In between the 30 year anniversaries of two of their most iconic records, Anthrax are now back with what might be one of their strongest and heaviest albums to date, their 12th studio effort, For All Kings. We caught up with bassist Frank Bello in a Houston backstage area before one of Anthrax’s gigs in their current tour to talk a bit about their latest release and a few other things as well.
Hello Frank. You’re in between tour dates now. How’s it been going so far and how are audiences reacting to your two new songs, “Evil Twin” and “Breathing Lightning”?
To be honest, it’s been overwhelming the response we’ve been getting from people. We’re on tour right now with Lamb of God who are friends of ours, and the eruption that happens after these songs is great. When we introduce them, that’s great right off the bat, but I call it the eruption because after [we play them], those are some of the strongest responses of the night, which is a really great thing for us to hear and see, because we know we’re on the right track!
For All Kings, your new record came out as one of Anthrax’s heaviest records so far. Looking back to all the band has done before, how do you feel about this one?
Like everything else, you have to support your newest product, but I’ve been in this band for a long, long time and I can say that this is absolutely our best record ever. I have to say that because I’ve wrote a lot with these guys and it’s like your children, it’s really hard to not love it. I feel it’s our strongest record. All we could have done was to leave it all in the table and do our best work, and I think we’ve done that. I hope that the crowd and the fan base out there feel the same way!
You’ve been through some rough times in recent past and For All Kings feels like a powerful statement of a united band that came through all those difficulties. Do you agree? How was the spirit between you guys during this album’s writing and recording sessions?
Good point! It’s a great time and you’ve hit it on the head with this one. The band is getting along really well, we’re really united and we all know that there’s a goal to achieve here. In the writing process you have bumps and some people don’t agree with everything, but you get through it and that builds the intensity of the music, I think. Now it’s just about really getting it out there and make people hear the record. We’re touring even before the record comes out! We just finished with Slayer for almost two months in Europe, in the UK, and now we came over here with Lamb of God, and it’s going to be another month of touring before the record comes out. We’re also starting in March with Iron Maiden in South America, which is going to be a fun thing I’m looking forward to, as we’re going to be traveling on the plane with them. We’re big fans, but also great friends with them! We’ve also just started to book up September and October right now, so we’re pretty booked up. We’re going to do all the festivals in Europe, it’s an ongoing thing, and we just want to spread the music. At the end of the day, metal is a tight community and we all have to stick together and support each other, so I’m glad we could come out with a record like this. Hopefully people will understand that it’s all from the heart and that we’ve left it all in the table.
What’s the main underlying concept of For All Kings? What does the album title represents?
For me the album title means to be your own king for your own kingdom, like being in control of what you do in your life. When I first heard the title it made a lot of sense to me, but I also want other people to get their own meaning out of it, even with these other songs. When I a listen to a song from one of the bands that I like, I understand what the writer gets, but it’s really important to see what it does to you and what you get out of it. As for the title, For All Kings, that’s what I get out of it. Be your own king of your kingdom, control your world and be responsible for yourself. It’s a really positive vibe.
Even though there’s a lot of variety, this record seems to draw a lot more from your thrash roots and there are times where it kinda takes me back to the Persistence of Time era. Did you guys felt the need, or could we say, the hunger to reconnect with some of the earlier stuff, not only that you’ve made, but also that you listened to back in the day, on some of these tunes?
Here’s what I can equate to. As a writer, if you do anything that people want you to go back, they saw a piece that you wrote and they really liked it, you wouldn’t try to recreate that, you just do what comes out of your gut. You have what you have that’s in you, and you put it all there. As long as it’s honest and if you’re coming from a good place, that’s what matters. I mean, this band, it has a fire in its belly. You can see it on the tour, you can see it in the shows, I think this is just the beginning. For a band that’s been around for thirty-something years, I think we’re hungrier than ever now, and I’m very proud to say that, because you can’t get complacent. We never wanted to stay in the same place in history, we want to go forward and push this music out. We’re also with the scene, keeping metal alive, and it’s important that bands come out with new records to keep the scene alive and relevant.
“Long story short, nothing gets too political, we just live in this daily life, so I guess that’s what comes out. Unfortunately, for all of us, but we do have to find a way to overcome it, live with it and deal with it.”
