Michael Anthony (musician) (1967-1974) Musical career begins when did he get into music? He took an interest in guitar as a teenager, but picked up the bass instead since most of his other friends already played guitar or drums. what was his first release? During this time, bass player Mark Stone parted ways with Mammoth and the Van Halens decided to audition Anthony as a replacement. Did they like him? After the session, the Van Halen brothers asked Anthony to join their band. where did he learn how to be a bass player? I don't know.
what other bands did he play with before Van Halen?
what other bands did Michael Anthony play with before Van Halen?
While Anthony was a promising catcher in baseball, he also competed on the Dana Junior High School track team (long jump) and played in the marching band there from 1967-1969. He took an interest in guitar as a teenager, but picked up the bass instead since most of his other friends already played guitar or drums. Anthony's friend Mike Hershey gave him a Fender Mustang electric guitar that Anthony converted by removing the two highest strings and playing it as a bass guitar. Eventually, his father bought him a Victoria copy of a Fender Precision Bass and a Gibson amplifier. Anthony mostly modelled his bass playing after Jack Bruce of Cream, but also admired Led Zeppelin's John Paul Jones and Harvey Brooks of Electric Flag. His first band was called Poverty's Children. Other bands he played in included Black Opal, Balls, and Snake. Although Anthony is naturally left-handed, he plays right-handed.  Snake, a three-piece group featuring Anthony on lead vocals and bass guitar, was the last band in which Anthony played before joining Van Halen. Snake played covers of ZZ Top, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and Foghat, along with some original songs. They played several of the same types of gigs as did the Van Halen brothers' band Mammoth. Snake even once opened for Mammoth at a show at Pasadena High School. Mammoth's PA failed that night, so Anthony lent them Snake's PA.  While attending Pasadena City College, Anthony pursued a degree in music. Eddie Van Halen also took classes there and they would often see each other on campus. During this time, bass player Mark Stone parted ways with Mammoth and the Van Halens decided to audition Anthony as a replacement. Anthony was impressed by their skill during subsequent jam sessions even though he had seen the brothers play before. After the session, the Van Halen brothers asked Anthony to join their band. One story claims that he said he had to think about it and consulted Snake guitarist Tony Caggiano who advised Anthony to join Van Halen. However, according to Michael Anthony's web site, when asked if he wanted to join Mammoth, Anthony immediately said yes. This has become the accepted version of events. CANNOTANSWER
His first band was called Poverty's Children. Other bands he played in included Black Opal, Balls, and Snake.
Michael Anthony Sobolewski (born June 20, 1954) is an American musician who was the bassist and backing vocalist for the hard rock band Van Halen from 1974 to 2006. He performed on Van Halen's first 11 albums and was their longest-tenured bassist. Following his 2006 departure, Anthony has collaborated with fellow former Van Halen bandmate Sammy Hagar for the supergroups Chickenfoot and Sammy Hagar and the Circle. In addition to his music career, he markets a line of hot sauces named Mad Anthony and related products. Anthony was inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Van Halen in 2007.

Early years 
Anthony got his interest in music from his father, who played trumpet. Anthony began by playing trumpet.

Anthony was partly raised in Chicago. The family moved to California twice in Anthony's early years, settling in 1966 in Arcadia, California (Arcadia being located next to Pasadena, where Alex and Edward Van Halen, with whom Anthony would later play in the band Van Halen, were raised). Anthony attended Dana Junior High School, in Arcadia, California, from 1967 to 1969.  Anthony was in the marching band at the school. He ran track in junior high and also showed promise in baseball, as a catcher, but by the time he started high school he had ceased doing athletics to concentrate on music.

Anthony graduated from Arcadia High in 1972.

Music career

(1967–1974) Early musical endeavors 

Anthony took an interest in guitar as a teenager, but picked up the bass instead since most of his other friends already played guitar or drums. Anthony's friend Mike Hershey gave him a Fender Mustang electric guitar that Anthony converted by removing the two highest strings and playing it as a bass guitar. Eventually, his father bought him a Victoria copy of a Fender Precision Bass and a Gibson amplifier. Anthony mostly modelled his bass playing after Jack Bruce of Cream, but also admired Led Zeppelin's John Paul Jones and Harvey Brooks of Electric Flag. His first band was called Poverty's Children. Other bands he played in included Black Opal, Balls, and Snake. Although Anthony is naturally left-handed, he plays right-handed.

