[Press Release]

MetalSucks writer Anso DF recently interviewed ANTHRAX singer Joey Belladonna about his return to the band. Belladonna spoke about what it's been like to replace ex-singer John Bush and the band's plans for "Worship Music," the shelved album they recorded with ex-singer Dan Nelson. An excerpt follows:

It’s been reported that some material from theWorship Music album will feature new vocals from you, and other songs will be totally new. Is that accurate?

Yeah, there’s going to be some new songs for sure. I’m banking on all that happening. And some tweaking, re-doing, and re-structuring – anything that needs to be done. There are some songs that really are quite well done. I’ll do one [in concert on this tour]. I did my part on it. It had the outer boundaries intact, so it was just a matter of getting in there, refreshing it, and putting the stamp on it. But there are a bunch of songs like that – four, five, six – that’s alright too.


One point that gets lost in the discussion is that the changes in Anthrax aren’t limited to singers; there’s also a move back to pre-Bush Anthrax sound.

Right now, I haven’t heard a whole lot of the songs. I’ve had some stuff in the past that I’ve checked out. I wasn’t certain about what style was coming down, but yeah the approach is little older school, but definitely with some of the newer twists. You know, all of the above. I don’t know if one’s more than the other. I haven’t heard enough of it yet. We haven’t gone into too much pre-production for me to verify that.


So you haven’t heard all of what they’d finished?

No.


That’s kinda interesting. I’m surprised by that. It seems like it will be a tough record to release because it’s going to be so totally scrutinized.

Oh yeah. It’s gonna be one of those things. About your question earlier, about reservations about things – that’s the third thing. Maybe not in that order. It sucks that you’re in this line of fire where it’s like ‘He did this, he was that’ … who cares. He did that, now I’m back. I do what I do, and he did what he did. He’s different, I’m different, and that’s it. It stinks when you gotta be held to a certain standard. John might’ve had the same [experience]. I don’t know. It’s something that I really didn’t have to do early on. You are who you are. If you like the band, you like the way we do things, then cool. But now you got ‘Well, I liked it when he…’ and all that [groans]. I have to disregard a lot of it, because you know what? I can only do what I do and hopefully they dig it.


See, I’m positive John Bush went through that too, because I was among those who put him through it. It was upsetting that overnight Anthrax lost so much color. And I stood there, looking at John and thinking ‘This really isn’t the same thing.’

It wasn’t. There was no way around it. And then I come back in, and I don’t want to be that guy who has to take that spot of what you’re doing. I want to do what I did before where you let me do my thing and you dig what I do. I have a different route that I can take, a style. A different approach. The word ‘heavy’ sometimes is a little weird. What’s heavy, you know? Look how I sing – it’s melody, it’s quality, it’s range. It’s tone. There are certain things that go with vocals versus just yelling hard and screaming.

Click here to read the full interview

Last year, Anthrax had a butt load of drama circulating around their front man position, after Dan Nelson and the band went their separate ways, former vocalist John Bush stepped in to help the band finish up their dates for the remaining part of 2009 and stuck around till March of this year.

Now, the band have announced that former front man Joey Belladona (1985 - 1992) has rejoined the fold, as a permanent member (but, for how long?), and that the band will be re-recording, as well as writing new material with Joey, and expect to have it out by early 2011.

Metalsucks have a great post up, where they jokingly predict Joey Belladona's contemplation of re-rejoining the band, in which "he" makes some valid points. An excerpt follows:

"Okay, Joey. Now, let’s be rational. Let’s think this all the way through. Let’s not make any brash decisions this time.

I mean, these dudes have not been cool to me. Remember when they fired me in 1992 for no apparent reason? And they hired me back to do that reunion tour. And then they, uh, y’know. Fired me again. And this time, I found out about it over the internet. They weren’t even good enough to give me a phone call! And then Scott and Charlie talked an awful lot of shit about me in the press, and said that I should “Grow up and be a man. Take responsibility for your life.” And I had, like, no idea what they were talking about. Just a couple of months ago, Scott made fun of me on television! I kinda think it might be because the reunion was less financially successful than we’d hoped. But I don’t really know, ’cause I never actually spoke to them about it." click here to read the entire post

Read the official press release, after the jump!

LOS ANGELES, CA - MONDAY, May 10, 2010 --
With rumors swirling since Anthrax drummer Charlie Benante and bassist Frank Bello were seen together with former Anthrax vocalist Joey Belladonna late last month in New York, the band - Benante, Bello, and guitarists Scott Ian and Rob Caggiano - is elated to announce that Belladonna has officially rejoined the band. In his once and current capacity, Belladonna will make his first appearance with Anthrax this summer when the band joins Metallica, Slayer, and Megadeth - The Big Four founding bands of the thrash genre - to co-headline a series of Sonisphere Festivals in ten European cities, as well as playing a handful of Anthrax-headlined shows (itinerary is below).


"I am super excited about this," said Scott Ian. "Joey and the rest of the band came to see me play at a club in New York, I hadn't seen Joey for years, since the end of the reunion tour. Joey taps me on the shoulder, instant big hug, it felt like no time had gone by. The band dynamic is an interesting one - in Anthrax, Joey and I spent so many years of our lives together, we grew up together, we know each other so well, so it was like no time was lost."


Belladonna, an essential part of Anthrax's lineup from 1985 to 1992, sang on some of the band's most popular albums including Spreading the Disease, Among the Living and Persistence of Time. He had reunited with original members of Anthrax for the 2005 - 2007 "Among the Living Tour," but this situation is different. Explained Belladonna, "I had been in touch with Charlie and Frank, then I got a call from their manager who said that everyone wanted me back in the band. I thought, 'are you guys for real? You want me up there, fronting the band like it was before?' I was thrilled. We've already started to reconnect with the old ways of having conversations. Everything is easy going and feels really good."

"We're going to do these summer shows and gel as a band," explained Charlie Benante, "get comfortable playing with each other again, and the energy from that should go right into making new music."

Immediately following the final Sonisphere festival in early August, the band will fly back to the U.S. and begin writing and rehearsing for a new album that's expected to be out in early 2011.

"We've got an unusual luxury of hindsight," added Ian. "We finished an album a year ago, we've lived with those 12 songs since then, and we can look back on them and see what we really love and what we can make even better, especially with Joey back in the fold."

Added Benante, "There are five or six songs from a year ago that we don't want to change, we love them the way they are, other than having Joey making them his own with his vocals. Then there's another five or six that we may want to rework, and then there are a bunch of other tunes that are still in the early stages, that we want to finish.


"The band has been on an emotional roller coaster since last summer," Benante continued, "but I think everything that we've had to deal with during that time was pushing us toward this, to Joey being back in Anthrax, and the timing couldn't be more perfect or appropriate. To have Joey with us playing these shows with Metallica, Slayer and Megadeth is the way it should be - as Anthrax's vocalist from '85 to '92, he was part of 'The Big Four.'"


"John was a real stand up guy about the situation," said Ian, about John Bush, Anthrax's vocalist from '92 - '05. "He knew we wanted to move forward at full speed, that we needed a total commitment to Anthrax, and he knew that wasn't what he wanted. We certainly wish John well. We've had so many great times with him, and we appreciate his stepping in last summer at the last minute, and performing with us since then. He will always be an integral part of the Anthrax family."