ANTHRAX's SCOTT IAN: 'To Make Everyone Happy With Our Setlist, It's Just Never Going To Happen'

In a new interview with Steve Harkins of TalkShopLive, ANTHRAX guitarist Scott Ian spoke about the band's long-awaited twelfth full-length studio album, "Cursum Perficio", which will arrive on September 18 via Megaforce in the U.S. and Nuclear Blast in Europe. "Cursum Perficio" marks ANTHRAX's first record in ten years since 2016's "For All Kings", which debuted in the Top 10 of the Billboard 200. The phrase "Cursum Perficio" is Latin for "My journey has come to an end," "My journey is over," or "I complete my journey."

Regarding why it took so long to complete the writing and recording process for "Cursum Perficio", Ian clarified (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "It didn't really take a long time. We started working on this album for real in the beginning of '22, and I had the finished copy in my hands in November of '25. So whatever that math is — three, almost four years from when we actually really started writing it to recording it and mixing it. So when people say 10 years, I get it — on paper, from 2016 to 2026, it's 10 years, but you gotta remember, we toured 'For All Kings' until the end of 2019. And then we had COVID, which we weren't in any kind of head space to really be working. We would send demos to each other, but it wasn't till we got in a room together again as a band in early '22 that we started arranging the new music. And we were so happy to just get to do it again, and I really think that's what you hear on this album. That's that energy of us getting to be a band again after those two years of COVID. We were just thrilled to be there."

As for ANTHRAX's mindset while working on the material for "Cursum Perficio", Ian said: "It's gotta be something that we love first. When we're working on an arrangement and we've got what we think is a really tight arrangement of a song — this is before there's lyrics on it or anything; it's just the music — and we'll be having so much fun just playing it musically and banging our heads and usually smiling a lot, because once we feel that way, it's pretty easy for us to know how much fun it's going to be to play it live."

Asked how many of the songs from "Cursum Perficio" will be performed live during ANTHRAX's upcoming tour, Scott said: "It's not easy [putting together the setlist]. This is our twelfth record. That's a lot of material to choose from. [Laughs] And the thing is, too, we're such a physical band live. Our live set is extremely physical. And I've always said, a 90-minute ANTHRAX show is minimum two-and-a-half-to-three-hour any other band show. Because the physicality of our show is really intense. So on a headline set, to make everyone happy with our setlist, it's just never going to happen. You just gotta hope that people enjoy what you're doing. It's not something we really stress about too much. Look, we know there's certain songs, our so-called — and I'm putting big quotes here — the so-called 'hits'… Not that 'Caught In A Mosh' was ever an actual hit, but it's certainly an ANTHRAX live show hit, and I wouldn't wanna play an ANTHRAX show without playing that song. So trying to find that balance, certainly we're gonna wanna play a lot of new songs off this record. We're already playing three. We played St. Vitus in Brooklyn the other night. We reopened the St. Vitus club in New York, 'cause they were gone for, like, two years, and we played 'It's For The Kids', 'Everybody's Got A Plan' and 'The Edge Of Perfection'. So we've already got three together, and it's pretty safe to say that another song that we did that night called 'NYC 93', which nobody's heard yet, we shot a video for that at the show the other night. No barricade, old-school chaos, just stage diving and insanity. And [it's] safe to say 'NYC 93' is gonna be in the set. And there's some other ones on the record that I would love to play. I really love the song 'Infectious' on the record. I think it's just got an amazing groove. And I love 'Target On My Back'. It's the one [called] 'T.O.M.B.'. That riff and just that song, it just crushes me. I'd like to think that over the two years, let's say 2027, 2028, I'd like to think maybe at some point we'll get to play every song live at some point."

ANTHRAX will celebrate the release of "Cursum Perficio" with a late-night in-store signing in Louisville, Kentucky. Immediately following the band's September 17 performance at the city's annual Louder Than Life festival, ANTHRAX will meet fans at Louisville's Guestroom Records (1330A Bardstown Rd). Beginning at 12:01 a.m. on September 18, the multi-Grammy Award-nominated New York hard rock titans — Scott Ian (guitar),Charlie Benante (drums),Frank Bello (bass),Joey Belladonna (vocals) and Jonathan Donais (guitar) — will be signing copies of the new album. Space for the event is limited. To attend this special release event, fans must pre-order the album directly from Guestroom Records. Only albums pre-ordered will be eligible for the signing.

"Cursum Perficio" will be available as a standard CD; Target-exclusive CD with a fabric patch of the album cover; standard black double LP with pop-up gatefold; Target-exclusive double LP, red zoetrope with pop-up gatefold; Amazon-exclusive double LP, purple zoetrope LP with pop-up gatefold; merch-exclusive lilac vinyl double LP with pop-up gatefold; Metal Injection-exclusive white vinyl double LP with pop-up gatefold; Talk Shop Live-exclusive signed with red ripple vinyl double LP with pop-up gatefold; Indie-exclusive red, orange yellow vinyl double LP with pop-up gatefold.

The band dove into recording "Cursum Perficio" in earnest during 2022, working out of Dave Grohl's Studio 606 in Los Angeles. They carefully pieced together what would be this magnum opus, mining their history with reverence, delivering on fan expectations tenfold, and broadening the scope of their signature sound. Produced by Jay Ruston and ANTHRAX, the result is an album that's as angry, aggressive, and alive as their most celebrated fare.