Michael Anthony has come a long way since his days as an exuberant kid with a battered P-Bass, ratty bell-bottoms, and three-inch platforms.
He’s been inducted into the Rock ’n’ Roll Hall of Fame, sold in excess of 80 million records with Van Halen, and still has plenty to say about playing bass guitar for one of rock ‘n’ roll's most iconic bands.
Committed fans will recall Anthony’s proudest moment, a thunderous bass solo performed during Van Halen's live shows – delivered via a Jack Daniels bottle-shaped bass, following a swig from the requisite half-empty bottle of J.D.
In the November 1995 issue of Bass Player, Anthony remembered his own awe-inspiring moment – finding himself face-to-face with the self-proclaimed “greatest bass player in the world”, Jaco Pastorius.
Jaco, who was always a firebrand on stage and never predictable off it, crossed paths with Anthony while on tour with jazz fusion powerhouse Weather Report.
“It's funny – during our first Japan tour, around 1979, I met Jaco at a Tokyo hotel,” said Anthony. “I got into the elevator, and here was this guy wearing baggy shorts, a beret, and a loud Hawaiian shirt. I introduced myself, not knowing who he was, and he just said, ‘I'm Jaco Pastorius.’”
“We had a couple of drinks at the hotel bar,” continues Anthony. “And he told me about Weather Report. He also mentioned that he was familiar with our band. I don't know if he was a Van Halen fan, but he had heard our stuff. I think we were both more intent on getting drunk than anything else!”
Prior to their meeting in Tokyo, Weather Report’s 1977 epic, Heavy Weather, had sealed Jaco’s reputation as a four-string phenomenon. From the fretted bass guitar melody line line of Teen Town to the brilliance of Havona, it’s essential listening for bassists of all stripes.
Somewhere along the way, Jaco had also became the showman of the group.
“He’d take a solo every night and end it with the bass on the ground with a note sustaining,” Jaco’s close friend and contemporary, Michael Brecker, once said. “He’d do a running flip over the bass and dampen the note as he was in mid-air.”
Despite being given a similar platform to showcase his own bass-playing prowess, it’s always been one of Michael Anthony’s assertions that a great bassist should be able to speak volumes through their basslines, rather than the tendency today for bass players who feel soloing is the only way to really show the world what they can do.
“There are so many different kinds of bass players. Some of them use their instrument like a lead guitar. I enjoy listening to a few of those guys, but that’s not me at all. If you really pushed me I’d have to be honest and say that I see myself as a solid eight-out-of-10 bass player, I guess, but I’m happy with that.”
“Playing with Eddie Van Halen, he would just go off, and if you weren’t right there playing what you were supposed to it could get really confusing.
“At times it holds you back because you want to go out and showboat a bit, show the people what you can do, but the most important thing is to really be the anchor. That’s the secret, isn’t it?”
