The one musician Eddie Van Halen grew to resent: “He’s not a singer”
Every member of Van Halen truly felt like brothers when they first started.
Sure, they argued left and right and had their moments where they could be a bit rambunctious onstage, but when you look at the way all of them played off of each other, a lot of their interviews seemed like watching a rock and roll cartoon show. But when you’ve hung out with someone for as long as they were together, there had to come a point where Eddie started to have second thoughts about what he had got himself into.
But if you look at their history, Eddie at least had a sabbatical from David Lee Roth for a little while. Anyone who hangs out with ‘Diamond Dave’ might be jazzed about talking to an actual legend, but the idea of staying with someone for that long and having them be nothing but energy all the time might have been too much for Eddie to take for so long. He needed someone with a bit more musicality, but Sammy Hagar wasn’t exactly going to go the distance like they thought he would.
Then again, ‘The Red Rocker’ did at least bring something new to the table. He was used to making more musically-inclined songs, and since everyone could focus on the music, Eddie felt like he was finally getting the respect he deserved. But aside from his brother laying down the groove every single time they performed, Michael Anthony tends to get overlooked when it comes to the greatest parts of their career.
And do I really need to explain why he was overshadowed…anyone with a guitar in their hands had no business standing next to Eddie while he was playing his solos, but with that amazing tenor voice and inventive bass lines, Anthony was the glue that held the band together – while Eddie tended to agree with that assessment, it only took a couple of years before he started to rethink everything.
During the Hagar years, every member seemed to be having the time of their lives, and Eddie was the first one to say that Anthony was the heart of the band, saying, “He was singing and playing bass great, and we said, ‘That’s what we need for a bass player.’ Somehow, a friend of mine got his number. He’s a very unique voice.”
“I don’t know anyone that can sing higher than him. In the studio, we call him ‘Cannonmouth’. He basically can play anything you ask him to play, and without him, Van Halen would not be.”
Eddie Van Halen
When looking back on their time together after the fact, though, Eddie implied that there was a bit more to the story once Anthony left the band to join up with Hagar’s solo outfit, revealing, “Every note Mike ever played, I had to show him how to play. Before we’d go on tour, he’d come over with a video camera, and I’d have to show him how to play all the parts. Mike’s voice is like a piccolo trumpet. But he’s not a singer. He just has a range from hell.”
But looking back, you can’t help but think that Eddie may have been a little bit petty. Hagar was willing to defend what Anthony was doing at his shows, and even if no one was going to go after Wolfie Van Halen, there’s no way that Eddie was the one who was helping tunes like ‘Runnin’ With the Devil’ or ‘So This is Love’ into some of the greatest underrated gems of their career.
Everything could have been water under the bridge, but the real tragedy is that Anthony never officially had a moment where he got to reconcile with Eddie during his lifetime. The whole band seemed to be on their own path during the final half of Eddie’s life, and while Anthony was happy to see his friend in a better state later, he probably would have done anything for them to jam one more time.
