ANTHRAX's SCOTT IAN On New Album Progress: 'We're Not Rushing Anything'

Kaaos TV conducted an interview with ANTHRAX guitarist Scott Ian on June 28 at the Tuska open-air festival in Helsinki, Finland. You can now watch the chat below. A few excerpts follow (transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET).

On ANTHRAX's forthcoming "Chile On Hell" concert DVD:

Scott: "It's a very good representation of us live. I mean, you can never actually have the experience of being at a show when you're watching it in your living room or on your computer or wherever you watch these things, but for that kind of a representation of recording something and filming something and putting it out there for people to see, I think this is definitely the best representation that we've ever done — better than what we did in '87 or '92, 'Live Noize', or whenever that came out, and even better than 'Music Of Mass Destruction'. I think this really captures the energy of our show, and that's helped by the Chilean audience. It's a real privilege to play in front of people who are that crazy for heavy metal. That's why we chose to shoot it there — because we knew going in that it was going to be a great show. I just think it's a great representation, if anyone ever had a question of what it's like to see ANTHRAX live, now all they have to do is watch this DVD."

On recent news reports that ANTHRAX has 12 songs finished for the band's next studio album:

Scott: "Nothing is finished. There's more ideas than 12 — there's probably about 16 or 17 ideas — but nothing is finished at all; everything is in some state of construction. Some are closer to being finished, some are just an idea. It's just a work in progress."

On when ANTHRAX plans to enter the studio to record the new CD:

Scott: "There's no plan. Just like [2011's] 'Worship Music', when it's ready, it's ready. We're not rushing anything. When we feel like we've got the record we need to make, either this year or next year, whatever it is, that's when we'll go in to start recording it."

On whether he expects the recording process to be easier this time around since this will be singer Joey Belladonna's second album with ANTHRAX since rejoining the band:

Scott: "Well, things weren't hard last time. Truthfully, the recording of 'Worship Music' couldn't have gone smoother with Joey. So I don't foresee any problems. We're doing it the same way we did the last record, and we're working with [producer] Jay Ruston again, producing it. So I don't know if that's a case of it being easier. It's not gonna be harder, I don't think; let's put it that way. I foresee it being very much similar, hopefully, to the process of last time, because last time it went great."

On whether he finds the songwriting process harder every time ANTHRAX makes an album:

Scott: "I wouldn't say it's harder. Every record we've made, we don't compare it to our previous catalog. I don't look at it as, 'OK, this is our eleventh record, or tenth record'; I'm not even sure which number it is. I just look at every record as being of its time, when we had the time to write those songs and record that record. That's it. We just do the best we can in the time we have. Like, now we started writing, whatever, last year, and we're still writing, and we'll probably still be writing for a few more months, and then we'll start recording it. And the record will be of that time period. And that's kind of how I look at every record we've ever made — we just did the best we could in the time period we had to write and record the album."

On what the new ANTHRAX material sounds like:

Scott: "It sounds like ANTHRAX. I don't review ANTHRAX records; I leave that up to the fans. So, for me, it just sounds like ANTHRAX. The people that actually buy our records, I think it's awesome that they are the ones that will then listen to it and say, 'Oh, it's like this,' or, 'It's like this' or, 'It's like this.' And hopefully it makes them happy. To me, it all just sounds like ANTHRAX… We don't think about it that hard. We just start writing songs, and it just kind of goes. And then at some point, you say, 'Hey, this has come together really well. Maybe we should start recording these.' That makes it sounds very easy, but it's not. It's usually about year's worth of banging your head against the wall to get it done. It's a lot of work, but at some point we'll know we're ready."