A brief chat with Anthrax

Yellow Scene: Are you looking forward to Riot Fest? It’s a hell of a bill…

Frank Bello: Man, the last thing we did was House of Blues in LA which is closing down and they asked us to play it. They’re closing it down and I guess they’re gonna build condos. What else is new, right? We’ll miss it, but they asked us to be the last metal show there. It was very cool – a great show. You know what’s great about these things like the Riot Fest? I get to see so many bands that I want to see. I get there earlier and just be. I just hang out and grab a beer. Hopefully the good weather will continue until Friday when we play. We’ve done so much touring with Motorhead and they’re good buddies of ours. It’s very much family It’s the same management, and our crew is tight with their crew. It’s very much a family vibe when we go out with them. We’re doing two weeks with Motorhead, then we do the Motorboat, and then we go to Europe with Slayer for seven weeks.

YS: Any sign of a follow-up to Worship Music?

FB: Dude, we’re in the mixing stages right now which is a really crazy, exciting stage to be in. We’ve taken our time with this, and we feel we have something really special. For people who like Worship, this isn’t just one of the band members saying this, I genuinely feel that we have something special. I think we’ve tapped a good vein and we’re in a good place of writing. We know who we are as musicians and writers, and what we want to put out. It has to be something really cool at this stage in our career. To hear from so many people, we were humbled for people to be saying that was our finest record to date. That gave us the push to really make sure the next record is at least as good as this. The proof is in the pudding.

YS: Do you like playing Colorado?

FB: At this time in our lives, we’ve been to so many places so many times, but Colorado, number one, has a lot of great freedoms going on. I’m all about it. I love Colorado in general. It’s just a great atmosphere. We have a couple of great pubs, specifically in Denver. When you tour this much, you remember the restaurants and pubs. We like the different beers, and the fans are raging. It’s a whole new generation. I now I sound overly excited about this, because I am. Thankfully, Anthrax has turned over a whole new generation along with our existing fanbase. It could be from the “Big Four” [Anthrax, Metallica, Slayer and Megadeth]. It probably was. There’s a whole new generation that is absolutely ready to go, and it feeds our energy. It’s a great time, and we’re really excited about the future for Anthrax.

YS: What can we expect from the set?

FB: You know what’s funny – we haven’t talked about the set. What we’ll do is, we’ll get in the dressing room an hour to two hours before the show, and we’ll start writing out what’s gonna work, and what doesn’t work. You’ve gotta do the classics – obviously, people want to hear specific songs. But you don’t want to do the same songs. It’s always fun to twist and try something different.

YS: When Riot Fest is over, what’s next?

FB: There’s beer after the show. The next show, the tour starts with Motorhead. It’s funny because I’m still in the studio/home mode. I’m at home, being daddy for my son, so I just came back from Universal Studios in Florida. I got home literally two days ago and I’m still in that mode, and now I’m jumping into this. It’s crazy, but it’s fun. Thankfully.