The Rise and Fall of a Band Called Van Halen and Two Dutch-born Douchebags from Pasadena

Another ridiculously long title for this blog entry could also be called "How Michael Anthony Got Dissed, Not Only In Real Life, But In the Virtual World of Music-Related Video Games."

Once upon a time, there was a band called Van Halen. They started in the mid 1970s in California and were eventually discovered by Gene Simmons. They release their first album in 1978, and introduced the world to a new dynamic guitarist (Eddie Van Halen), a new dynamic frontman (David Lee Roth), the guitarist's brother who is a pretty damn good drummer (Alex Van Halen) and a bass player who may not be Geddy Lee but provided some pretty solid background vocals (Michael Anthony). They sell lots of records, they do lots of drugs, they get lots of pussy, Eddie marries Valerie Bertinelli (or Valerie Bertnernie as Peter Griffin calls her), and they make a boat load of cold hard cash. Fast forward to 1985. David Lee Roth exits the group under murky and questionable (still to this day) circumstances, but the band reconvenes with a new lead singer, Sammy Hagar. This changes the band's sound drastically, dividing many fans yet winning new ones, they still sell a lot of albums, they still get pussy and drugs... Eddie becomes a drunk... Then around 1996, the Van Halen story becomes a soap opera that still throbs like a thumb that got hit by a sledgehammer. Hagar quits/gets fired (depends on who you ask), Roth is let back in for about 5 minutes, they hire the singer from Extreme as the new lead singer, they make a bad album, the Extreme guy quits, nothing happens for about 5 years, then they reunite with Hagar, that lasts about a week or so, Eddie gets cancer, Eddie enters rehab, Sammy still kicks it solo, Michael Anthony kicks out the jams with him a few times, Van Halen reunites with Roth, tour becomes very successful, bands gets inducted into the R&R Hall of Fame, Sammy & Mike form a new supergroup with Joe Satriani and the drummer from the Chili Peppers...

Wait back up.

OK.

It's pretty much a known fact that Michael Anthony is no longer in Van Halen. He is replaced by none other than Eddie Van Halen's son, Wolfgang. So now the Van Halen saga has shifted gears. It used to be a war of words between the exiled lead singer and Eddie Van Halen, and now it's an ongoing battle between the bass player who stuck by the band for 30 years as pretty much a Yoda-esque force and Eddie Van Halen who clearly is the Darth Vader of the group. Eddie asserts that he quit, like he always does probably to cover his ass to disguise the already known fact that he's pretty much a dictator. Michael Anthony, however, says that when Van Halen reunited with Roth, he found out when the fans found out and he did not get an offer to join them on tour, and he was replaced by a fat kid with a silver spoon up his ass less than half his age. Then as tour plans are announced, it has become known that Michael Anthony has been getting the raw deal by the Van Halen brothers for about the last decade. Supposedly on that one album with the Extreme guy, he only played on 3 songs on it (which, in retrospect, isn't so bad considering that album was an abortion and a half), and Eddie didn't want Anthony to join the band on their 2004 reunion tour with Hagar; Hagar, however, refused to do the tour if Anthony was not on board, so Anthony was basically paid the same as a session musician and not as a member of a highly influential hard rock band.

And here's the real shitty part:

About a day after the band announced their reunion with David Lee Roth, their original website was updated and it showed the album covers of their six albums with Roth, two of which feature a picture of the band on their cover (their debut and 1980's Women and Children First). Turns out someoned (probably Eddie) removed Michael Anthony from those album covers and replaced his image w/ that of Wolfgang Van Halen. What a way to try to erase history; are you gonna pull an Ozzy and have Wolfgang rerecord the bass lines, asshole? Anyway, after much protest from fans, the website was redone a day later and Anthony was back on those album covers again.

Now, to further add insult to injury, Van Halen is getting their own Guitar Hero game, and reports are saying that both Anthony and Sammy Hagar are not represented in the game. There are no digitized images of the two ex-members (the same way the late Cliff Burton did not get a digitized figure on Guitar Hero: Metallica, and if I remember correctly, neither did Jason Newsted). The previews show both the modern band, and a 1984 representation of the band (with spandex pants, long hair, the whole shebang), and Wolfgang (who was but a gleam in Eddie Van Halen's drunken bloodshot eye in 1984) is in both versions of the band; another clever way to try to erase history.

Michael Anthony is not exactly the greatest bass player in the world. My friends and I back in high school (who were all pretty big VH fans) often said that he was the luckiest guy in the world next to Ringo Starr. But he was a good background vocalist, and in fact, their most recent tour had a backing track for background vocals because Eddie & Alex (and probably Wolfgang) are not known for their excellent vocal skills; in fact, Eddie's attempt at lead voals are largely maligned by the band, considering that they were on that horrible Gary Cherone-lead album. Despite his lack of musical virtuosity, Anthony has proven to be a class act through all of this. Anthony & Sammy Hagar were the only two members to show up at Van Halen's induction to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame (when they weren't even in the band anymore) and Anthony had nothing but nice words to say about his ex-bandmates. He doesn't really badmouth Eddie or anyone else in interviews even if he has every right to, he toured with the band even when Eddie didn't want him to and he took a major deduction in his pay, and before he was ejected he stuck with the band through all of the drama anad bullshit.

Eddie Van Halen said that since Michael Anthony went and played some shows with Sammy Hagar, while Eddie was sitting at home with his fingers up his ass and getting wasted, he quit Van Halen. Yet in an earlier interview he said that "You can't be in two bands at once," which contradicts the whole "he quit" statement, nevermind the fact that that statement is complete bullshit. Phil Collins balanced both a solo career out while he was in Genesis, Maynard James Keenan played in Tool & A Perfect Circle at the same time, Aaron Turner plays in both Isis and Old Man Gloom, the list goes on. Michael Anthony said that he played those shows with Sammy because he didn't want to sit at home and do nothing and wait for a call from Eddie to do something. Eddie says that he has like 10 albums worth of new material, but none of it has seen the light of day, and Van Halen did like 3 tours of rehashing their old hits.

I can understand that Michael Anthony appearing with Sammy Hagar is a pretty lame career move, because, let's face it, Sammy Hagar is a pretty lame guy. His work with Van Halen contained a lot of sappy ballads (which wasn't entirely his idea). Ironically, though, the ballads were better than when Hagar tried rocking with the band. Seriously, some of his lyrics in some of the heavier Van Hagar songs make Paul Stanley's lyrics read like Paradise Lost. However, he didn't deserve what happened to him, and how people still support Van Halen and give them money, while knowing how lucid the abnd's assholeness and douchebaggery is, is beyond me. It breaks my heart because I grew up really liking Van Halen, but I have officially disowned them at this point.