I know it must be hard for you to pick, but do you have any favorites in For All Kings?
I go weekly! [laughs] Currently, “Blood Eagle Wings” this week is probably my favorite song of the record. I’m telling you dude, I say weekly because every week I have a different favorite song, and that’s actually a good test for the album, because it means that for me, I’m really happy with every song on the record. I think we wouldn’t let anything on the record that we weren’t truly 110% ready to let it out, so I can honestly say that I love every song of the record.
Talking about that particular song, I’ve noticed that it has this little distorted bass section on the intro that reminded me of Cliff Burton. Did you have him in mind when you did that take?
That sound that you hear is a complete tribute to my friend Cliff! I’ve worked with Jay Ruston, my producer, and said “I want to do a tribute to Cliff Burton with this thing”. it’s like a little taste of it and you can hear it. In the studio I’ve said “let me try a distorted wah on it because it works and it will be my little tribute to Cliff Burton”. I’m glad you caught that though. It’s sending love to Cliff, because he was my friend. I loved his bass playing, I loved his technique and everything. It was a complete little “Hello Cliff, I love you man, I’m thinking of you.”
You guys have been earning the distinction of being one of the most relevant heavy bands that kept going on from the ‘80s, but Joey is also probably one of the few vocalists from that era that managed to retain his voice. How does he manage to keep that level for so long?
I’m going to be honest with you. I play with the guy every night… We’re on tour and we play sometimes five or six shows in a row. Last week were seven shows in a row and Joey Belladonna, I can honestly say this, is at the top of his game. I’m not even exaggerating when I say that. It’s a gift and we’re very lucky in that way, to have such a great vocalist. I don’t think he warms up a lot, I just think it’s an amazing thing he does, and on the record he’s singing even better than ever! I think everybody in the band right now is really at the top of their game playing, so we all know what we do and everybody’s very comfortable in their own skin.
This is also your first record with Jon Donais, who’s been your full time guitarist for the last three years. How did he come to enter the band and what made him stand out from the rest?
We’ve been friends with Jon forever and obviously with Shadows Fall as well. We’re fans of them and we’ve been friends with those guys forever. Rob Caggiano, our former guitar player, who’s with Volbeat now, told us that Jon wanted to check us out and that he’d be available. We talked to Jon, he came in, and let me tell you something, it was seamless! Jon just fitted right in like a glove. He’s in the band, this is Anthrax in 2016 and it will stay like this, because we’re a very tight-knit group and collaborative when we’re jamming, on stage and in every way. Jon’s always been a great player but I think that when people hear him on a Anthrax record, it’s going to be a new level man, he’s incredible!
Did Jon had any impact on the songwriting process besides recording solos?
Mainly with his leads coming into it. The music was a blank page for him and Charlie helped him with some leads too. He was just tearing it up and not only are his leads tasty, but he also tells stories within them. I always knew he was a great player, but when I’ve heard his solos for the record I went “this guy’s burning man!”. I’m a big fan of his music!
Now talking about the cover. You’ve been working closely with the famous comic artist Alex Ross for some years now. Your first collaboration was back in 2004 for the Music of Mass Destruction DVD right?
Yeah! Charlie Benante, our drummer, is a great artist on his own right. If you’ve ever seen Charlie just draw something, like in a piece of paper in front of you, he’s an incredible, I mean, double incredible artist! He designs most of our artwork and I fully trust him to do that. Alex Ross did, as usual, another amazing cover with us, so it was very much those two really doing it and me just saying “fuck yeah!” [laughs]
Charlie sketches the main idea and then Alex comes in and does the final arts?
It’s mainly Charlie that has a great visual eye for art, and always had so. He gave out the idea of what he was envisioning and we were all on board with it, then Alex came up with this masterpiece, as he always does. Just great artwork!
“For a band that’s been around for thirty-something years, I think we’re hungrier than ever now, and I’m very proud to say that, because you can’t get complacent. We never wanted to stay in the same place in history, we want to go forward and push this music out.”
On this new record, there are at least two songs where the lyrics seem to be targeting terrorism, in this case “Evil Twin” and “Zero Tolerance”. Were these songs responses from Anthrax to what happened in France back in January and November of last year?