Snake, a three-piece group featuring Anthony on lead vocals and bass guitar, was the last band in which Anthony played before joining Van Halen. Snake played covers of ZZ Top, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and Foghat, along with some original songs. They played several of the same types of gigs as did the Van Halen brothers' band Mammoth. Snake once opened for Mammoth during a show at Pasadena High School. Mammoth's PA failed that night, so Anthony lent them Snake's PA.

While attending Pasadena City College, majoring in music, Anthony met Eddie Van Halen, who also took classes there. During this time, bass player Mark Stone parted ways with Mammoth and the Van Halens auditioned Anthony as a replacement. Anthony was impressed by their skill during subsequent jam sessions even though he had heard the brothers play before. After the session, the Van Halen brothers asked Anthony to join their band. One story claims that he first consulted Snake guitarist Tony Caggiano, who advised Anthony to join up with the guitar prodigy and his brother. However, according to Anthony's web site, he immediately accepted. This has become the accepted version of events.

Anthony had planned to attend college in Santa Barbara after he graduated from Pasadena City College, but instead he dropped out of PCC just before he earned enough credits for a degree so that he could devote all his time to Van Halen.

(1974–1996) Van Halen 

In 1974, Eddie Van Halen, Alex Van Halen, David Lee Roth and Anthony became known as Van Halen, dropping the name Mammoth when they discovered another local band using that moniker. After successfully navigating the Los Angeles & West Hollywood club scene and a 29 track demo produced by Kiss's Gene Simmons, Van Halen was signed to Warner Bros. in 1977 and released their self-titled debut album on February 10, 1978. Anthony was a 20% member (manager Noel Monk being the 5th) of all debts and profits, including merchandise, until midway through the 1984 tour, when tensions rose to the point that Roth and the Van Halen brothers insisted that he sign away all future songwriting credit and royalties, retroactive with the current 1984 LP. Noel Monk later wrote of the event, "If I were Mike, I would have told them to 'fuck off' and not played that night, to show them my worth. Instead Mike didn't say a word and signed away millions of dollars, as the three stood over him, lying on the floor."

The band released a total of ten studio albums from 1978 - 1995, a live album in 1993, as well as two greatest hits compilations during Anthony's tenure with the band.

Anthony produced a 1988 demo for his brother (Robert Lee Sobolewski) Bobby Leigh's band Asylum Suite, which was formed in 1984 and featured singer Michael Thomas Fiore.

(1996–2003) Diminishing role with Van Halen and side projects 

As early as 1996, rumors periodically surfaced that Anthony had been fired from Van Halen, despite claims to the contrary. Anthony continued working with the band although the rumors persisted until his actual departure following the 2004 reunion tour with Hagar.

Anthony's involvement in recording the 1998 album Van Halen III was dramatically less than previous albums. Anthony played bass on three songs, with Eddie playing the bass parts for the remainder. Anthony is credited as a songwriter for the album along with the rest of the band. Anthony performed with the band for the 1998 tour, and was credited on messages from the band thereafter. He participated in the band's three reunion efforts with David Lee Roth in 1996, 2000 and 2001 (with the latter resulting in early versions of A Different Kind of Truth tracks). Anthony's name was also credited in a few band newsletters and appeared in band interviews during this time. Sometime after this, Anthony disappeared from public view until the 2004 reunion.

Anthony began periodic appearances with Sammy Hagar during his solo tours. He usually played as part of both the Waboritas and Los Tres Gusanos, two of Hagar's bands. During 2002's Roth/Hagar tour (otherwise known as the "Sans Halen" or "Sam and Dave" tour), both Anthony and ex-Van Halen vocalist Gary Cherone made guest appearances at concerts, sometimes together.

In 2002, Anthony, Hagar, Neal Schon, Deen Castronovo, and Joe Satriani formed the supergroup Planet Us and Anthony began making more frequent performances at Hagar concerts. Planet Us recorded two songs, including "Psycho Vertigo", which was intended for the original Spider-Man soundtrack but ultimately did not make the album. That and the other Planet Us song written for the band, "Peephole", were later released on the 2008 Hagar solo album Cosmic Universal Fashion.

