DAN LILKER On Playing With ANTHRAX Again After 40 Years: 'All Those Shows Were Killer'

In late March 2024, ANTHRAX announced that, due to personal reasons, bassist Frank Bello would not be able to accompany the band on its South American tour, which kicked off on April 13 at MXMF The Metal Fest in Mexico City. Filling in on those dates, as well as two U.S. festival shows in May, was ANTHRAX founding member and original bassist Dan Lilker, marking his first appearance with the band in 40 years. Lilker, who co-wrote and played on ANTHRAX's debut album "Fistful Of Metal", was also a member of STORMTROOPERS OF DEATH with ANTHRAX drummer Charlie Benante and guitarist Scott Ian.

In a new interview with That Metal Interview podcast, Lilker reflected on the experience of playing with his former band again, saying (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): "Those shows were great. It was fun. I didn't really know Joey [Belladonna] before that, the vocalist. Obviously, I knew Scott [Ian, ANTHRAX guitarist] and Charlie [Benante, ANTHRAX drummer] from [playing with them in ANTHRAX and] S.O.D. and then there's Jon [Donais], the guitar player, who's also a really cool dude who helped me out a lot, teaching me the stuff that I still needed to learn. But yeah, those shows were great. There was eight shows in South America and then there was a couple of U.S. fests, in Florida and Columbus, Ohio. The South American [shows] were in April. I should say Central America — actually, the first show was in Mexico. But let's just say Latin America. And all those shows were killer. I mean, I've played down there a bunch. I went to some places I've never been before, like Costa Rica and Ecuador and El Salvador. But good old Chile and Argentina and Brazil, I knew those were gonna be killers because I played there a bunch with other bands. And, yeah, I think everything was great. It was lots of fun. And I think people enjoyed it, man. It's all over YouTube."

Asked if it's true that they had only one rehearsal in Mexico City before he played his first show back with ANTHRAX, Dan said: "Yeah, there was one rehearsal in Mexico, but I'd gotten approached about doing that about five or six weeks before that. So I had time at home to learn the stuff, and then we just did that one rehearsal, because even those guys needed the rehearsal, 'cause they hadn't done anything at that point since they played, like, the Milwaukee Metal Fest the summer before or something. They'd gone about ten months without doing anything, so even if Frank had done the shows, they would've rehearsed regardless."

When the interviewer noted that Lilker has a slightly different bass sound compared to Frank, Dan concurred. "Oh, definitely," he said. "[Frank] has a nice aggressive bass tone, but mine's definitely a little more distorted, having always sounded like that and then playing grindcore and black and death metal and shit like they've done the last fucking quarter century. Scott and Charlie had played with me with S.O.D. with that bass tone, and I'm sure they were aware that it would sound a little different with ANTHRAX, but it was almost, like, it made it this interesting hypothetical thing for those dudes, like, 'What if Danny had been in the band all this time? What would those songs sound like?' And you got to find out, I guess."

Asked if there were any songs that he had to learn for ANTHRAX's set that gave him trouble, Dan said: "The only thing that was tricky sometimes was doing the backing vocals while playing the bass, 'cause sometimes the phrasing was a little different. Like, believe it or not, going 'what is it? Caught in a mosh' and playing the riff under it, it kind of alternates weirdly. So I had to slow the whole thing down in my brain and go, 'Okay, you have to tap your foot here or say this on that note.' And that's only because in most bands I've been in, if I'm doing backing vocals, I'm usually just screaming or shouting a couple of words, which this is not that dissimilar from. It was just more of a musical phrasing thing, where what you're saying and what you're playing are just different enough that it can fuck you up a little."

Lilker has not been idle over the past four decades, having played in a wide variety of bands. He was the bassist for the thrash/metal band NUCLEAR ASSAULT and the grindcore band BRUTAL TRUTH. He also plays bass for EXIT-13, MALFORMED EARTHBORN, THE RAVENOUS, OVERLORD EXTERMINATOR, VENOMOUS CONCEPT, and more.

