A biography for Michael Anthonyhasn’t been written yet.
“Chad Smith is a member of Chickenfoot, and that's that.”
“It wasn't until the fourth or fifth Van Halen record that people would go, 'Wow! You're singing backgrounds on those records. That's not David Lee Roth.' And I go, 'Hell, no! That's not David Lee Roth.'”
“So much of the time people focus on the awesome power of Led Zeppelin, the whole 'Hammer of the Gods' thing, but John Paul Jones, probably because he was a session player, he put a lot of thought into his playing. He didn't just lumber through.”
“Being a bass player in these big-time rock bands is hard work.”
“I'm the kind of guy who has your back. When you want to go off and solo for ten minutes, I keep that groove going. It's an important job.”
“I didn't have any money to buy a car, so when I got my license I did not have a car at first.”
“There's nothing like sweating it up in a small club, with your fans right in your face.”
“I hate to exercise.”
“I'm the ultimate rock 'n' roll sideman. But that doesn't mean a 'sideman' isn't vital.”
“Jack Bruce really showed me that you could go anywhere with a bass part, and as long as you stayed in time, as long as you held down the groove, the door was wide open.”
“I want to go out, play music and have a good time.”
“Lead singers, they're their own breed.”
“The band changes one guy, sometimes the whole damn thing changes - look what happened when I joined Van Halen.”
“Oh, I just love playing music.”
“I'm always the guy that says never say never.”
“My wife likes to say I act like a kid, so maybe that's why I sing like one!”
“Black with flames, that's how I always envisioned a roadster. That was the classic hot rod. I used to draw pictures of roadsters with flames on them in school.”
“You can only go with the excesses to a certain point; it wasn't always the Jack Daniels bottle. We weren't just a bunch of sloppy musicians on stage drinking; we would critique every show.”
“Everyone used to call me 'Mr. Switzerland.' I'm not the kind of guy who smack talks anybody or whatever.”
“I always had to have music in my cars.”