| November 20, 2009 |
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In the February 2006 edition of the Japanese hard rock magazine, Burrn!, Michael Anthony gives a very candid interview, and comments on things like, the 2004 reunion tour with Sammy Hagar, the failed reunion with Dave, and the current state of Van Halen. It is a must read for all fans!
A special thanks to Andrew at Melodicrock.com for having the artcle translated into English. To view the article, visit Melodicrock.com and then head down to the "Friday, March 17, 2006" heading on the page. It's the first story of that day.
After you read the entire piece, feel free to comment on our message forums on the thread dedicated to the interview located here:
http://www.vhlinks.com/vbforums/showthread.php?t=30945.
Here's a couple excerpts from the article:
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 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."
A 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."
Make sure you read the whole thing!
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