(2003–2005) Van Halen reunion 
Initially when Eddie and Alex asked Hagar to rejoin at the end of 2003 for a 2004 tour, the plan was to not invite Anthony back. Hagar, however, refused to perform if Anthony did not rejoin, and Anthony agreed to play but on a reduced royalties contract. The contract drawn up was for the duration of the tour only.

In 2004, Van Halen released the compilation album The Best of Both Worlds which included three new songs. Anthony did not participate in the writing of nor did he play bass on the new songs and was not credited on the album for the new material, although he did sing backup vocals on all of them.

Anthony now states in media interviews that he has not spoken to the Van Halen brothers since the 2004 tour, except to Alex at the funeral of Van Halen drum tech Greg Emerson. He has also speculated that since the brothers were not pleased with Hagar's commercial ventures such as the Cabo Wabo product line, their similar displeasure with Anthony's hot sauce brand may have caused the rift that ultimately separated Hagar and Anthony from the band.

(2006–present) Departure from Van Halen and formation of Chickenfoot 
Anthony spent the summer of 2006 touring as a member of the Other Half during a segment of the Sammy Hagar and the Waboritas tour. The Other Half featured Anthony and Hagar performing classic Van Halen songs from both the Roth and Hagar periods.

On September 8, 2006, Eddie Van Halen announced that his son Wolfgang was replacing Anthony as Van Halen's bass player. On February 2, 2007, Van Halen announced that they were reuniting for a tour with original vocalist David Lee Roth. Their tour began on September 27, 2007.  Anthony commented that he heard about his replacement "on the Internet" and added, "I'm a little miffed that they're calling it a Van Halen reunion. If I was dead and they needed someone to play, that's one thing, but to me this is not a reunion." At the tour press conference David Lee Roth stated, "This is not a reunion, this is a revision."

Anthony joined Hagar on live national television on February 25, 2007, during a pre-race performance for the California NASCAR race on Fox television. Anthony jumped onstage and joined Hagar during a performance of "I Can't Drive 55."

Anthony and Hagar were the only members, former or current, to appear at Van Halen's induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on March 12, 2007. Eddie Van Halen was in rehab at the time, and Alex Van Halen and David Lee Roth declined to appear.

Anthony is a founding member, bassist and backing vocalist for the band Chickenfoot with Sammy Hagar, Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith and guitarist Joe Satriani. The band released their first studio album in Europe on June 5, 2009, followed by the North American release on June 9. Chickenfoot released their sophomore effort, Chickenfoot III, on September 27, 2011.

Anthony is a member of Sammy Hagar and the Circle, a supergroup that formed in 2014 and features Hagar as well as guitarist Vic Johnson and drummer Jason Bonham.

Personal life
Anthony met Sue Hendry when both attended Arcadia High School. They married in 1981. They have two daughters: Elisha (born 1985) and Taylor (born 1992). Anthony and his family reside in Newport Beach, California. He can be seen during televised car shows, often being interviewed regarding his love and knowledge for classic motorcycles and cars.

Anthony mostly stayed on the sidelines of the rockstar "party hard" lifestyle, though he was often seen and photographed with a cigarette and a Jack Daniel's (whiskey logo) bass guitar.

Discography

with Van Halen
Van Halen (1978)
Van Halen II (1979)
Women and Children First (1980)
Fair Warning (1981)
Diver Down (1982)
1984 (1984)
5150 (1986)
OU812 (1988)
For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge (1991)
Balance (1995)
Van Halen III (1998)

with Chickenfoot
Chickenfoot (2009)
Chickenfoot III (2011)

with the Circle
Space Between (2019)
 Lockdown 2020 (2021)

Commercial ventures
Anthony maintains a personal website titled "Mad Anthony's Cafe" where he markets and sells a number of signature products including hot sauce, BBQ sauce, and hot mustard. His line of commercial foods is the result of a collaboration with a San Diego, California restaurant noted for its hot sauces. His hot sauce brand, "Mad Anthony," has been noted on local news segments and on the Food Network for being "high-end" due to the quality of its ingredients and manufacturing process. The site also provides information on Anthony's Schecter Guitar Research bass guitar series. Chickenfoot bandmate Sammy Hagar carries the bassist's hot sauces at his Sammy's Beach Bar & Grill locations.

