ANTHRAX Guitarist On New Singer: I Think Of Him As CHRIS CORNELL Singing In PANTERA

Mark Eglinton of The Quietus recently conducted an interview with ANTHRAX guitarist Scott Ian. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

The Quietus: Hearing the new tracks (four were made available) I'm blown away by what I heard. What kind of sound were you going for?

Scott Ian: It does sound great, you're right. We're really happy with how they've come out. Rob Caggiano [ANTHRAX guitarist/producer] has done a great job again. Remember, it's been six years since "We've Come For You All" and during that time Rob has got better and better at what he does. He's been working on all kinds of different projects too and because he's in the band, he knows us better than anybody.

The Quietus: Dan Nelson's [new ANTHRAX singer] voice sounds like a perfect vehicle for old and new material. Agreed?

Scott Ian: Dan has an instrument that makes him able to hit all the stuff and yeah he can do it all. I think of him as being like Chris Cornell singing in PANTERA. [laughs]

The Quietus: Did you choose him because you could mould him to fit the band then?

Scott Ian: Not really. In fact during the writing of the new material I had it on my mind that we didn't have a singer. But instead of worrying about finding one, we just wanted to write. With no singer in mind, when I was writing I had the voice of John Bush in my head, for no other reason that he had been our singer for such a long time. Then Dan contacted Rob through MySpace or something. He just said that if we needed any help singing help he'd be happy to help. All we knew was that he was some kid in Long Island. Anyway, Charlie [Benante, drums] and I decided to get him to come to Chicago for a month to basically just hang out with us. No big audition or anything: just jamming and hanging out. This was in September/October of 2007.

The Quietus: I take it he fitted in OK then?

Scott Ian: Totally, he told us his favorite all-time bands were ANTHRAX, METALLICA and PANTERA, so that was obviously great. But during the whole period of demoing songs we never actually discussed the possibility of him being in ANTHRAX. I knew though from the first second he opened his mouth that he was the guy. In fact, it has worked out that way with all our singers. With Joey [Belladonna], it was like that. John Bush we already knew about because of ARMORED SAINT but with Dan it was definitely like that. Anyway, we asked him at one point which songs of ours he knew, and he knew them all! [laughs] So one night we were going out for dinner or something and we just asked him if he wanted to be in ANTHRAX and he said yeah, and that was it.

The Quietus: Do you find it as easy writing songs as you did before?

Scott Ian: Well this is the longest we've spent writing an album since "Spreading The Disease", it's been basically two years worth of writing. This record was never ever going to come out until it was ready but there have been times along the way where I have thought that we're getting there, only to go back and re-evaluate melodies or lyrics. Charlie has always been the one to say "Let's go back and have another listen" and I have in some cases radically improved songs as a result of that. "Down Goes the Sun" is one example of a song that we did that with. Obviously it would be great to have the record out for the summer, but we'd rather have it right. We'll play one or two new ones at our live shows, but a festival isn't really the place for people to listen properly to new songs in detail. If I remember right it was the same when we played Donington in 1987; I don't think "Among The Living" was even out then.

Read the entire interview from The Quietus.