Profile of Michael Anthony on Famous Like Me

For the article on the Trinidadian author of The Year in San Fernando, see Michael Anthony (author).

Michael Anthony Sobolewski (born June 20, 1954) is the bassist and founding member of the hard rock band Van Halen. Anthony was born in Chicago, Illinois and the second of five children (Nancy, Michael, Steve, Robert and Dennis). He later moved to California where he attended Arcadia High School, graduating in 1972. He developed his interest in music in childhood, playing trumpet. He became interested in playing mainly rock, blues, and jazz, taking after his father Walter.

While Anthony was a promising catcher in baseball, he also competed on the Dana Junior High School track team (long jump) and played in the marching band there from 1967-1969. He took and interest in guitar as a teenager, but picked up the bass instead since most of his other friends already played guitar or drums. His first bass was actually a Fender Mustang electric guitar given to Mike by his friend Mike Hershey. Anthony relieved the guitar of its top two strings and used it as a bass, until his father bought him a Victoria P-bass and a Gibson amp at a local flea market. He grew up and modeled his bass playing after Led Zeppelin's John Paul Jones mostly, but also admired Jack Bruce of Cream, and Harvey Brooks of Electric Flag. His main interest in life was music once he left high school. His first band was called Poverty's Children. Other bands he played in included Black Opal, Balls and Snake. Although Michael Anthony is naturally left-handed, he plays right-handed.

Snake was the last band Mike played in before joining Van Halen. It was a three-piece group featuring Michael on lead vocals and bass, Tony Codgen on guitar and Steve Hapner on drums. They played covers of ZZ Top, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and Foghat, along with some original songs. They played a lot of the same types of gigs as did the Van Halen brothers' band Mammoth. Snake even opened for Mammoth at a show at Pasadena High School one night. Mammoth's PA failed that night, so Mike lent them Snake's PA.

While attending Pasadena City College, Mike pursued a degree in music. Alex Van Halen took classes there too and they would often see each other on campus. During this time, Mark Stone was kicked out of Mammoth and the Van Halens decided to audition Mike to be their new bassist. They jammed in a garage in Pasadena and Mike was blown away, even though he'd seen the brothers play before. After the session, when they asked him to join them, he replied "Uh, yeah!"

In 1974, Eddie Van Halen, Alex Van Halen along with David Lee Roth and Michael Anthony became known as Van Halen, dropping the name Mammoth because they discovered that another local band was using that moniker. They were signed to Warner Brothers in 1977 and released their self titled debut album on February 8, 1978. The rest, as they say, is history.

In recent years, Anthony was involved in the unsigned supergroup Planet US. Although denied a slot on the Spider-Man soundtrack ("too freakin' heavy"), they did perform the unreleased song Vertigo on RockLine. The lineup, besides Mike, was Sammy Hagar, Neal Schon, Dean Castranovo, and Joe Satriani. Mike has also guest-spotted on tour with Hagar's solo band The Waboritas several times. He also has a signature Yamaha bass guitar series.

Although Michael Anthony has played a number of bass guitars, the one he is noted for is his custom-made Jack Daniel's bass, usually reserved for his effects-laden solos. In addition to his love of Jack Daniel's, he is a connoisseur of hot sauces (and his Tabasco bass).

Mike has been married to his high-school sweetheart Sue for many years, and they have two daughters: Taylor and Elisha.

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