References

References

External links
Official Web site
Van Halen Store
Van Halen News Desk

People from the San Gabriel Valley
Planet Us members
1954 births
American heavy metal bass guitarists
American male bass guitarists
Living people
Van Halen members
Chickenfoot members
American people of Polish descent
American rock bass guitarists
Pasadena City College alumni
20th-century American bass guitarists
21st-century American guitarists
Sammy Hagar and the Circle members
Van Halen was an American rock band, formed in Pasadena, California in 1972, by the Dutch-born American brothers and guitarist Eddie Van Halen, drummer Alex Van Halen, singer David Lee Roth and bassist Michael Anthony. The band's discography consists of 12 studio albums, two live albums, two compilation albums, and 56 singles.

The band signed a contract with Warner Bros. Records in 1977, and in the following year released the album Van Halen. Over the next few years, the band alternated album releases, one per year between 1979 and 1982, and touring to increasing commercial and critical acclaim, becoming one of the world's most successful and influential rock bands. In 1984, Van Halen released 1984, which peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 and had the band's sole No. 1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100, "Jump". After the tour promoting that album, Roth left the band due to artistic and personal tensions with Eddie.

To replace Roth, Eddie picked Sammy Hagar, formerly of Montrose and at that time a very successful solo artist. Van Halen's first album with Hagar, 1986's 5150, was the band's first No. 1 on the Billboard 200. The three studio albums that succeeded, OU812, For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge and Balance, also topped the charts. In 1996, Hagar left Van Halen amidst similar tension with the Van Halen brothers.

Roth rejoined briefly and recorded two songs with the band for the 1996 compilation Best Of – Volume I, but Van Halen eventually settled on Gary Cherone, frontman of the then defunct Boston-based band Extreme. Cherone's sole release with the band was Van Halen III, released in 1998 to mixed reviews and diminishing sales, being the only Van Halen studio album not to get a platinum RIAA certification. Van Halen's last release for Warner was the 2004 compilation Best of Both Worlds, which featured three new songs with Hagar. In 2011, the band left the label and signed with Interscope Records.

In February 2012, Van Halen released its 12th studio album and first for Interscope, A Different Kind of Truth, featuring Roth on the vocals and Eddie's son Wolfgang Van Halen on bass guitar. The album debuted at number two on the Billboard 200, and became the band's highest-charting album on the UK Albums Chart with a sixth spot.

, Van Halen has sold 75 million albums worldwide  and have gotten 13 No. 1 hits on the Billboard Mainstream Rock chart. During the 1980s, they along with the band Heart had more Billboard Hot 100 hits, 15, than any other hard rock or heavy metal band. According to the RIAA, Van Halen is the 19th best-selling music group/artist of all time with sales of over 56 million albums in the US, and is one of five rock bands that have had two albums (Van Halen and 1984) sell more than ten million copies in the US.

Albums

Studio albums

Live albums

Compilation albums

Singles

Notes
 1^ UK and NL position for 1980 re-release
 A^ released in Japan
 B^ released in some European territories
 C^ released in Europe and Japan
 D^ released in the Netherlands

Videos

References

External links
 

Discography
Discographies of American artists
Rock music group discographies
Heavy metal group discographies Wolfgang William Van Halen (, born March 16, 1991) is an American musician. The son of guitarist Eddie Van Halen, he was the bassist for the rock band Van Halen from 2006 to 2020.
He also performed with the heavy metal band Tremonti from 2012 to 2016. Following the death of his father in 2020, he began to focus on his solo project Mammoth WVH, where he performs all instruments and vocals.

Career

Early life
Van Halen had an indirect effect on his father's career from the very beginning of his life. The instrumental "316" (from the album For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge) refers to his birthday. For a 13-year period ending in 2004, Eddie Van Halen collaborated with Peavey on a line of guitars, the Wolfgang series, named after his son. In 2008, his father named a custom guitar after him, the Fender EVH Wolfgang.

