10 Musicians That Got Fired From Huge Bands

It's impossible to be in a band like Van Halen and actually keep a low profile. This was the band that single-handedly shifted the rock scene to the Sunset Strip with a guitarist that could blow your mind the minute you heard him, so it's not like the cameras were exactly shy during the recording of records like 1984. Throughout every iteration of the band though, Michael Anthony was always the secret weapon of the group... until the early '00s.

Coming off of the abysmal reception to Van Halen III, the band initially went out on a tour with both David Lee Roth and Sammy Hagar, which got sidetracked after Eddie started to not take care of himself on the road. After one too many spats with Hagar though, the band announced a tour with the classic David Lee Roth era of the band, with Alex, Eddie, and.... Eddie's son Wolfgang filling out the bass parts. It might make sense to get yet another Van Halen into the band, but Michael Anthony's trademark harmonies were suddenly gone, being a staple of the band's sound through both the Dave and Sammy years.

From the looks of it though, Michael seemed to be cut out of the group because of his friendship with Sammy, with the band not even telling him they were moving on with Wolfie, and Dave even saying that this new version of the group that was going out on tour was a completely new band from what they had done back in the '80s. Even for a man that's as over the top as Dave, that's a below the belt move.