the instrument very rhythmically.

CB: You find the pocket.

MA: Yeah. Because of my approach to the instrument, if I can lay down a one note groove with Alex... Man, with that pumping... I just get goose bumps. Then Eddie can just go off and play whatever he wants to play.

CB: It's interesting you mention Sheehan, because that leads me right into my next question. Have you ever had the desire to do any of the double handed playing techniques, that Eddie essentially developed, and do that in the course of a show or solo or trade licks with Eddie?

MA: I have messed around with it a little bit. Mister Big does that and when Sheehan was playing with Vai in Roth's band, the two of them did a little of that stuff. The closest thing we ever did like that was in Summer Nights, at the end of the verse we did some kind of little (sings the lick) type of synchronized thing together. Ya' gotta' understand, with a guy like Eddie playing guitar in the band, the last thing you want to do is go up there and have people think, 'You're trying to be Eddie' or 'You're trying to do something he does.' For me, I have no desire to be... (pauses and appears as if he's looking for right words) a mimic. Maybe at some point, on an album, I'll do a little of it. In a solo I try to do something a little bit different than just the total playing thing. I'm a big fan of all kinds of effects and I use a lot of them in my solo. I'm also out there to give people a show. I'm not saying I'm going to go totally that way because we used to have a singer in the band that used to do that and he couldn't sing for S---. Jack Bruce is probably the most lead oriented bassist I've ever listened to and I've coped some of his licks every now and again. It's cool playing lead on a bass, but to me, I see it as a real strong rhythm instrument. If I want to play a lead, I'll slap on a guitar.

CB: Edward once said in an interview, about his soloing abilities, 'When Michael starts playing, it's an open world for me.' How does that make you feel?

MA: That makes me feel great. That's what I have set out to accomplish. I don't want to get so outside the song with my playing that it sounds like two different songs going on. The most important thing to me is to keep that foundation going. Whether it's one note or a run of something like that. It's great to have him say something like that. This is the first time I ever heard that comment.

CB: (Sheepishly I say) Well, that comment comes from a guitar magazine over ten years old now.

MA: Well, maybe he feels differently now! (Bursts out laughing).

CB: I saw a picture of you once with an eight string B.C. Rich Bich bass. Tell me about your abilities with fretless, five, six and eight string bass.

MA: I play five string and on "Not Enough" off of Balance, I play fretless for the first time. I've played five string live, but I haven't played fretless live because unless you were raised playing fretless, man, it's risky. If we add "Not Enough" to the set list later in the tour, I might use a fretless, kick back a little and put a little harmonizer on it. I had a really cool time playing fretless on the record.

CB: What's your bass amp these days?

MA: It's all Ampeg gear. They're a great company to work with. We designed a new cabinet I started to use on the last tour. It's an eight 10" SVT cabinet with a couple of high frequency horns in it. It has an attenuater dial on it so I can dial in the high frequency from the horns into my SVT sound, so I can get a little more high end into the mix. I had the idea for that feature during the trip to the factory in St. Louis. They said, 'Cool, let's try it.' It works out great.

CB: You have eight SVT bottoms on stage. Is all of it on?

MA: Phew! No! I was using some custom Ampeg subwoofer cabinets, but I decided to leave them home. Only four SVT cabinets are on and I'm using SVT2 pre-amps through two 300 power amps. Each one drives two cabinets. Last tour I used one power amp per cabinet, but I wasn't getting that SVT sound. You really have to have one power amp cranked into two cabinets. That way you can get it loud enough so it really sounds good.

CB: Your basses?

MA: Man, I've been through basses! I was using Arias' and Spectors for a long time and picked up using Music Mans on the last your. In the beginning I used Fender P-basses, I used Charvel for a while before Grover Jackson took the company over. In the early 80's, when I was in Japan, I was given a proto-type 3000 Yamaha bass. I used that for a long time. Remember that scarred up and scratched blonde one? I was so proud of that and then one day at rehearsal one of the guys said, 'That thing is too damn clean,' and a screw driver was grabbed and all these scratches were put into it. I screamed, 'S---! NOOOOOOO!' There were only a few bassists in the world that had received that proto-type model bass. Paul McCartney had one, I think Verdine from Earth, Wind and Fire and me. I really loved that bass, but Yamaha changed their models around and I didn't really care for the newer ones. I played Spectors and I really liked those basses. I bought one of the first basses he ever made and I used it on the 5150 tour. Loverboy was on the tour with us and their bassist always used Spectors and I think I traded my Spector to him for a Steinberger. (Laughs.) I traded off some great basses! I don't why I ever did. When Edward was endorsing Kramer, they offered to build me basses, but I never really cared for them. They were all made of hard maple and the end result was a bass that was too electronic sounding. I'm really for the Ash and the very 'tone' sounding woods. The Kramers were great playing basses, but I was always tearing into my Kramers, replacing pick-ups and everything, but hey, you can't change the wood. It was the same thing with my Arias. That's the problem with so many of these guitar companies. Some of them are so hard to work with. Every time I'd suggest something, they say, 'This is THE Bass! Why do you want to change it?' WHY? Because I'm the guy playing it for a living.'

