"Every note Mike ever played, I had to show him how to play," Van Halen tells Billboard. "Before we'd go on tour, he'd come over with a video camera and I'd have to show him how to play all the parts."

Eddie also downplayed Anthony's role in the Van Halen sound, saying "Mike's voice is like a piccolo trumpet. But he's not a singer. He just has a range from hell. Mike was just born with a very high voice. I have more soul as a singer than he does. And you know, people always talk about Mike's voice on Van Halen songs, but that's a blend of Mike's voice and my voice. It's not just him."

For his part, Anthony took the high road when asked by Billboard to react to Eddie's claims. He said, "I am proud to say that my bass playing and vocals helped create our sound. I've always chosen to take the high road and stay out of the never-ending mudslinging, because I believe that it ultimately ends up hurting the Van Halen fans."

Hagar, however, was not so kind in issuing a statement of his own defending Anthony, who he has continued to work with in Chickenfoot and The Circle. "It's really irritating to see them go after Mikey," responds Hagar. "Mikey didn't do anything - ever - to Van Halen. Mikey was the most loyal guy in the band. He was the first guy there at rehearsal, the last guy to leave, the guy that was� the first guy at the gig, the guy that flew the� carried the banner, the flag, the VH banner� he carried it every night. And the horseman with the flag, the flagman on the horse in the calvary. That was Michael Anthony, okay?! [He was] a hundred percent dedicated. [He] never did anything to hurt those guys. And they try to hurt him again, and again, and again.

"For Eddie to say he had to show Michael what to play and had to teach him all those songs, that is the biggest line of bullsh*t I've ever heard in my life," Hagar continued. "I was in that band for eleven years, and there was never a video camera involved of Eddie showing him what to play. Eddie would tell him what to play once in a while, and say, 'No, Mike, don't play with that many notes. Just stay on one note - boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom - so that I can f*** up and nobody will know it.' It was that kind of sh*t.

"And I am telling you straight up, especially on the '04 reunion tour, if Mike would have played any more than one note, it would have been showing that Eddie wasn't playing the right chords again and again and again; I couldn't sing to 'em, you couldn't play bass to 'em. So� that is a lot of bullsh*t.

"I don't know why they go after him like that," he added. "He doesn't deserve it. He's one of the greatest rock and roll bass players ever in the world. Michael Anthony is Top 5 rock and roll bass player in the world. Any bass player will tell you that, any musician will tell you that. Listen to him play on The Circle. He ain't going 'boom boom boom boom boom boom boom boom' unless it was called for.