In Defense of Mikey (Michael Anthony, formerly of Van Halen)

Huge talented a-hole. But he's sitting there telling Roth to "act 60", and is himself acting like he is 16 talking that kind of shite.

Michael Anthony's background vocals in VH songs are so underrated. He was a force. He especially helped prop up DLR when he was in the band. And I am a Roth fan.

Has there ever been a rock band that had so many members be douches at one time?

Gary Cherone is the only one nobody in the band seems to hate.

Saw some VH clips of recent promo gigs (Kimmel, Ellen) and Eddie looks sober and sounds amazing. Alex hasn't lost a beat. Dave looks and sounds completely senile. Heartbreaking to see/hear that they have the nerve to tour with that at the helm. Sure would help to have Mike on board to help mask Dave's "singing".

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Michael Anthony's background vocals in VH songs are so underrated. He was a force. He especially helped prop up DLR when he was in the band.

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His bass work is understated, but every band has to have 1 steady player - I loved Alex's drums but he got so ahead of the band at times, the only way it worked is to have that guy steady as a rock. Van Halen's vocals always sounded great because of Anthony's background vocals - neither David nor Sammy were particularly great "singers" - both were great frontmen - more vocal stylists - and it worked because that is what the music called for - but the "Van Halens" never really contributed to the vocals at all.

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Sammy has a strong, natural, full voice. shite, that's obvious from the first not he sang in Montrose.

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As a bigger fan of Van Hagar than Van Halen, I maintain that Sammy is not a particularly great singer - I'll concede he is better than DLR and probably fairly classified as between good and great (with Dave being a lead singer of average talent, at best). I liked his solo work better than Montrose, but I may be in the minority here.

What I give credit to both of them is that they maximized their talent and stayed within themselves - there is the temptation to go over the top in a band such as Van Halen - DLR did so with his "vocal effects" (for lack of a better phrase), but neither man tried to outsing the music or their own vocal limitations.

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What gave Dave the edge was being a better wordsmith and a more extroverted personality.

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In his prime, Dave is probably rightly considered the "better" frontman, but that was because they needed attention and they needed an extroverted guy to balance out the introverted "leader" - Eddie.

But, Dave is also legitimately crazy - so there is always that potential for "out there" moments. Combined with the massive drug/alcohol problems with the band in their heyday - it is just lucky that all past and present members of Van Halen are still alive.

But, I digress - I didn't mean to malign either singer, just honestly assess what each brought to the group - the only reason Van Halen exists is that Eddie was such a prodigy - everything else was built around that. Only Sammy (and Cherone, FWIW) came from the outside with any credentials not explicitly attached to the name "Van Halen".

I read Sammy's autobiography on vacation and really enjoyed his stories about the band. I always preferred Van Halen to Van Hagar, but it gave me some more insight to his years with VH, and a better appreciation for what they accomplished.

And really, after seeing DLR stumble and bumble through their most recent performance on Jimmy Kimmel, Sammy would probably be a much better fit for them now... too bad they seem to hate each other.

Well according to the article, the vocals were more Eddie than Mike. Surpised Ed didn't claim to have squeezed Mike's cheeks & lips to help him form the words.