Michael Anthony talked to Ultimate Guitar ahead of his upcoming tour with Sammy Hagar, Joe Satriani, and Jason Bonham. He recalled how Van Halen’s management hired Gary Cherone as their vocalist in the late ’90s and commented on the collaboration:
“And as far as musically, I personally didn’t think that Gary was a really good fit for Van Halen. I mean, I really love him in Extreme, but I just didn’t really see the fit. And we made it work.”
The guitarist noted the good sides of playing with Cherone:
“I think it was great going out on tour with him, though, because he was open to doing any of the Van Halen stuff. In fact, he suggested doing the Roth era stuff, the Hagar era stuff. And he wanted to play it all, which was really great because we ended up on that tour playing a lot of the older Van Halen stuff that we hadn’t played for years when Sammy was in the band.”
Van Halen recorded ‘Van Halen III’ with Gary Cherone in 1998. Despite its experimental sound, the album’s ‘Without You’ track became a hit by reaching No. 1 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock Charts.
The Unreleased Van Halen + Gary Cherone Album
The band entered the studio with the singer again in 1999, but the project never saw release because Cherone left the lineup, citing musical differences and personal issues.
Michael Anthony shared how much material was recorded before the Extreme frontman’s departure as follows:
“There were a few things. There were a couple of songs that actually Gary had written lyrics and he had a melody for. And there was music written, too, that hadn’t really been worked on with vocals. There’s a couple of completed things that, God, I can’t even remember right now at the moment, that actually sounded pretty good. It sounded a little bit more ‘Van Halen rock-oriented’ than it did on the ‘Van Halen III’ album.”
The guitarist wasn’t sure if Cherone’s second Van Halen record would hit the shelves, though. He explained:
“But as far as the other music goes, that’s shelved and that’s up to Wolfgang, I don’t think any of that will really see the light of day because it was something that was a work in progress and never completed. But there are a couple of Cherone songs. In fact, I think I’m gonna go dig through my stuff and see if I can find the tapes for those, because if I remember correctly, they sounded really good.”
Wolfgang Van Halen showed disinterest in putting out unreleased tracks in his previous interviews.