ANTHRAX Drummer On Working With JOHN BUSH: 'When You Have A Chemistry, You Should Keep It'

U.K.'s Absolute Radio conducted an interview with ANTHRAX drummer Charlie Benante when the band played the Sonisphere festival on August 1, 2009 at the legendary Knebworth Park, United Kingdom. Watch the seven-minute chat below.

Here are a couple of excerpts from the interview:

On ANTHRAX's performance at Sonisphere:

Benante: "It was everything I thought it was gonna be and then more. And I'm not just saying that in a kind of bullshit way."

"When we found out that this show was gonna go on — playing Knebworth, me personally, since I'm such a huge LED ZEPPELIN fan, to play Knebworth, the site where LED ZEPPELIN played in 1979, it just has this emotional value to it for me. So as soon as I heard that, we were like, 'Yes, we're doing it.' And then we had a problem recently where we made a singer decision [ANTHRAX lost vocalist Dan Nelson in July after working with him for more than a year and a half. — Ed.] and we parted ways, and our good friend John Bush, who was our previous singer, he came back to do the show. The joke, to get John to do this, 'cause John is a huge Boston Celtics fan, I told him 'Larry Bird is gonna come out and announce us if you do it.' So he was like, 'Get the...' I think he still believes it, though."

On how they got Bush to agree to do the Sonisphere concert:

Benante: "It was a bit of a collective effort. It was an emotional thing for us to do it — especially to ask John to come and do this for us — and he agreed.

"We rehearsed yesterday [in London], and it just felt like the next day — it didn't skip a bit — and tonight on stage, it was the same thing. It was like the next show. We just click. When you have a chemistry, you should keep it. Now we're gonna make the attempt to talk about this and possibly go on [with Bush back as the ANTHRAX singer]."

On the fate of the recently recorded ANTHRAX album "Worship Music", featuring Dan Nelson on vocals:

Benante: "Baby steps. I don't know yet. We don't know what's gonna happen. We haven't made a decision yet. It's in our hands, but there's other things involved in it, too. I would love nothing more than for this record to see the light of day, because it's a very good record, and people who have heard it feel the same way, so... I would like this record to come out."

ANTHRAX parted ways with singer Dan Nelson last month due to what has been described as "personal differences." As a result, the band canceled 10 European shows and pulled out of a U.S. tour with SLIPKNOT which was scheduled to take place in August and September.

ANTHRAX's manager, Izvor Zivkovic of Split Media, told BLABBERMOUTH.NET on July 21 that the band's new album, "Worship Music", which was previously due in Europe on October 23 via Nuclear Blast Records, will now be "pushed back to a later date." According to guitarist Scott Ian, Dan Nelson's tracks will most likely be erased from the CD, which was recently mixed at a New Orleans studio by Dave Fortman (a former member of UGLY KID JOE who has also worked with artists such as MUDVAYNE, EVANESCENCE).