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Just last week Vince called for John Bush and Anthrax to stop pussyfooting around and just announce that Bush is 100% back in the band already; now it seems clear that that announcement hasn’t come because absolutely no one in the Anthrax camp has any fucking clue what the fucking fuck is going on with their band.
Let’s look at some quotes from just the past three days, shall we?
I am increasingly convinced that the new Anthrax album, Worship Music, is going to suck. It’s just a weird gut feeling I get… like I’m gearing up for disappointment. Everyone knows the record is coming out, but no one really seems to care. Like that G.I. Joe movie or some shit.
Here’s the band covering Refused’s “New Noise,” and, uhhh, it doesn’t do anything to squash that icky feeling I have. I want so badly to be wrong, but fear so very much that I am right.
By the way, I love that Rob Caggiano now has more hair than Robin Williams, and yet still refuses to headbang. Super.
-AR
[via The Deciblog]
Vince and I were this close to going to see the latest incarnation of Anthrax play last night at some Red Bull snowboarding event. It didn’t quite work out, and knowing now that I would have been freezing my nuts off watching the band play in the coldest fucking weather imaginable, I can’t say I’m exactly filled with regret.
Luckily, Blabbermouth has some video footage of the event – including a performance of “Bring the Noise” with Public Enemy’s Chuck D – so I can at least get a sense of what we missed. The band seems lively enough and this Dan Nelson fellow seems fit for the job, so really, I just have one question: what the fuck is going on with Rob Caggiano?
-AR
Over the past decade and a half, few bands have attracted as much controversy, inside and out of the metal community, as Cradle of Filth. With the release of each album, the popularity of these British black metallers just grows and grows, and their increased success is always followed by a cloud of angry school marms and tr00 kvltists who think COF have betrayed the cause.
The band’s forthcoming new album, Godspeed on the Devil’s Thunder (Oct. 28, Roadrunner) isn’t likely to change any of that. A symphonic concept album about Gilles de Rais, the peer of Joan of Arc who went on to do unimaginably terrible things to literally hundreds of children, is easily the fastest, heaviest album the band has released in years, and seems destined to stir the pot once again.
We recently got the chance to sit down with COF vocalist, namesake and general mastermind Dani Filth to chat about a wide range of topics. Jet lagged though he was, we found Dani to be a smart, funny, articulate, and a very passionate guy. Love ‘em or hate ‘em, Cradle of Filth aren’t going anywhere anytime soon, and their work demands your attention. Read Dani’s thoughts on the new album, the controversy surrounding the band, and his forthcoming book, The Gospel of Filth, after the jump.
So just the other day I was wondered aloud, “Who will play lead guitar on the new Anthrax album?” Now the band has a released a press statement officially announcing virtual unknown Dan Nelson as their new singer (actually, it’s the second official announcement), and while the release is full of the usual hype – “I can’t wait for all these people who think Anthrax is done to be proven wrong,” “The naysayers are gonna be shut down,” “My cock is much bigger than yours,” yadda yadda – the following two sections did provoke my interest:
“I was actually looking for a band,” commented Nelson. “Long Island, NY is a pretty dead scene. I was in Unbroken, and through that I met Rob a couple
years ago. I had gone through some stuff on a personal side where I took
time off from the music. When I got back to the scene, I couldn’t find a
band, so I contacted Rob through MySpace and offered my services. We sent
music back and forth, got together, and jammed for 10 hours straight. After 10 hours, he said, ‘I think you’d be right for Anthrax.’”
AND:
“Anthrax, featuring Nelson on vocals, guitarists Ian and Rob Caggiano,
bassist Frankie Bello, and drummer Benante, is currently working on all-new
material.”
Say WHAT? Caggiano has re-joined Anthrax, and is even the man responsible for the band finding its new front man, and this is how they tell the public – by burying that info in a press release with no fanfare, as though Caggiano had never left the band? Doesn’t that seem a little, y’know, weird? I understand Caggiano’s no Zakk Wylde or whatever, but let’s show the dude some respect: he was kicked out of the band to make way for some crappy reunion, just like John Bush.
Still, just the fact that Caggiano is back in the fold makes me wonder: is there a snowball’s chance in hell that this album will actually be good? We’ve got 4/5ths of the We’ve Come for You All line-up back together; as far as I can tell, this Nelson dude just needs not to turn out to be a total tool for this thing to work.
-AR
Assuming, for a moment, that Anthrax really have hired Dan Nelson as their new front man, then it begs the question: who’s gonna play lead on their new album? Although we’d love to see Rob Caggiano return to the fold – his solos on We’ve Come for You All, a disc he also co-produced, were pretty sweet – I’m not entirely convinced it’s essential; Caggiano did not, as far as I can tell, do that much of the songwriting on WCFYA – I believe that duty fell, as usual, to the Ian/Benante/Bello team. Furthermore, it’s hard for me to imagine that Caggiano would even be considered a serious possibility, since a) as a successful producer for bands like Cradle of Filth, he can’t really need the money and b) John Bush has opted not to return to the band in favor of being the voice of Burger King. And we know Dan Spitz is back to making watches or being lazy eyed or doing whatever the fuck he does when he’s not in Anthrax.
So who? Paul Crook seems like kind of a natural choice – he replaced Spitz for two albums, Stomp 442 and Volume 8: The Threat is Real, and since he’s credited as an engineer on WCFYA, I have to assume his split with the band was amicable. And we know he’s got free time in his schedule: after leaving Anthrax, he toured with Sebastian Bach and that Queen musical for awhile, and I think these days he plays with Meatloaf – but even that makes him an ongoing member of the extended Anthrax family, given that Meatloaf’s daughter, Pearl Aday, is married to Scott Ian.
But just for shits and giggles, let’s assume for a minute that none of Anthrax’s previous axe slingers are coming back to the band – who’s left? As much as I’d love for it to turn out to be someone BIG, I don’t really see that being in the cards, either – especially because, pretty much no matter who is or isn’t in the band, Anthrax are going to have a LOT to prove with their next album. To be honest, I don’t really have a theory, or even a wish list, of possible new lead guitarists for Anthrax – and I’d like to avoid a repeat of the whole Whitfield Crane incident, anyways – so I’ll just ask you good people: who do you think should play leads on the new Anthrax album?
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