CHARLIE BENANTE: 'VINNIE PAUL Told Me That He'd Taken Pieces Of My Drumming And Applied It To PANTERA'

In a cover feature for the latest issue of Fistful Of Metal magazine — a special thrash issue — ANTHRAX drummer Charlie Benante opened up about the band's long-awaited new album and why it's taking so long to complete the follow-up to 2016's "For All Kings". He told Oran O'Beirne: "It's always been a priority to finish the new ANTHRAX album. I don't want people to think that my involvement with PANTERA had anything to do with prolonging the completion of the new ANTHRAX album. It just came down to the fact that some of the material wasn't finished. We went back and redid some things we were not entirely happy with."

He continued: "You have to understand that some of these songs are pre-COVID, so we're going back on ideas from a long time ago. After we started layering all the parts of the new songs, it was a unanimous feeling that some of the stuff we were doing just felt out of date. So we decided to give it some time and revisit at a later stage. We are just trying to make this new record the best that we possibly can."

With a busy summer touring the PANTERA live shows now out of the way, he gave his afterthoughts on performing those classic songs and the overall experience of sitting behind the kit and playing Vinnie Paul Abbott's drum parts.

"It's awesome. I don't take any of this for granted," he said. "I feel extremely privileged that I'm in this role. I love those guys and my history with PANTERA, as a band, and also Vinnie and Dime [late PANTERA guitarist 'Dimebag' Darrell Abbott] goes way back. My relationship with Rex [Brown, PANTERA bassist] and Philip [Anselmo, PANTERA singer] is as important as it was with Dime and Vinnie."

Benante added: "There have been days on tour where we are all just hanging out and the stories will start to come out about the brothers and I can see Philip and Rex just light up when we're sharing memories of the guys. I really think this experience, for both Philip and Rex, is really what they needed, not only for the fans, but for those guys. This has been a very therapeutic experience for all of us, but especially for Rex and Philip."

When asked about adapting his style to the drum parts originally written and recorded by Vinnie Paul, Benante responded: "I've never told this to anyone before, but Vinnie told me numerous times that he'd taken pieces of my drumming and applied it to PANTERA. Vinnie was, like, 'You know that part on [ANTHRAX's] 'Spreading The Disease'? I took that idea for this track.' When he told me that, I was, like, 'Dude, are you serious?', and his response was, 'Absolutely.' So, now when I listen back, I can actually hear what he was talking about.

"And if Vinnie was still here, I'd be showing him some [of his] drum parts I've used on a few ANTHRAX tracks," Charlie admitted. "Some drummers have really big egos and they don't usually discuss things like that. The truth of the matter is, whatever you were listening to during the course of your life from a teenager to an adult, that style and flare in the music is inevitably going to be an influence. I've had Joey Jordison [late SLIPKNOT drummer] tell me the exact same thing that Vinnie told me, saying that he got some licks and ideas from my drumming for SLIPKNOT, and I'm totally honored when I hear that. I do the same thing and tell other drummers, 'Hey, I got this idea from your playing on this track.'"

Read the full interview in the latest issue of Fistful Of Metal magazine. Issue #17 is a "Thrash Attack Special" also featuring METALLICA, SODOM, BODY COUNT, XENTRIX, OPETH, KREATOR, TESTAMENT, MEGADETH, FLOTSAM AND JETSAM, TANKARD, GAMA BOMB, SADUS, MERCYFUL FATE, 200 STAB WOUNDS, SLIPKNOT and many more.

Fistful Of Metal is available for order online, as well as through WH Smith (U.K.) and Barnes & Noble (America).

Thanks to Oran O'Beirne for providing BLABBERMOUTH.NET with the above quotes from his ANTHRAX feature