JOHN BUSH Talks About Split With ANTHRAX, Return Of JOEY BELLADONNA; Audio Available

ARMORED SAINT/ex-ANTHRAX singer John BushARMORED SAINT/FATES WARNING bassist Joey Vera were interviewed on this past weekend's (May 21-23) edition of Full Metal Jackie's nationally syndicated radio show. You can now listen to the chat using the audio player below.

To see a full list of stations carrying the program and when it airs, go to FullMetalJackieRadio.com.

In a May 16 interview with BLABBERMOUTH.NET, John Bush stated about his most recent split with ANTHRAX, "I came in and did [the Sonisphere] show [in England in August 2009], which led to that show in Japan a couple of months later and that led to the Soundwave shows we did in Australia back in February.

"In all honesty, I never really envisioned myself coming back to the band permanently. As a matter of fact, we talked about that at great length numerous times and I told them why I had apprehensions. Primarily it was because I'm somewhere else in my life now.

"When I left ANTHRAX in 2005, I didn't want to go on the road anymore. My daughter was just about twelve months old at the time and I started for my wife and her business doing voice-overs, which has been really taking off over the last three and a half years. I've been very fortunate in that respect. During that time, I had become used to the idea of not doing music anymore; at least not for awhile. I really didn't know if I was done with music. All I really knew is that I wasn't in a band. I think it was a good time for me to figure some stuff out.

"What I'm getting at is that when I came back for those shows, I never really envisioned myself coming back full-time. I always thought I would help them out or be involved for awhile and then the band would take the next step. Primarily because they have a record, but they won't put it out. I understand that, but it's finished; completely. There's some mixing and mastering to be done, but the fact that they're just sitting on this thing allows them extra time to get work done. For me, the idea of just re-singing this record just wasn't something that appealed to me. I didn't feel comfortable with that. I just felt like it wasn't my record to make. . . I just felt like since I wasn't involved in the writing process, which I have been on every previous record, I was completely detached. It felt like to come in and redo things or to write or rewrite stuff, even those guys gave me the green light to be creative, it wasn't something I felt like I had in my soul. I entertained it at one point. I thought maybe there was some money to be made there, but those are the wrong reasons. It wouldn't have felt right to do it because of that. Doing the shows was easy. We obviously all know the material and know what to do on stage. The stage is home to me. The stage is pretty easy, but the whole writing and recording another record is a whole different ball of wax.

"In all honesty, I think that these are the right circumstances for ANTHRAX. When they did the reunion in 2005, I think a lot of people anticipated they would make another record Joey Belladonna. At one point they even said they were entertaining the idea and a lot of people were waiting for it. Now, that's the plan and I think it makes sense. It's been twenty years since Belladonna did a record with the band. For me, it's only been seven so it hasn't been that long. I think a lot of people are interested in hearing what it sounds like and I think this is the perfect time to do that. It all makes sense to me.

"I was very open and candid to Scott [Ian, ANTHRAX guitarist], Charlie [Benante, ANTHRAX drummer] and Frankie [Bello, ANTHRAX bassist] about. I wanted to those shows this summer and I had committed to them, but I had also given the green light if they wanted to bring somebody else into the band and they did. It's all good."

Video footage of John Bush performing with ANTHRAX at U.K.'s Sonisphere festival in 2009 can be viewed below.