While Van Halen had plenty of success with both David Lee Roth and Sammy Hagar as their frontmen, they couldn’t produce the same magic when Extreme’s Gary Cherone took over the gig. And bassist Michael Anthony is opening up about why it didn’t work out.
“It was an interesting time, because the band was really going through a lot personally,” Anthony told Ultimate Guitar. “And as far as musically, I personally didn’t think that Gary was a really good fit for Van Halen. I mean, I really love him in Extreme, but I just didn’t really see the fit.”
Van Halen released one album, 1998’s Van Halen III, with Cherone, and also went on tour with him, which Anthony describes as a good experience because Cherone “was open to doing any of the Van Halen stuff.”
“In fact, he suggested doing the Roth era stuff, the Hagar era stuff,” he says. “And he wanted to play it all, which was really great because we ended up on that tour playing a lot of the older Van Halen stuff that we hadn’t played for years when Sammy was in the band.”
Anthony says there’s some Cherone material in the vault that’s never been released, but it doesn’t sound like he’s expecting any of it to ever come out.
“But as far as the other music goes, that’s shelved and that’s up to Wolfgang (Van Halen),” he says. “I don’t think any of that will really see the light of day because it was something that was a work in progress and never completed.”
Anthony is currently out on tour with Sammy Hagar on his The Best of All Worlds Tour. The trek hits Mansfield, Massachusetts, on Friday. A complete list of all dates can be found at redrocker.com.
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