ANTHRAX Drummer: SCOTT IAN Had To 'Eat His Words' After Comparing JOEY BELLADONNA To A Bird

Radio Metal recently conducted an interview with ANTHRAX drummer
Charlie Benante. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

Radio Metal: In the past few years, [ANTHRAX's] relationship with singers looked like a soap opera to the eyes of fans. Are singers in general always so hard to manage?

Charlie Benante: (laughs) Okay, well if you look at a lot of bands, I think you will see that there's always a singer problem. There's a term that lots of people use, and that's the "lead singer disease [LSD]." Singers, for some reason, have this thing about them that's like, "Oh, I'm the singer." I think they immediately believe that they deserve more than anyone, and maybe they feel like they have the hardest job in the band, but usually all they need to do is turn around and look at the guy in the back! That guy has the hardest job, the drummer! (chuckles)

Radio Metal: John Bush was quite popular among the fans and many of those still think that it was a mistake to let him go for a reunion tour back in 2005. Is this a feeling you have shared at some point, or not at all?

Charlie Benante: The hardest thing about this is choosing this guy over that guy or whatever, and for me speaking right now, the classic ANTHRAX lineup is, of course, from the mid-Eighties that created the records "Spreading The Disease" and "Among The Living". So it's almost obvious that's what people would want to see now. I mean, we've seen it. We've seen the difference between playing with Joey [Belladonna] and playing with John. There are way more people coming, and there's more excitement. So I'm not taking anything away from John at all, I'm just basically stating a fact.

Radio Metal: But just before Joey came back into the band, you at the time stated that the band was in the process of regrouping with John. So why didn't things work out in the end?

Charlie Benante: John just came back to fulfill some commitments that we had, and do some shows, and that was the end of it. He was not going to stay or anything like that. And I think around that time, everyone was scratching their heads and needed to get away from ANTHRAX. I think that's why some of them went and did some other projects. But I just think that we hit a wall at that time, and we knew John wasn't going to be a part of the band anymore, and we needed to move on.

Radio Metal: At the end of the reunion tour in 2005, Joey refused to go any further and do an album. So what's changed, according to you, in his mind for him to accept the second time that you asked?

Charlie Benante: At the time we were with a different organization that Joey did not really agree with. He did not like these people that were involved in the band at the time. And that was basically one of the basic reasons why he did not continue, because of the organization. I don't blame him anyway for not doing it, because we didn't want to stay with these people either. I think the reunion tour was done for the wrong reasons, and I think this was done now with the right intentions, and it was done in a very organic way and it wasn't forced upon us. It was done in a very "handshake," "hey, man, come on, let's try and work this together," and that's the way we did it.

Radio Metal: There was a funny thing that Scott Iansaid at one point on a television program [see video clip below]. I don't know if you've seen this, but he was asked about John Bush and Joey Belladonna, and he actually called John Bush a lion, and compared Joey to a bird. So I guess a bird is what ANTHRAX needed in the end

Charlie Benante: Well, I think Scott had to eat some of the words he said about that. But he only said that because I think he left things off with Joey kind of bad, and their relationship wasn't very well back then when he said that. And I think Scott just harbored some ill feelings towards Joey and I think that's kind of why he made that statement, you know?

Read the entire interview from Radio Metal.