Former Van Halen bassist, Michael Anthony, was a recent guest on THAT Rocks!, the YouTube series hosted by Eddie Trunk, Jim Florentine and Don Jamieson. During his appearance, Michael discussed his time touring with Van Halen during the David Lee Roth-era.
Says Michael: "There was always drama on the Roth tours too, but it was a different kind of drama. There were times, you know... God, I forget which tour it was. I’ll just give you a real quick little story. Not so much drama, but just you know, how it was with Dave on tour.
We were staying somewhere in the Midwest... after this we all kinda came to the conclusion that he was bipolar, because he would be great, then all of a sudden, he would just like kinda freak out or whatever. And one night, it’s like, you know, we have the night off, and everybody was [doing] whatever we were doing. It was like around midnight, one in the morning, and everyone was pretty much back at the hotel. And I hear all this commotion out in the hall, and pounding and screaming. I’m going, ‘What the hell is going on?' So, I put my shorts on, I go walk down the hall, and our security guys have got Roth in a straight jacket.
Okay, now, see that our security guys carry a straight jacket on tour... I won’t get into that part of it. But they used to carry a straight jacket on tour, and Roth was just like screaming, naked, sitting in one of our security guys’ rooms, wearing this straight jacket. Supposedly, he, you know… Dave, he’d like to drink Jack Daniel’s, but he couldn’t handle it like I can handle it, you know. Dave had a little bit of Jack Daniel’s to get a little crazy, and I guess they found him wandering around outside the hotel naked. You know, and this is just one night out of seven nights a week of being on tour.”
Watch the episode below:
(Van Halen photo - Leah Steiger)
