MICHAEL ANTHONY Shares Opinion On Only VAN HALEN Album He Didn't Play On, Talks Unreleased Material

In a new interview with Greg Prato of Ultimate Guitar, former VAN HALEN bassist Michael Anthony was asked if there are many unreleased songs from the David Lee Roth era of the band. He responded: "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 used on the 'A Different Kind Of Truth' album that they put out [in 2012, featuring Wolfgang Van Halen on bass]. Songs like 'She's The Woman'; that's the only thing that comes to mind."

"There were songs that were basically written way back in the early days when Dave, Eddie [Van Halen], Alex [Van Halen] and myself were together that they ended up using on that. But, God, I can't recall. There's probably miles of stuff. I mean, you've probably seen pictures of all the boxes of the tapes and everything [in Eddie's studio]. Which is miles of stuff.

"Every time that we went into the studio, whether it was Donn Landee or whoever was engineering for us, we had him press record. We recorded everything, every idea that we had. And there's stuff in there that…

"I hope Wolfgang goes through some of it because 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. But there's tons of stuff that we'll probably never see. Or hear."

Anthony was also asked for his opinion on the "A Different Kind Of Truth" album which recently returned to streaming platforms after a nearly two-year absence. He said: "I listened to a little bit of it. It was different. Dave was singing differently. 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. But yeah, I thought it was a good album."

With Wolfgang on bass, VAN HALEN embarked on lengthy tours in 2007, 2012 and 2015. The band's final run of shows took place in the summer and fall of 2015. The North American trek included 41 concerts beginning on July 5, 2015 and ending on October 4, 2015.

More than three years ago, Wolfgang revealed that his father had contemplated a "kitchen-sink" VAN HALEN tour that would have included Anthony, as well as vocal turns from both Sammy Hagar and David Lee Roth. There was even talk about bringing back Gary Cherone, who sang with the band on one poorly received album, 1998's "Van Halen III".

According to Wolfgang, the original plan was for him to personally contact Michael and ask him to come back to VAN HALEN. "Unfortunately, [VAN HALEN's longtime manager] Irving [Azoff] hit [Michael] up before I had a chance to," he said. "The plan was for me to [reach out to him]." Wolfgang went on to say that he was also the one who called Roth in 2007 to get him to return to VAN HALEN for a reunion tour.

In early 2019, a rumor surfaced that the classic VAN HALEN lineup would reunite that summer for a run of stadium shows. This would have been the first time that Michael, Eddie, David and Alex Van Halen performed together since 1984.

The rumors originally started with Roth, who hinted to Vulture that VAN HALEN would be playing stadiums with Anthony back in the lineup.

VAN HALEN and Anthony had not been on good terms for more than a decade, with Anthony not invited to join the reunion with Roth that began in 2007. The subsequent two tours and the aforementioned "A Different Kind Of Truth" album featured Wolfgang on bass.

Anthony took a pay cut and signed away all of his rights to the band name and logo in order to participate in VAN HALEN's 2004 tour, which featured Hagar.

Eddie died in October 2020 at St. John's Hospital in Santa Monica, California. The iconic VAN HALEN axeman died from complications due to cancer, his son confirmed.