Michael Anthony’s Advice To Up And Coming Musicians

II’ve always been curious about the “supergroup” definition. Where are the boundaries between “shittygroup,” “okgroup,” “normalgroup,” and a “supergroup”? While it’s rather a rhetorical question (not always), I know for sure that this is THE supergroup – Chickenfoot. If you haven’t heard of them yet, the band is comprised of former Van Halen vocalist Sammy Hagar, Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith, former Van Halen bassist Michael Anthony and guitar virtuoso Joe Satriani. Yes, this is huge.

Michael Anthony. Photo by Ross Halfin

With a “Deluxe Edition” of Chickenfoot’s debut album being released this week, Michael Anthony talked to UG interviewer Joe Matera about the LP, Van Halen and a number of things that the band’s fans will love to learn about. The full interview will be published on Ultimate-Guitar.com on Wednesday, but today I really wanted to post one particular excerpt from the article over here.

This is Mike‘s advice to up and coming musicians:

To go with what you feel in your heart to do. Like we [Van Halen] had management and record companies try and sway us one way or the other, but Van Halen, we always stuck to our guns and recorded the kind of music that we wanted to play.

We never sold out to doing what was happening in the industry at the time or what everybody else was buying. Sometimes you may suffer or starve a little bit, but it is always more satisfying to play what you feel in your heart and what you love to play rather than trying to second guess and please anybody.

Lovin’ it.

Read the full interview tomorrow on UG (Update) Here is the full interview, and check out the band’s official website if you want to learn more about them.