Former Van Halen bassist Michael Anthony will be hitting the road in July with fellow VH alum Sammy Hagar on Hagar’s The Best of Both Worlds Tour, which will celebrate the music of their old band. In a new interview with Ultimate Guitar, Anthony revealed that Van Halen recorded lots of music that’s never been released.
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“There’s probably miles of stuff,” he told Ultimate Guitar. “I mean, you’ve probably seen pictures of all the boxes of the tapes and everything [in the late Eddie Van Halen’s studio]. Which is miles of stuff.”
[Buy Tickets for The Best of All Worlds Tour]
Anthony then shared, “Every time that we went into the studio, whether it was [frequent Van Halen studio collaborator] Donn Landee or whoever was engineering for us, we had him press record. We recorded everything, every idea that we had.”
The 69-year-old Rock & Roll Hall of Famer added that he hoped Eddie’s son, Wolfgang Van Halen, who replaced Anthony as the band’s bassist in 2006, “goes through some” of the material to see if any there any worthwhile recordings to eventually release.
“I’m sure there’s a lot of stuff that Eddie did on his own, too, that might be kind of interesting to listen to also,” he added. “But there’s tons of stuff that we’ll probably never see. Or hear.”
About Van Halen’s Final Album, A Different Kind of Truth
Anthony also chatted with Ultimate Guitar about Van Halen’s 2012 album, A Different Kind of Truth. The record was the band’s final studio effort, and the only one that didn’t feature Michael.
It’s been reported that a lot of the songs on A Different Kind of Truth were reworked or completed versions of tunes that date back to the early part of the band’s career. Anthony told Ultimate Guitar that he likely co-wrote a lot of the material wound up on the album.
“There were quite a few songs that I was a part of and worked on and written, even a couple of things before the first Van Halen record and the early part of Van Halen that they actually restructured and [put out] on the A Different Kind of Truth album,” Michael said. “Songs like ‘She’s the Woman,’ that’s the only thing that comes to mind.”
He added, “There were songs that were basically written way back in the early days when [David Lee Roth], Eddie, Alex [Van Halen], and myself were together that they ended up using on that.” Anthony received no writing credit on the album.
As for what he thought about A Different Kind of Truth, Anthony said he considered it “a good album.”
“I listened to a little bit of it. It was different. Dave was singing differently,” he noted. “And adding Wolfgang into the mix. It was different than what we were obviously doing when I was in the band. There’s a lot of good stuff on there.”
A Different Kind of Truth was removed from streaming services in 2002, but the album recently was made available for streaming again.
About The Best of All Worlds Tour
As previously reported, The Best of All Worlds Tour will feature Anthony and Hagar teaming up with guitar whiz Joe Satriani and drummer Jason Bonham.
The trek kicks off July 13 in West Palm Beach, Florida, and is scheduled to conclude on August 31 in St. Louis. Loverboy will be the opening act throughout the tour.
Tickets for the tour dates shows are available now via various outlets, including StubHub.
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