A CASE OF ANTHRAY.

Rip It Up, Issue 144, 1 July 1989, Page 22

A CASE OF ANTHRAY.

A cold night to be calling a Cardiffholiday in but the message was to phone Bruce Wayne. The mystery had to be solved.

No, not Batman, notthe 9 o'clok news reader, not even Bruce Wayne really. No, it was the Not Man himself — Anthrax leading person Scott lan. He explainsin a croaky voice that the band are having their first night off in 11 days and that everyone is fine

apartfrom his having a bit of a cold. Are you allstillin a state of euphoria? “In a state of tired euphoria,” Scott laughs. “We've been touring since last August on this album. We've got abouttwo weeks left and everyone's looking foward o starting on a new record. It's mentally firing, but physically | feel fine — I'm probably putting more out on stage now than | was six months ago. If's great, | don't have to exercise or worry about getting fat. We're atthe point now

where things are really crazy on tour and once we gethome we'll probably take a month off and clear our heads.”

The Anthrax lineup has remained stablefor five years now. Scott, Charlie Benante and Frankie Bello all grewupin New York while Joey Belladonna and Danny Spitz lived just out of the city. “We're all pretty much normal people! We all met because we'd all seen each other going to concerts backinthe late 70s, early 80s and we were allinto the same kind of music.” Are some of you guys into skating2 “Yeah, me and Charlie, but we can'treally take it seriously anymore ‘causeit'stoo dangerous. When | was akid itwas easier for me to go out

and do it butwhen I was 15 I broke my arm, riding in California, so | put my skateboard away for about six years after that. | took it out again but | don'tdo anything crazy — I don't wantto risk getting myself hurt and having to cancel the tour or

anything.” Was it your main ambition to form aband and have fun?

“That's really all we still care about — to write songs, put the record out and go outontour.” Nearly all Anthrax lyrics are written by Scott, while Charlie comes up with most of the music. Is it fairto say thatyour songs cover social issues and fantasy? “l always consider it just to be writing lyrics about things in my life, things around me, things that affect me; the stuff that | know about. When you say fantasy, you know ‘| Am The Law’ is about a comic book, well comic books have been a part of my life since | was five — it's just something that really interests me.” Like Stephen King's stuff2 “People make a big deal out of that butit's like three songs based

loosely onideas from his books so it's notlike we based our careers on his books or anything like that! Sometimes I'll read something and come up with atitle fora song. Like in ‘Misery Loves Company’, I'm writing about manipulation— I'm not necessarily telling the story. | put myselfin the situation that was in the book.” Like ‘Skeleton In The Closet’ being about hidden things? “Right, exactly. It doesn't have to be just about the story he wrote, it's justabout keeping things hidden in anyone’s past.” What about ‘Now It's Dark’? “We'd seen the movie Blue Velvet and we said, we have to write a song about Dennis Hopper because he's a very inspiring character in the movie. The lyrics are about the evil in everybody.” Do you think Anthrax will ever do another rap frack like ‘l'm The Man'? “I couldn't say. If someone comes up with areally goodideathenit's a possibility. ‘l'm The Man' pretty much came out of nowhere, it was a fluke in asense. We never thought it would be really big — its success shocked us. Though they have dabbledin other styles of music, Scottfeels that heavy metal is what Anthrax are really all about. ‘ “That's what we started asin 1981 and that's pretty much what we consider ourselves as now. All the otherterms, like thrash and speed metal, are terms which the media come up with.” Are the last two albums the albums * you're most pleased with2 “Production-wise, yeah. llike all our albums. | don'tlike the production of Fistful Of Metal and Spreading The Disease so much but| like allthe songs.” : The band recently released a live video and decided to turn the fitle around o read as Oidivnikufesin. “We gotthe idea from the song on Among The Living called ‘Nice Fuckin’ Life’. We didn't want to just callit Among The Living Live or

anything like that. Besides, we geta kick out of seeing itin the stores; people don'teven know what it means, they think it's some German word or something.” Do you feel the punk era had much relevance to the new metal sound? “| dunno. We're big Sex Pistols and Ramones fans and there are a lot of hardcore NY bands that I'm really into. The Ramones may have had an influence on usimage-wise but mainly it was the attitude.” What else are you listening to? “All sorts of things. The new Kings X album [currently supporting Anthrax], Living Colour, Fishbone, Slayerand - allthe old stuff that | always listen to, especially alot of Sabbath and

AC/DC—itbringsyoubackto reality. And all sorts of rap stuff. I'm really into this album NWA, these guys from California, plus the new Public Enemy 12-inch. There's a new movie coming out by Spike Lee

called Do The Right Thing and Public Enemy have a song called ‘Fight The Power'.”

You're obviously right into Batman — seenthe movie?

“No, it openedin New York June 23, butl didn't get back il July 8, so I'll seeitwhen | gethome. | read the script four months ago so | know what it'sabout and I'm really looking fowardtoit.”

And are Anthrax going to make it to Australasio? “Yeah. We feel band that we didn’tgetto goin 1988. We were supposed to come to Australia, | believe they had the fickets on sale already and that's when we ended up going on the Kiss tour in the states —we postponed it. The point s now, after the release of the next album, we're actually going to start the tour downin Australia and New Zealand. We spoke to Metallica and we hear that they really enjoyed it down . there so if's made us wantto go even more. They said they had really bad weather down there so hopefully it will be fine when we play. We'll be there, ha ha! Watch outforus!”

GEOFFDUNN