Wolfgang started his musical career as a drummer. He often watched his father rehearse, and at times would try to play his uncle Alex's drum kit, whereupon the latter would give him a few lessons. Wolfgang started playing drums at the age of nine, mostly self-taught with only few lessons from his uncle, and got his first drum set from his father as a present for his tenth birthday. Some time later he moved on to guitar and bass. He can also play keyboards and "figure things out by ear".  Wolfgang later began actively participating in Van Halen, the band. He also made guest appearances during some dates of Van Halen's 2004 tour, appearing during his father's extended guitar solo spot and playing "316" with him.

Van Halen
In late 2006, in an interview with Guitar World, Eddie Van Halen confirmed that his son would replace Michael Anthony as Van Halen's bassist. Wolfgang first toured with Van Halen in his new capacity in 2007. In August 2010, Van Halen announced that they would record a new album, with Wolfgang playing bass.

In early 2008, Van Halen appeared on the cover of the April issue of Guitar World with his father, in the magazine's first father-son issue.

He recorded his only studio album with Van Halen, A Different Kind of Truth, in 2011. The album was released on February 7, 2012.

Tremonti
On September 10, 2012, Alter Bridge and Creed guitarist Mark Tremonti announced that Van Halen would be filling in for Brian Marshall as bassist for the first tour of Tremonti's eponymous band. Tremonti's first album, All I Was, was released on July 17 of that year. Van Halen became an official member of Tremonti in 2013, replacing previous bassist Brian Marshall. He appears on the band's 2015 studio album Cauterize and its 2016 follow-up Dust.

Recent work
Sevendust guitarist Clint Lowery revealed in a June 2019 tweet on Twitter that Wolfgang would play on his solo debut. "[Wolfgang] will be playing drums, maybe some bass," he says. "I'll do the rest. Just not good enough on the kit myself to pull it off in [the] studio."

Musical style
Van Halen started playing the bass as his father started asking if he wanted to play with him. Van Halen first viewed bass as "an easier version of guitar, but as soon as I started playing it I realized how wrong that was", but stated that his experience with a guitar made it easier for him to deal with the instrument. His style was described by Eddie as a "rhythm bassist, like I'm a rhythm guitarist and a bassist put together."  When he first began playing bass, his inspirations were Les Claypool of Primus and Justin Chancellor of Tool. He also enjoys Chris Wolstenholme of Muse, John Entwistle of The Who, Jack Bruce of Cream "and all of the classic players".

Wolfgang's musical style mainly consists of the hard rock, alternative rock, and heavy metal genres. However, he has also released a few pop songs under the Mammoth WVH name, namely "Think It Over" and "Distance".

Personal life
Named in homage to the classical composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, he is the only child of Dutch-Indonesian American guitarist Eddie Van Halen and American actress Valerie Bertinelli, and the nephew of Dutch-Indonesian American drummer Alex Van Halen. Bertinelli is said to have given her only child such an elaborate name rather than a usual one (aka “Bob Van Halen”).  Wolfgang has said that he did not know his father was a famous musician until he "started picking up CDs and saw his father's [Eddie's] picture on them".

Following the completion of the 2007–2008 Van Halen tour, Wolfgang returned to school. Planning to graduate by the summer of 2009, he would graduate in 2010. Van Halen appears as the bassist for Van Halen in Guitar Hero: Van Halen, even replacing Michael Anthony in the band's past incarnation. Wolfgang remained in Van Halen until 2020 when the band disbanded following his father's death.

Discography
with Van Halen
 A Different Kind of Truth (2012)
 Tokyo Dome Live in Concert (2015)

with Tremonti
 Cauterize (2015)
 Dust (2016)

with Mammoth WVH
 Mammoth WVH (2021)

as a featured musician
 The Strange Case Of... by Halestorm (2012)
 God Bless the Renegades by Clint Lowery (2020)

References

External links

Official Mammoth WVH Website
Official Mammoth WVH Twitter
Official Van Halen Website
Official Wolfgang Van Halen Twitter

1991 births
Living people
American male guitarists
American rock bass guitarists
American male bass guitarists
Musicians from Santa Monica, California
Van Halen members
Guitarists from California
Tremonti (band) members
21st-century American guitarists
21st-century American bass guitarists
American people of Dutch-Indonesian descent
American people of Javanese descent
American people of Italian descent
American people of English descent