Longtime Van Halen bassist Michael Anthony recently appeared on the YouTube series, “That Rocks.” The show, hosted by former “That Metal Show” hosts Eddie Trunk, Jim Florentine and Don Jamieson airs every Wednesday night.
Anthony talked about a variety of topics including his time with Van Halen. He also talked about the extensive drama the band went through. He also said he stays off social media for the most part to avoid said “drama.”
“I do a little bit of Instagramming and whatever, but … no… I don’t like to get involved in the drama,” Anthony said.
“And that was really hard in certain times in Van Halen. Because, believe me… It’s kind of funny, because I look at TV and I’m watching things like ‘Behind The Music’ with other bands, and I go, ‘Oh my God. Look at all the shit they went through.’ And then I sit back and I go, ‘Oh my God. We’ve got probably the most drama out of anybody.'”
Anthony then shared a story of a particularly wild night on tour involving Van Halen frontman David Lee Roth.
“There was always drama on the Roth tours,” he said.
“There were times… God, I forget which tour it was. I’ll just give you a real quick story — not so much drama, but just how it was with Dave on tour. We were staying somewhere in the Midwest, and Dave… After this, we all kind of came to the conclusion that he was bipolar. ‘Cause he would be great, and then all of a sudden he would just kind of freak out or whatever.”
“And one night… We had a night off, and everybody was… whatever we were doing. It was, like, around midnight, one in the morning, and everyone was pretty much back at the hotel. And I hear all this commotion out in the hall and pounding and screaming, and I’m going, ‘What the hell is going on?’ So I put my shorts on and I go walking down the hall. And our security guys have got Roth in a strait jacket. Our security guys carried a strait jacket on tour; I won’t get into that part of it. But they used to carry a strait jacket on tour, and Roth was just, like, screaming naked, sitting in one of our security guys’ rooms, wearing this strait jacket.”
“Dave, he liked to drink Jack Daniel’s, but he couldn’t handle it like I can handle it,” Anthony continued. “Dave would have a little bit of Jack Daniel’s and he’d get a little crazy. And I guess they found him wandering around outside the hotel naked. And this was just one night out of seven nights a week being on tour.”
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