ANTHRAX

ANTHRAX
by Jason Walsh
Photos by Charlie Hatfield

Over their three decades of bringing the noise, ANTHRAX has gone through an astounding number of lineup changes, especially in the vocalist slot. The announcement came this past summer that Joey Belladonna, frontman from the classic “Among the Living” era, was returning for the Sonisphere Festival Tour in Europe. Dubbed the “BIG 4,” ANTHRAX shared the stage with MEGADTEH, SLAYER, and METALLICA, the first time all four thrash metal bands would tour together. The experience was broadcast live by a high-definition, multi-camera shoot on one of the stops in Sofia, Bulgaria, which allowed fans around the world to see the show. One of the highlights of the night was a performance of Diamond Head’s “Am I Evil?” which saw members of all the bands on stage at once, most significantly the first-time reunion of MEGADETH’s Dave Mustaine with his former bandmates in METALLICA and replacement, lead guitarist Kirk Hammett.

The Sonisphere shows began a buzz throughout the metal community worldwide, with video clips from Sofia running rampant virally, and instilled some hope for the future of thrash. Following the European dates, ANTHRAX returned to the States and once again toured alongside SLAYER and MEGADETH for the Jägermeister Music Tour this past fall. On the road, the guys worked on some new songs with Belladonna and following the onslaught across the nation, ANTHRAX released that the band would be dropping an album of new material in 2011 featuring Belladonna on vocals, the first time since 1991’s “Persistence of Time.”

The question now is will the record happen. Belladonna was fired from the band in 1992, as many others before him and since. ANTHRAX reunited in 2005 with the “classic” lineup as well, with hopes of releasing a record of new material with Belladonna, but that never came to be. Founded in 1981 by guitarist Scott Ian and fellow Stormtrooper of Death, Danny Liker, who was also fired from the band and later went on to form NUCLEAR ASSAULT, ANTHRAX really hit the mark in the era of Belladonna. “Among the Living” was their crucial release, marking the beginning of the wave of crossover, which saw the fusion of metal and hardcore in the latter part of the 80s. They were also pioneers in bridging the gap between heavy music and hip-hop with their PUBLIC ENEMY collaboration, “Bring the Noise.”

Since Belladonna’s departure in ‘92, ANTHRAX continued onward in the age of grunge with former ARMORED SAINT frontman John Bush for over a decade, and later DEVILSIZE vocalist Dan Nelson. Bush would return to the band briefly and ironically, on the 2009 Sonisphere Festival Tour, but that would be short lived and brings us to now.

I had a chance to catch up with Belladonna on the phone as the Jägermeister Music Tour began. We talked about the reunion, the excitement of Sonisphere, their current tour, the future of ANTHRAX, and of course, important points of interest such as hurricanes.

JW: So Joey, how are you doing?

JOEY BELLADONNA: Ah great. Where are you guys?

JW: I’m in Norfolk, Virginia.

JOEY BELLADONNA: Ah, ok. How’s everything? How’s the weather down there?

JW: Not too bad. We’ve got a hurricane spinning off the coast right now but hopefully it won’t hit us too bad.

JOEY BELLADONNA: Still that same one or is there another one coming?

JW: Another one. Yeah, they just keep coming. They don’t seem to stop this time of year. This one is Igor and he’s out pretty deep so hopefully he won’t bring anybody behind him. So where you at right now?

JOEY BELLADONNA: I’m upstate New York right now.

JW: Oh, ok. So man, how are you doing right now? Are you pretty excited?

JOEY BELLADONNA: Yes, it’s a good time for metal, you know.

JW: You’re getting ready to start that U.S. tour. Tell me a little about that and how your looking forward to doing this with MEGADETH and SLAYER.

JOEY BELLADONNA: Yeah, you know, that’s a great lineup. We’ve been all familiar with each other quite a long time. There’s a lot of history involved with us, so we’re just happy to be together and play, and everybody got along on the BIG 4 when we did the METALLICA thing, so you know we never really had a problem. We’re easy. It’s all about the music for us, you know.

JW: So let’s talk about SONISPHERE. That festival tour was incredible and a lot of us back in the States got to see some of the video. I mean how was that? You guys go over there and play for some gigantic audiences.

