ANTHRAX's BELLADONNA: I Could Have Done 'The Sound Of White Noise' Album

Blasting-Zone.com recently conducted an in-depth interview with returning ANTHRAX vocalist Joey Belladonna. Several excerpts follow:

Blasting-Zone.com: Personally, I thought it was odd that they chose to re-record your material using John [Bush]. You are both completely different singers...

Joey: "Yeah, totally. You can't even compare us on any given level, unless people are going to argue about me being too high or John being too low. Again, I don’t think there is any comparison."

Blasting-Zone.com: I totally agree. When they announced they were going to release "The Greater of Two Evils", I just kept asking myself why they would even want to try...

Joey: "I'm like that too. If anything, it shows that those songs were so good that they needed to have them in front of people as opposed to whatever else it was that they were doing. They said they wanted to move on and not do the old stuff anymore. But guess what. (laughs) You really can't just erase everything that happened, ya know?"

Blasting-Zone.com: To me, when they released "The Sound of White Noise", it was as if they wanted to completely ignore what they had done with you.

Joey: "I could have done that record if they hadn't wanted me to part ways with them. I could have pretty much continued on with them. I don't think anybody really had a problem until after they switched. Then you started having these people who liked to pick and choose what they liked and didn't like. You could go on and on. Now with the reunion talks, a lot of people think it's cool and are commenting on it. Obviously, it's a big thing. Otherwise people wouldn't be talking about it. A lot of people are going to be indecisive about 'Why?' or 'How come?' I guess it's all good. It's one way to have people bring in new stuff. It's all good to me. I'm pretty stoked over everyone talking about it."

Blasting-Zone.com: I didn't want to...(laughs)...bring it up right away...

Joey: "It's okay. (laughs) It's all relevant. There are a lot of questions. I mean, where is John in all of this? How does he feel about all of this? I'd love to know how he feels. I don't get to talk with anybody to find out how he feels."

Blasting-Zone.com: Is there any truth to the rumors that you'll be playing Ozzfest? They still have one "mystery act" they have yet to announce. [Editor's note: The interview was conducted prior to today's official announcement that MUDVAYNE will be filling the "mystery band" slot]

Joey: "This whole Sharon (Osbourne) thing... How can we announce we are a part of this thing when they haven't even made an announcement? Now she's getting bashed...over what? I mean, come on...(laughs) The cool thing about this is that if it does go down, it just shows you that this (a reunited ANTHRAX) means a lot more to her. Otherwise they would have been a part of it a long time ago. You can't tell me that with each passing year they didn't want to be a part of it."

Blasting-Zone.com: No...I'm sure that even if they had done it with John in the group, the amount of exposure would have been incredible.

Joey: "There are a lot of other things to consider, too. People like to make the argument that they would just be doing it for the money, but there are a lot of other things that people consider about doing stuff. There are a lot of things people don't consider. But people gotta go to the hardcore extreme and say what they feel about it. Again, it's all still good...I love it."

Blasting-Zone.com: Well, there really is no such thing as bad publicity...

Joey: "I don’t go into the rough side of things just to stir things up. I try to address as much as I can with validity. With the whole Bush thing, him singing the old songs, that is enough in itself. I've been answering a lot of questions about that. I don't wanna get too deep into what I thought about that, but I don't think it's really that big of a deal. All I hear is a lower voice. A lot of it sounds the same to me. He's just copying something and he's not copying it like it originally was (laughs). I'm not trying to defend anything. I just don't know what else to say about it."

Blasting-Zone.com: It was as if they were covering themselves, really.

Joey: "They made some changes. I don't know... They added a double-bass here and there... maybe made a few things longer or slower...shorter or faster. To me, I don’t know…"

Read the entire interview at this location.