CB: You're using Music Man now...

MA: Well, with Music Man, to me their early basses from the seventies were great. Then they went through different periods where they'd be good, they'd bad, good, bad. The Harley history. When Ed went to Music Man, Sterling Ball was and still is running the company and the quality was back into the instruments. My main instrument is a Sterling, but it's wired up like a Sting-Ray. I used a Sting-Ray on the last tour and I loved the sound of it. The Sterling is a great bass, but it's a little thinner, it's got high-end and low-end, but it's missing some of the mid-section. The red one (photo) does not have a selector switch and the internals are like my last Sting-Ray from last year.

CB: I see you have the 2Tek bridge installed on your basses.

MA: Yea, 2Tek approached me about installing them on my guitars when the company was just starting up, sometime around our last tour. The theory of the 2Tek bridge sounded interesting, plus I had known the inventor, Lynn Ellsworth, when he was owner of a company called Boogie Bodies. At the time, he sent me a Mexican Fender bass with a 2Tek bridge installed in it and it sounded okay, nothing great. I still wanted to give them a shot, so I said, 'Look, if you really want me to try this thing out, install it in one of my Music Man basses and let's see how it works.' When I got the instrument back, I was amazed at the sustain and the intonation. I mean, you can play forever and not hit a dead spot on the guitar, plus the 2Tek bridge isolates the strings from each other, reduces phase cancellation and gives the instrument more of a full, round tone. I had four Music Man basses built for this tour and the basses were sent to the 2Tek factory where they installed the bridges. I just love the hell out of 'em. The 2Teks' really make my basses sound great.

CB: Tell me about the other basses in your life.

MA: I own about 60 basses now. I've sold a lot of them off within the last few years. I was never one to collect bases. If a $25.00 'Made in Taiwan' bass plays and sounds good, and you're happy with it, great. I've played more basses where guys are really proud of their stuff and they tell me, (in an aristocratic tone-of voice) 'There's 25 layers of laminated exotic woods holding this thing together.' To me, I say, 'Great. Frame it and hang it on a wall.' Instruments are a very personal thing and everyone is different. I have a philosophy on guitars. I buy instruments that play good and sound good, but I have to be aware of the fact that I can lose them at any moment. Instruments do get ripped-off and busted-up on tour. I've been lucky, I've never had an instrument stolen (he knocks twice on the wood coffee table). Edward had a main guitar stolen during the Monsters of Rock tour. I can't figure out how the Rolling Stones or Aerosmith can go on tour with all of those vintage instruments. I'd be worrying about instruments like that all of the time! I love my new Music Man, but if it got stolen, I can always create another one. If my '64 Jazz Bass was stolen while on tour, I'd never forgive myself. I do own a few collectibles, though. A few years ago I acquired the third Rickenbacker 4001 bass ever made. I have a Rickenbacker six string, eight string, semi-hollow body four string and double binded proto-type Rickenbacker that I picked up from a NAMM show. I really like the old Ricks. Those instruments never leave the house.

CB: Okay, now we know your philosophy on instruments, what's your philosophy on practicing?

MA: Uh, oh! More philosophy. Let me get into the Lotus position to answer this one. Everything is Zen from here on out. (Laughs.) Timing and endurance. Just play, even if you just constantly pick one note with the metronome on, that helps a lot. Alex has an impeccable meter, It's very hard to bust him on anything, speeding up or slowing down or whatever. He's the one who really showed me that timing is really what one needs to concentrate on. Start off on a slower meter, pick up the pace and try to get into a groove with just a metronome. Groove is everything. If it's not groovin'' and it's not locked in the pocket, you might as well not be playing at all.

CB: Do you warm up for performances?

