Van Halen bassist Michael Anthony has questioned rock and roll’s current status.
Michael Anthony appeared to be watching the Grammy award presentation at home. The bassist hinted in a recent Instagram post that the Grammy Awards left him perplexed and caused him to wonder if he was too old for this new style of rock music. Then, he inquired as to what had become of authentic rock & roll. Sammy Hagar pointed out that Michael was not alone in thinking this upon watching this.
“Trying to watch a little of the Grammys right now. I don’t know if I’m just a bit too old or a little too buzzed from a couple of cocktails. What happened to rock ‘n’ roll? Congrats, Beyoncé.”
Sammy Hagar responded:
“And I thought I was the only one.”
Recently interviewed by Guitar World, singer Sammy Hagar mentioned that Eddie Van Halen began to be jealous of him and bassist Michael Anthony to a point, as both started to collaborate on different projects.
About this, Hagar said:
“Because in Van Halen, Eddie was so busy with the way he played a guitar that there wasn’t much room for Mikey to do anything. Eddie played lead, rhythm, melody, and in some ways, the bass line all at once because he was just a master.
“So, Mikey rarely got to stretch out, but the truth is that he’s up there with John Paul Jones, John Entwistle, Geddy Lee, and Jack Bruce, but he never got to show it with Van Halen. But now, we’ve got Mikey off the leash, so we get more from him than we ever got when he was in Van Halen. […]
“And this was when we were all getting along great, not towards the end when our marriage fell apart. But even in the early days, Eddie would say, ‘Hey, I wanna hang out like you and Mike do.’ And I was like, ‘Cool, man. Let’s do it. So, what’s the problem?’
“The way it was in Van Halen was Eddie and Alex would get together and do their family thing. And Mike and I would always be the ones that would get tacos and margaritas and talk about life when we were on the road.
“And in the end, when we were arguing, and Van Halen was falling apart, me and Mike had our own plane because they were trying to keep Eddie and me apart.
“I guess Mike and I are cut from the same cloth. Eddie hated it, would get mad on stage, and called it stupid, but we had our inside lingo and were always very close.
“And that’s accented by the magical sound of his background vocals layered over my lead vocals. It’s a unique sound that can’t be described and that I’ve never had with anyone else.”
