The Hook Rocks podcast welcomes Michael Anthony for a great conversation about Save The Heartbeat Foundation, 40 years of  Van Halen's 1984 album, the US Festival, and the upcoming tour with Sammy Hagar. A few excerpts follow...

On if he was nervous with the direction of 1984:

"Eddie was trained on classical piano when he was young. So, yeah, you know, when you, when I look back on it, it was only a matter of time before some of that was going to be kind of thrown into the equation. Because he always. When we'd go, Eddie, Alex and I would be jamming at rehearsal or whatever, you know, for the album or whatever. You know, he'd always be playing piano and he had a piano in the studio and, you know, he'd ding around on it or whatever. And so when he, it was funny though, 'cause when he came to us with 'Jump', right away Dave's like, 'oh my God, you're a guitar hero. You're not a keyboard player.' You know, but it was interesting because.... Actually, one of the first keyboard things was, uh, 'And The Cradle Will Rock'. Cause Eddie played that on a little Wurlitzer electric piano, but he was blazing it through like stacks of Marshalls. And there were people that didn't even know that that was a keyboard that he was playing.

"But, you know, it's kind of like when we were in the clubs playing all the other people's music, you know, we Van Halenized it. We used to always say, you know, and then we made it sound like Van Halen. And so I knew if, if keyboards was going to get thrown in, you know, it'd be like, it would be Van Halen playing it and it wasn't going to be like all of a sudden here we are playing this, you know, big piano concerto type of deal, you know, and we always used it in a way that, you know, it was just another added layer of added flavor to the band, you know."

Was there any nervousness from you or the band of that direction. Cause it was going to be different than what people knew to be.

"Yeah. Well, I mean, before 'Jump' we were, you know, we also had 'I'll Wait' and we had a couple other, you know, other keyboard songs. And, uh, I don't know, you know, it was like, we were all a little bit apprehensive when we played 'Jump' in the studio.

"Eddie, Alex and I would jam and Ed would just play keyboards, you know, the whole thing. And  it'd be like really heavy sounding, you know, and so, you know, we didn't know exactly what it's going to sound like when a finished product, but, it all kind of blew our minds because it was still Van Halen, you know, and he was still soloing, doing the thing. It was just, we got a little bit of keyboards in there."

On if he knew 1984 was going to be the last album with David Lee Roth:

"Well, you know, without getting into any of the dirt, which I'm probably trying to avoid here, uh, there had been some, some tensions building, uh, within the band. And, you know, there's no secret that it was, you know, a lot of it was between Eddie and Dave.

"But you know, we didn't didn't know. I mean, 1984 I think was a great album. Some of the songs on there, you know, 'Drop Dead Legs'... 'Girl Gone Bad' is one of my favorite songs to play live. Back then, you know, we were a well oiled machine and let's keep it going and unfortunately, you know, there are other factors that came into play - personality factors, it's like anything else, like a marriage, you know I'm sure you've heard it probably a million times, like a marriage or anything else that you know something happens and all of a sudden the fairytale's over. We thought it was, you know... I was like, 'Oh my God, this is it.' And then along came Sammy."

"Within the band, it had been kind of like starting to simmer for quite some time. You know, it's just all of a sudden that's when things kind of came to a head, you know, what it turned out to be, you know, was Dave felt the band should go kind of in this direction and us three felt it should keep going in this direction, and all of a sudden the singer's gone."

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Van Halen's The Collection (1978-1984) is a vinyl boxed set that showcases the band's early years and first incarnation, featuring singer David Lee Roth, guitarist Eddie Van Halen, drummer Alex Van Halen, and bassist Michael Anthony.

The set includes remastered versions of their first six studio albums: Van Halen, Van Halen II, Women And Children First, Diver Down, Fair Warning and 1984 (MCMLXXXIV), mastered directly from the original master tapes by Chris Bellman in 2015. (The box set is vinyl only - there will not be a CD box set of these albums).

The Exclusive Limited Edition version of this set is now available at VanHalenStore.com. Each LP comes with its own Collectible Laminated Backstage Pass Replica.

Women And Children First comes with a large, fold-out poster of David Lee Roth, just like the poster included with the first pressing, back in 1980. The other five LPs come with reissues of the original album's inner sleeves.

Like most boxed sets these days, this was a one-time run, so it's already out of production and in limited supply. Here's your chance to grab it, before it's gone forever.

- Exclusive Limited Edition Version
- 6 LPs
- Remastered on 180G Vinyl
- Backstage Pass for each Album/Tour
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- Out of Production & Limited Supply

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Shipping/Packaging: We ship all vinyl inside boxes specifically made to protect LPs. Even if your package is dropped or thrown in route, your LPs should arrive in perfect, mint condition.