Bryan Reesman from Attention Deficit Delirium spoke with CHICKENFOOT/ex-VAN HALEN bassist Michael Anthony recently about a number of topics. A few excerpts from the chat follow:

Attention Deficit Delirium: You and SAMMY HAGAR very loyal friendship. You guys stick together. Obviously there was the Van Halen reunion in 2004 with Sammy, but when the reunion with Roth happened in 2006 you stayed with him.

Anthony: "It wasn’t that I chose to stay with him, it’s just that the brothers, mainly Eddie, were so bent that I’d buddied up with him again after he left the band that they felt that they would just like to exclude me from everything that they did. I would’ve gone back and done a reunion with those guys."

Attention Deficit Delirium: Isn’t it sad to see how ego dictates a lot of decisions that are made in this business?

Anthony: "Yeah, and this is one of the reasons why Sammy and I get along so great. Sam has made a ton of money off of tequila, and I haven’t done too bad myself. And it all molds together with Chickenfoot — at this point in my life and my career I want to have fun. I don’t want to be sitting there bitching and moaning and playing the games till I go to the grave. Unfortunately, the Van Halen brothers still want to play those games. I want to hang around people that are very positive, and I want to have fun doing what I’m doing. If making the big dollars isn’t involved with it, I don’t care anymore. I want to have fun, and that’s basically what the whole Chickenfoot thing is, for us to have fun, and not go out there and demand the big money. Our CD is doing really well and our tour did really well, so we’ll demand a little bit more money now, but we wanted to earn the fans’ respect like that. Most of these people who put together a supergroup, it’s a big ego stroke — they put the CD out, play the stadiums and make a big thing out of it. We did it because we’re all friends, and we love playing the music."

Attention Deficit Delirium: You sound like you’re pretty down-to-earth after all these years. A lot of people get caught up in the rock star trip.

Anthony: "Don’t get me wrong — [we did] in the early days. If people say they never get caught up in that kind of thing that’s been in a band like me, they’re lying because everybody does to a certain extent. Hopefully you realize it at a certain point and are able to keep it contained. I was brought up a middle-class guy, and I’m close to my whole family. We live pretty close together. After a while, you want to be a guy that can go out there and be pretty anonymous in the crowd. I consider myself a musician not a rock star. People put that tag on you at some point, I guess. There are times I’ll go out and dress up - and not play the rockstar attitude/ego thing - but I’ll go out there and be a rock star every now

and then."

Attention Deficit Delirium: I remember seeing Chuck D speak at CMJ a few years ago, and he commented upon the fact that up until the early ’80s the record industry tended to be run more by people with an artistic sensibility. Then in the ’80s the bean counters and the lawyers came in. Do you remember when that shift happened?

Anthony: "I don’t remember if it was when we were working on our 1984 album, but I remember Mo Austin, who was chairman of Warner Brothers at the time, came to the studio and we played a bunch of our rough stuff and watched the reaction. Back then record companies took an interest in nurturing a band and helping them along, rather than saying, 'Hey, if you don’t have a good single then we’re onto the next band.' He came in, and I remember him saying, 'Sounds like money to me.' We weren’t actually making a lot of money until Sammy joined the band, and we didn’t know any better because we were getting to live and do whatever the hell we wanted. I was able to buy a nice Porsche."

Attention Deficit Delirium: You didn’t make a lot of money even with the 1984 album?

Anthony: "Then we started to make a little bit of money, but we still didn’t have a really good contract until Sammy came in and brought his manager with us. He went in and said, 'What the fuck. Let’s redo your contract.' Then all of a sudden it was really poppin’. We would look around and a lot of the guys at Warner Bros. got their summer houses and nice vacations, and I guess we were paying for all that."

Attention Deficit Delirium: So I guess it’s hard to feel sorry for the major labels now?

Anthony: "I don’t feel sorry for any of them. For some of them, it’s a karma thing. It’s all coming back to them. With the way that technology has grown, it was bound to happen anyway. There won’t be any record labels at some point here in the future."

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(Photo by Ghristie Goodwin)