MA: I still get real nervous before every show. It's a real nervous energy, I get real excited. I love to play and perform live. Performing is like being a marathon runner or an athlete. You have to practice all of the time. Alex always says, 'Everyday you don't practice, you're two days behind.' There's been several times when I've gone on-stage without warming up and I've cramped fingers up. I'd have to stop playing and massage them , pull them out, they hurt... An example, last tour we were opening with "Poundcake" and that's a pretty fast, consistent bass line that requires a lot of endurance. I warm up quite a bit before a show.

CB: What do you normally do when the tour ends?

MA: First off, I don't want to see my bass for a year. I'm still pumped up and coming down off of the tour energy, but after two or three weeks, I start itching to play again and pull out the basses. It's really weird. When you're on tour, you wish you were home and when you're home you wish you were on tour. Usually, when I'm home I get on my boat and do a lot of water skiing with the wife or I go fishing. I also have a lot of friends in bands and I'm always out at the clubs in L.A. The next thing I know, I'm on-stage doing a number with my friends and then I really get the itch to go out and perform again.

CB: When Van Halen is not touring, what do you do musically to keep yourself amused and your chops up to snuff?

MA: I have a couple of small porta-studio things at home. I have one room dedicated to all of my stuff, effects, basses... I'm always trying out new things. I have two brothers and they play music too, so they come over and we play a lot of music together. With Van Halen, nothing really gets written until we all get into the studio together. Me... I can never really accomplish anything until I'm in the studio with my brothers or the Van Halen guys.

CB: Let's talk about each Van Halen album from the perspective of Michael Anthony. What was interesting about the way the bass was recorded, techniques, funny anecdote that other bassists can learn from, etc.

MA: Oh, no! (Laughs) You're going to make me think that far back?! (Sighs.)

CB: Debut album?

MA: This was basically the first time I was actually ever in a professional recording studio. My first reaction was, 'WO-AH! Does it really sound like that?' When you're playing live and the volume is cranked up, you don't get every little inconsistency, clicking, slapping, etc. I thought, 'Oh my God, I better start practicing!' I was also really scared and I knew I was going to have to buckle down and pay attention.

CB: Van Halen II?

MA: There was some really great material, but I think the production on it could have been a little heavier. But, it was just more of the growing process. We were still using songs from our first demos. Man, if I had all of our albums in front of me I could think of something better to say. (Laughs.)

CB: Woman & Children First?

That was the first time we used keyboards. Roth was always against Eddie using keyboards. Roth would say, "You're a guitar player! That's what you play!" Ed was messing around in the studio and he was playing this old Wurlitzer piano through his Marshalls and it didn't sound like a piano. Everyone thought it was just one of the most wild guitar sounds they have ever heard. People to this day still say, 'That's not a piano on 'And the Cradle will Rock!'' When we did the tour in support of that record, I played the keyboards live.

CB: I remember seeing you on that tour. You had two keyboards, each one was installed in a bomb shell.

MA: Yeah! And that was the biggest pain in the ass! I was juggling a lot. I had the Wurlitzer and the MIDI Moog for the bass line and a phaser pedal. A few times the tech hit a cord or something when he'd wheel those things out and they almost went over. It was frightening. They were heavy and very unsteady.

CB: Fair Warning?

MA: Of all of the early Van Halen records, that one was my favorite. It was heavier and more riff oriented. I was still learning about the studio, I started to play with a pick to get a more crunchier sound. It was still very much growing process for me as a musician.

CB: Diver Down?

MA: Ohhhh, Diver Down I almost want to forget. There were people in the record company wanting us to do cover songs, we did that Kinks song, "Where Have All the Good Times Gone", we also did another remake of "You're No Good"... ummm, was "Dancing in the Street" on that album?

CB: Yup.

MA: I guess you could say it was the least Van Halen record. It was half cover material. After that album we asked ourselves, 'Why are we doing this, when we have so much great material of our own?'

CB: 1984?

MA: What can I say about 1984...? (makes a 'ha-rumph' sound). "Jump"? (laughs). Man, to this day in Europe, "Jump" is really popular.

CB: When you finally hear a Muzak version of "Jump" years from now, you'll know you've really obtained... something.

MA: (Laughs.) Exactly. I just remember Roth being very opposed to Ed playing any kind of keyboards. Ed had written Jump many years before we recorded the 1984 album, but he kinda' put the song away. Ed said to David, 'Hey, F--- You.' and we did "Jump". The way I always felt about it was, it sounded like a Van Halen song. Not like a keyboard song just for the sake of doing a keyboard song. Also, on that tour we played "Jump" and on "I'll Wait", both Ed and I played keyboards. I played bass up until Ed went into the guitar solo and then I took over on the keyboards to the break-down of the solo. That was a very cool thing. No keyboards in bombshells. (laughs.)