JOEY BELLADONNA: Yeah, it’s something when you get a crowd like that. Most of the crowds are pretty big anyhow, you know you’re talking on average about 30-35,000, maybe as high as over a hundred. On average, you’re getting 30-50,000. It’s just a sea of people but most people are just so excited for the whole package and to see all the lineups the way they were presented and everything.

JW: Now a lot of us back here also saw when you guys took the stage and did “Am I Evil” with METALLICA, MEGADETH, and Dave Lombardo from SLAYER. Tell me what that was like?

JOEY BELLADONNA: Wow, you know I never thought I’d be asked to go up and sing in that setting with them, you know maybe on some other place, but even to do a song that I’ve never done before was kind of challenging. It was fun. I remember getting the email late at night, we’re riding in the bus, saying we’re going to do a song together, so learn a section, and there we went, you know. It was really very cool, you know. I’m glad to be a part of it. I hope we can do it again maybe.

JW: Was it kind of amazing to be on stage and looking at all these guys from all these other bands that you’ve known all these years, and you’re like, “Wow, we’re all up here together doing this song? How cool is this?”

JOEY BELLADONNA: Yeah, it was a great idea, you know, bringing all the extra amps up for everybody to play, and just taking every step to do it correct, and METALLICA ran a great set up. Everything was just spectacular.

JW: So now 2010, you’re back in ANTHRAX. What made you decide this was something you wanted to do at this point?

JOEY BELLADONNA: You know what, as far as I was concerned, I mean we could have just stayed, continued. I know it’s “old hat” talk. For me, I never really wanted to make a change. It was something they were looking for vocally, I guess, that wasn’t there which still to this day is kind of puzzling for me, but I know people have their own different styles that they’re looking and what direction they were looking into. But I got a call from management to rejoin, and it’s a business, and we try to put this thing together and make it right and it sounded like for them, for me to join was the right thing to do on their part to ask me. If they were welcoming me in to the band at a right way, I’m all for it. I’m there. I’ve been doing the songs for a while. I played just last night, you know, doing my own group and just working on new music here, and we do ANTHRAX stuff, working on a new record, just keeping busy musically so it’s not like I…hell, I even play in a cover band on the weekends. I’m working all the time, singing, performing, so it’s just…ANTHRAX is a great band and there’s no reason for it to not be together because we really…when we do it, we do it really, quite good, you know. It’s a great chemistry. You can’t really recreate that.

JW: And that was kind of my next question. Now, after doing all these shows over in Europe, how does that chemistry feel? Does it take you back to the old days?

JOEY BELLADONNA: Yeah, I guess it’s like the old days, and if anything, it’s even more fresh because we’re all matured, everybody’s musicianship and talent, all the achievements and the growth of being a musician has gotten way better.

JW: That’s awesome. Now I read here in this release that following the U.S. Tour you guys are planning on recording a new record of new material for 2011. Tell me a little about that.

JOEY BELLADONNA: Well, I got one song together right now at this point. I’ve heard quite a few songs. I haven’t really got to all of them yet. It sounds really good and hopefully, you know we’ve been so busy but, I mean there’s music that’s already been laid out that I could probably start hitting vocally and then we have to revisit everything again that they’ve worked down and recorded. Just do some vocals, maybe rewrite some stuff, restructure some stuff, remix stuff. You know, all the above, and hopefully we can get to it. Hopefully, we do some stuff on the road too, you know, just to get an idea, you know, with some down time and we have some extra equipment with us to roll through those sections and maybe get an idea better on the songs. It would be pretty exciting to be able to do something like that without being distracted in any way, being busy on the tour.

JW: Now Joey, my last question, do you think this is something you think you’re going to be doing for a while? Do you see some longevity with this, staying with the band for a while?

JOEY BELLADONNA: I sure hope so. I mean I don’t like jumping around anyway. Even my own band, I don’t like, you know, “God, I don’t want this one dude. You gotta get somebody else.” Every time you do something different, everything just changes. I mean like should stay the same, for everybody that’s up for it, and there’s no glitches, there’s no, you know, misunderstanding as far as we make the band function right, business-wise. Got a great management now and I hope everybody is willing to take it there and I think they are, you know, I really do. Without any complications, we should and hopefully we will.