ANTHRAX Guitarist: We Want To Make A Proper Follow-Up To 'We've Come For You All'

October 5, 2007

ANTHRAX guitarist Scott Ian has told MTV.com that he, drummer Charlie Benante and bassist Frank Bello have spent the last eight months writing and fine-tuning a batch of new songs, which Ian said are along the lines of the band's unsung 2003 album, "We've Come for You All". At the moment, however, ANTHRAX are still without a singer, making it difficult to move forward.

SLIPKNOT and STONE SOUR singer Corey Taylor came forward earlier this year and said he'd like to sing for them. At first, ANTHRAX were skeptical, since Taylor was already overextending himself with SLIPKNOT and STONE SOUR. But Taylor was determined. "He said, 'No, dude, you have no idea what this means to me and what an honor it would be, so let me figure this out,' " explained Ian.

At the time, it looked like there would be a large enough window between the end of the STONE SOUR cycle and the beginning of SLIPKNOT's sessions for Taylor to record the album and launch at least one full tour with ANTHRAX.

"We were all stoked and sent him all the music we had, and he had already started writing to it," Ian recalled. "Then, the powers that be made an executive decision and basically just didn't let it happen. It physically couldn't happen because our window kept getting smaller and smaller. They moved the SLIPKNOT thing up and pushed the STONE SOUR thing this way, and they just made it impossible for all of us. We might have still been able to make a record, but then we wouldn't have been able to tour, and what would have been the sense of that? We just would have been shooting ourselves in the foot."

At this point, ANTHRAX have a pile of songs, and they're just waiting for the right guy to fill the frontman position so they can proceed. While they've got a short list of singers with whom they're in discussions, there's no word regarding who will fill John Bush, Joey Belladonna and Taylor's shoes.

"It's getting to be a little bit of a problem with the material we're writing," Ian admitted. "Because the singer we use will obviously have some bearing on what kind of songs we write. But we know that we want to make a proper follow-up to 'We've Come for You All', which we all loved. But we want it to be even better: heavier, faster, hookier. As songwriters, you try to improve on your craft. And fortunately, we've got the time to make that happen. We have no deadline at all because we've got no label deal, so my attitude is, 'Let's make the most metal record we've ever made in our lives,' and I would have to say that's coming to fruition."

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