To celebrate ANTHRAX's 40th anniversary in 2021, the band's social media accounts offered a series of video testimonials sent in by former bandmembers, fellow musicians, colleagues, and industry veterans sharing behind-the-scenes stories of working with the band and what ANTHRAX's legacy has meant all these years on. These videos honored each album in chronological order beginning with the original release, "Fistful Of Metal". The 11-week series included video contributions from former ANTHRAX bandmembers Lilker, Dan Spitz, John Bush, Neil Turbin and Rob Caggiano.

Lilker, who played bass on "Fistful Of Metal" and wrote most of the music for the record, told Knotfest about ANTHRAX's 40th anniversary: "I'm definitely proud of that whole thing. I think it's great that those guys are still going… That was real good memories back then. I know people go, 'Oh, they fucking threw you out after that,' and blah blah blah. But, obviously, I got over that and formed NUCLEAR ASSAULT. And next year we were doing S.O.D. So I'm not the kind of guy who stays bitter forever. But, yeah, the memories of those times, writing that record and recording it and everything was... 'Cause there was no blueprint or anything; we just had influences and just tried to put our own stamp on 'em back then. So, yeah, it kind of sucks being thrown out three days before [it got] released, but it gave me an excuse to do something else."

When interviewer Daniel Dekay noted that it was "really cool" of ANTHRAX to allow Lilker to tell his side of the story in the above-mentioned documentary series, Dan said: "There was times in the past where I might have been a little neglected on some of the stuff. So I think they wanted to make sure to just have a nice, inclusive vibe and not forget any particular details. Like the fact that I wrote 75 percent of 'Fistful Of Metal'. You know, a minor detail."

A number of years ago, Lilker told Voices From The Darkside that he was fired from ANTHRAX due to "a conflict" with the band's then-vocalist Neil Turbin. "He was an egotist (like most singers, haha) and it bothered him that I was taller than him," Lilker explained. "Also, he had no sense of humor, so if you busted his balls he took it seriously. So, he told the other members, 'I can't take Lilker anymore. It's him or me.' They decided he was more important as a familiar frontman to the fans, so they threw me out, even though I wrote 75 percent of the music on 'Fistful…'. Oh well. He was, of course, thrown out seven months later, and I played with Scott and Charlie in S.O.D. the next year."

In his 2014 autobiography "I'm The Man: The Story Of That Guy From Anthrax", Ian described Lilker's dismissal from ANTHRAX 30 years earlier as "the worst moment for me in the history" of the band. He went on to say that the decision to kick Dan out ANTHRAX was made by Turbin and not the other members of the group.

"The biggest dick move Neil ever pulled was when he fired Danny Lilker behind our backs after 'Fistful…' came out in January 1984," Ian wrote. "The main reason he did it, in my opinion, was because Danny is taller than him. He honestly didn't think someone should be taller than the frontman onstage. He thought it made him look bad, so he tried to stand as far away from Danny as possible, which was hard when we were playing stages the size of ping-pong tables."

In recent years, Ian has voiced his appreciation for the role "Fistful Of Metal" played in giving ANTHRAX its start, telling Metal Hammer: "Let's face it, 'Fistful Of Metal' gave us our career. It got the band some attention, made people all over the world aware of what we could do — and for that reason alone I have to be grateful to everyone involved. The record was vital in launching us, and everything we've done, and become, since stems from that debut record. I may be critical of it in some ways, but I could never do anything other than admit we owe it all to 'Fistful Of Metal'. If that had never happened… well, perhaps you would never have heard of ANTHRAX."

The second edition of the definitive Lilker biography "Perpetual Conversion: 30 Years & Counting In The Life Of Metal Veteran Dan Lilker" was officially released ten years to the day of its first edition, on Lilker's 60th birthday, October 18, 2024, by smoke.grind.sleep Publishing.