Well, it’s mainly a response to terrorism in general. Scott writes the lyrics for the band and obviously we have to agree on everything, but I just think that this is time we live in, and as writers, we are sponges. It affects all of us as people. You, me and everybody. As far as the lyric in “Evil Twin”, the choruses “You’re No Martyrs”, by killing people in the name of whatever you believe, it’s just wrong. It should be peace and love and that’s what religion is supposed to be about. Long story short, nothing gets too political, we just live in this daily life, so I guess that’s what comes out. Unfortunately, for all of us, but we do have to find a way to overcome it, live with it and deal with it.
How do you guys felt, being touring musicians when you saw the first instances of all of this occurring down in France?
Like everybody else, we’re human. It was horrible, horrible! We were there ten days before that happened, so of course, we feel for all the people in France and all their loved ones, all the people who lost their lives. God rest their souls. It was just a horrible circumstance, a horrible thing that happened. Look, it’s got to stop. The one thing we didn’t want to stop though, was playing. We went on tour to prove that they can’t stop it, and they shouldn’t be able to stop it. You can’t stop life, you’ve got to keep living, that’s just the way I live, maybe because we’re from New York and we were around it a lot also. Long live France. It was just an horrible thing that happened, I just hope that it stops soon.
Last year marked 30 years since the release of Spreading the Disease and next year will also mark the 30th anniversary of Among the Living, a huge landmark on Anthrax’s history. What did you guys felt about it back in 87? Did you felt you had something special on your hands?
Yeah! The Thrash movement was coming up, we knew had an energetic, insane metal record that we really believed in, and I think we’ve always done our best. I remember feeling the same way. For me it’s like looking through a scrapbook of me growing up. We were all young guys and it was just a great time for us. I look at it now and say “Wow”, it’s been a lot of years, but you know what? It’s been a lot of good years. I’m very thankful for it.
Back then did you imagine that 30 years later it would be such an influential record on the following generations of metal bands and fans?
It’s incredible to talk about Among the Living like that, or even Anthrax, a band that’s thirty-something years old. We’re talking about a record from ’87 and now we’re talking about For All Kings being an highly anticipated record that people are talking about, so if you think about that, from ‘87, from Among the Living until now, to still be relevant and to have people talking about it as they are, it’s amazing!
Mike Portnoy recently said we’re entering now an era where we’re losing some of the rock stars that shaped generations of our music. We’ve lost Lemmy, David Bowie and now Jimmy Bain. How do you envision our music landscape in the future, do you think we have more to gain with the younger generations, or that talents like these will become rare in the future?
Well, here’s the way I look at life: We’ve lost a lot of great icons and unfortunately we’ll continue to, because that’s life. People pass. They’ll be in our hearts and minds and their influence will be with us forever. I loved Lemmy, we all loved Lemmy, he was not only a great influence in our music but he was also a great friend. So… he’ll be around with us in our music and in our lives forever, and that’s what he left us, thankfully. I hope there are future icons. I would like that to think that the next generation could look back in their future and see the icons from the past, understand them and put those influences into their music. That’s what I would like to see.
Do you have any curious story or piece of advice that Lemmy gave you and that you would like to share?
With Lemmy there were always great stories, but the one thing Lemmy taught me, was that it’s ok to be yourself, just by being Lemmy! He went out there and he was always himself. He always told me from the beginning that what you had was something to offer, something special, no matter who you are, and that’s a great message, I think.
What about Altitudes and Attitude, your project with David Ellefson from Megadeth? When will we get to hear new stuff from you guys?
Thank you for asking! David and I have a record that’s pretty much waiting for our day jobs! We both have new records coming out so it’s going to be probably later in the year. We might record one or two more songs. What we feel is that it’s a great rock record like the last EP we’ve put out and Jay Ruston, our producer, thinks it’s even better than that, so we’re pretty excited about it. You can still get it on iTunes, the Altitudes and Attitude three-song EP.
So wrapping it up. What’s up in store for Anthrax in the near future?
Well, promoting For All Kings! We’ve literally have started already, we’re touring and it’s about touring the world a bunch of times and hopefully we can get in front of a lot of people and make them see and hear the new Anthrax! That’s the idea!