the only band from the east coast. Was New York a big part of what Anthrax came out with? I think New York has given us a right to the point, aggressive, ‘never say die’ attitude. Charlie and I are from the Bronx, Scott’s from Queens, Joey’s from upstate New York. We grew up in a kind of aggressive environment that lent itself to the kind of music we make. I looked into why I love distorted heavy metal, and it fulfills something in my gut, it meets that fire, that rage for me, and I still carry that on to this day, perhaps more than ever. You’ve had a variety of lead singers but Joey Belladonna returned six years ago. How does it feel to have him back on board? It’s great. Anthrax is a well oiled machine! I’m not patting ourselves on the back, but we know what we’re doing,
and all we want to do is keep playing to the most people we can in the world and help people to forget about their problems for a little while. You left to join Helmet in 2004 but returned in 2005 – how come you left and came back? Well, you know when your brothers move out of the house because you just need a break from each other? It was like that! I think we needed a breather to be honest with you. It gave me a great perspective and I thoroughly enjoyed playing with Helmet. It made me a better player – I played with a pick the whole time which made me dig in more which was a different aspect of playing bass for me. I feel it was meant to be. Anthrax have gone through many personnel changes over the years – have there been times when you were tempted to split up?
“It’s like a line from Te Godfather –this is the life we’ve chosen.”
In the 90’s when grunge was around Anthrax took a break but we never thought about breaking up because we always wanted to make music for our fans. Ten when Metallica came to us about Te Big Four all possibly playing at Sonisphere in 2010 we were like ‘fuck yeah, let’s do this!’. I have to give credit to Metallica –the biggest band in the world still to this day, they just put out a great new record. Te band collaborated with Public Enemy in 1991 in one of the earliest hip hop/rock collaborations, Bring the Noise. How did that happen? I know you’d had some elements of hip hop before that in your own music, like I’m Te Man. It really started when Chuck D saw Scott Ian, our guitar player wearing a Public Enemy shirt! So when Chuck wrote Bring Te Noise he included the line ‘Wax is for Anthrax’. We then had a chat with him and he said that Public Enemy were so heavy in a rap style, they were such a fucking heavy band with deep grooves and so it was meant to be. We did a cover of Bring Te Noise and collaborated with them. Te next stage was that we wanted to take it out on tour – the promoters didn’t think it would work and let me tell you something – that was easily one of the best tours we’ve ever done in terms of the reaction and how much fun we had. We
had so much fun backstage we forgot what time it was! It was awesome. We didn’t aim to start a new genre of rap/metal, not that I think we did that as Aerosmith did that with Run DMC, but it was just something that worked creatively and organically at that time. I was really proud of that. We’ve never been afraid to try different things or pave our own path. I know that one this tour you’re playing Among Te Living in full and some songs from For All Kings along with some favourites. Do you vary your set lists each night to keep it fresh, and how do you go about choosing what to play from all 11 albums? We talk about it, and we listen to our fans on our social media. I like talking to fans and listen to what people want to hear, and we’ll put it in the pot. Also you gotta remember, if we’re playing a full album we’ve got to build the momentum afterwards to keep the energy up, not that we really have any songs that are low energy! Te whole thing about playing a show for us is to leave everything on that stage and leave them wanting more. As a fan, I want to leave a show saying wow, I can’t wait to see them again. Among Te Living came out in 1987 so it’s now 30 years old. Does it make you realise how your skills as a musician have developed over the last 30 years by playing that album right up against For All Kings?
OUTLINEONLINE.CO.UK / FEBRUARY 2017 / 13
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