In a recent discussion with Greg Prato from Ultimate Guitar, former Van Halen bassist Michael Anthony shared insights into the treasure trove of unreleased material from the David Lee Roth era of the band. Anthony noted, “There were quite a few songs that I was a part of and worked on and written, even a couple of things before the first Van Halen record and the early part of Van Halen that they actually restructured and used on the “A Different Kind Of Truth” album that they put out. Songs like ‘She’s The Woman’; that’s the only thing that comes to mind.”
Reflecting on the band’s early days, Anthony recalled, “There were songs that were basically written way back in the early days when Dave, Eddie, Alex, and myself were together that they ended up using on that. But, God, I can’t recall. There’s probably miles of stuff. I mean, you’ve probably seen pictures of all the boxes of the tapes and everything in Eddie‘s studio. Which is miles of stuff.”
The extensive recording sessions the band undertook resulted in an abundance of material, as Anthony explained, “Every time that we went into the studio, whether it was Donn Landee or whoever was engineering for us, we had him press record. We recorded everything, every idea that we had. And there’s stuff in there that…”
Expressing hope for future discoveries, Anthony mentioned, “I hope Wolfgang goes through some of it because I’m sure there’s a lot of stuff that Eddie did on his own, too, that might be kind of interesting to listen to also. But there’s tons of stuff that we’ll probably never see. Or hear.”
Anthony also shared his thoughts on the “A Different Kind Of Truth” album, which has recently returned to streaming platforms after a nearly two-year hiatus. He remarked: “I listened to a little bit of it. It was different. Dave was singing differently. And adding Wolfgang into the mix. It was different than what we were obviously doing when I was in the band. There’s a lot of good stuff on there. But yeah, I thought it was a good album.”