CB: 5150? The beginning of the Hagar Years.

MA: Man. It was a brand new band. It was at the time we had fired our manager and Roth had just left the band. Ed had the music for "Sucker in a Three Piece", and a couple of other songs but Alex and I were all of a sudden sitting around, looking at each other going (flips an index finger rapidly over his lips and makes a bee-de-bee-de-bee-de sound. Laughs.) I'm thinking, 'Well, this is it. The dream is over.' But, Ed had an idea to bring in different singers to sing different tracks and then Sammy's name came up. Of course we knew who Sammy was because he had played with Van Halen on a bunch of shows. He came down to the studio to jam with us, he listened to what we were playing, sang and, man... Our jaws just hit the floor. I still have the cassette from our very first jam session with Sammy. It was great. The energy level was tremendous. That album, you can feel the energy.

CB: OU812? That was even more keyboards. The opening number, "Mine all Mine", was a very synth based.

MA: It was weird, ever since we did "Jump", people would ask, 'Are you going to do a lot more keyboard stuff?' I guess they think we just crossed over into the realm of pop music. There was a time Ed was sitting at the keyboard all of the time. It's not like there was any kind of conscious effort to do a lot of keyboard oriented songs on the record, that's just the way it turned out.

CB: So with Balance, it's a whole new departure to go back to your roots?

MA: I think the Van Halen fans that go back to the first album get that impression. There's a lot less over dubbing on this record, it's a lot more guitar riff oriented and it is more reminiscent of a much earlier Van Halen.

CB: What was the most bizarre thing that ever happened to you on-stage?

MA: Most of the bizarre things I remember are what really gets me pissed-off. It usually has to do with equipment failing or fireworks landing on-stage. I've had M-80s go off so close to me, they've blown holes in my pants and left my leg numb for week. But, that's the hazard of doing a gig on the Fourth of July in Detroit. (Laughs.) It's really hard to say what's been the most bizarre one thing. If it's not some chick taking off her clothes, it's someone's hair getting torched because a sparkler lands on their head and the next thing ya' know five people are trying to put the poor kid out!. When I'm looking out at 50,000 faces, I'm watching as much of a show as they are.

CB: The first Van Halen album came out in 1978 and all of the critics said the band would be a flash-in-the-pan, due to your young age, you'd burn out very quickly, etc. It's been a seventeen year career of multi-platinum albums and sold out world tours, what do you have to say to all of the critics now?

MA: (Very spitefully and child-like, Michael shakes his head back and forth) Nah nah, nah-nah-nah! We showed you. (Laughs.) Five years! That was the average career of a rock band at that time. It's probably shorter then that now. We never thought about stuff like that. When I got into Van Halen we always concentrated on building a following, we didn't immediately go into the studio to do a demo or go for a record contract as so many bands do these days. It's not like you have to get out there and grind it and sweat it and pay your dues. But, the best experience we had as a band was to get out there and experience playing all types of situations. Van Halen did so many amazing shows prior to getting signed. As an unsigned act, we opened for Santana at the Civic Center in Los Angeles. We also never followed the trend. We drew from our influences, but we've never sold out to the flavor-of-the-month-club, whether it be Rap or Grunge or whatever just because you think maybe that's what your fans will like at the moment. We never try to second guess our fans on record or up there on the stage. That's what we owe to the longevity of the band. Not that I want to discount everything we did before Sammy, it was all part of the Van Halen growth process. With Sammy in the band, it is the music! If the music is there, you got it. It doesn't matter if you have long hair or short hair, long pants or you if you wear shorts. If the music is there, everything will just fall into place.

CB: If Van Halen never turned into the industry that it has become, what would you be doing now?

MA: I majored in psychology in school before my father finally let me major in music. I love children and I always wanted to work with disabled and handicapped children. That was the only one thing I really wanted to do if it wasn't playing music. Otherwise, I'd probably be playing in some F---ed up beer bar. (Laughs). The guys that start playing music just for the glamour and babes, that's all fine and dandy, but they're all of your flash-in-the-pan bands that maybe stumble on one hit. You gotta' enjoy what you're doing. You can't look at it as a way to make fast money or a job. Of course, it's nice to make money playing music. That's one thing I thank God for everyday, besides my family. Who really knows the 'What if?' to your question. I'd be playing something. (Shrugs) Maybe the trumpet. (Laughs)

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Interview © 1995 Christopher Buttner