ANTHRAX (Joey Belladonna) INTERVIEW

Joey Belladonna may be a legend of the 80s Metal scene but it only takes a couple of minutes in his presence to realise what a positive, polite and down to earth person he really is. The music of Anthrax has played an integral part in my musical ‘upbringing’ over the last twenty five years so when the opportunity arose for me to conduct the interview with the mighty frontman I grabbed it. Only a couple of hours prior to the band storming the somewhat moderate (for their status) stage of the O2 Islington Academy, I met Joey and made sure that our chat did not simply revolve around their latest opus “Worship Music” but that it also covered some other important topics, including his return into the fold and what we should expect from the New York metallers in the future. Hopefully, reading this will be as interesting as conducting it turned out to be.

By Yiannis (John) Stefanis.

• Hi Joey, let me start by saying what an absolute pleasure it is for me to be doing this interview with you, having you here in the UK and also seeing you back with Anthrax! You are of course on tour for the promotion of “Worship Music” and you have already done the first part of the tour which covered the States and the reaction has been great, based on the reports I have read on the Internet. Tonight you are about to film a DVD here in London – a decision that I found somewhat surprising as I know that you will soon be performing at the Hammerfest Festival (Prestatyn/Wales) in a venue that will attract far more people. Based on that, what was the reason that you chose London as the location for the filming of the upcoming DVD?

Joey: Well, that is a good question and I am not sure why we chose London as I know that the room here is quite tight, especially when it comes to filming a show. I know a lot of things about the things that we do but why we decided to film the DVD here I have no idea! Maybe because it is a sold-out show – I really don’t know. I know that we had a chance to do it now time-wise but why here? I don’t know – good question! The whole operation is now under way and this will be the shoot – there is no more shooting to be done, that’s for sure.

• It probably has to do with the fact that London has showed its dedication towards Anthrax over the years…

Joey: No doubt!

• …most of the band’s shows have been sold out and the crowd tends to be quite energetic but as you quite correctly mentioned before, this is indeed quite a small stage for a band as energetic and ‘mobile’ as Anthrax. I, for one, am very interested to see how you will manage to deal with it.

Joey: Well, basically I have bumped into Scott a couple of times when we were performing on small stages before as it all depends on the lights and in both those cases the stage was dark. We just try to be a lot more cautious than reckless, you know? It is really quite methodical and it happens without thinking – we just make are little own ways around each other. Of course you will have the cameras which are going to be sitting right on the stage and they will literally be in the way, so…maybe it’s just as well! It’s going to be like a studio live-ish type of compromise as we are recording at the same time so we should be more careful than reckless…I don’t know – we will be fine, I am sure. It will be quite good.

• You guys have a lot of experience when it comes to doing shows as you have played in some of the biggest stadia around the world and last time you played here in the UK was for the Big Four festival which was attended by thousands of people and which really speaks volumes! Based on that fact, do you really get a kick out of the knowledge that you have to play in a venue as small as this one?

Joey: I play in such types of venues all the time. I liked getting up, going out of the bus and thinking to myself “Ok, we are in London – this is cool”! You drive around, then you get out of the bus and people start appearing out of nowhere and it is all very exciting for me. I am always cherishing the fans that are really excited to see the show and I like being able to be good enough for them to enjoy it and say that it was really awesome, you know? That alone is just enough to get excited over, you know? I don’t get nervous at all anymore because there is nothing really to be nervous about! I used to get happily nervous but even that within seconds would be gone. I mean, I would hate it if I were to be the kind of person that gets overtly nervous and cannot think as a result, so…it doesn’t matter what type of venue we are playing in, big or small – it’s no problem at all! But yeah, I am very happy to know that people still enjoy us, especially as I see the next ‘go-around’. It’s as if we were gone and this whole thing has just come back in – it’s like a new thing to us.

• Ok, let’s talk about “Worship Music”. You managed to release an album against all odds, an album that has scored quite highly on the Billboard 200 if that still means anything anymore to you.

Joey: It does, it means a lot to us.

• I am not going to get into the whole politics of who was involved and how it came to life – that is probably an over-saturated subject. The thing that I do want to ask you, however, is whether performing this album in a live environment is the same as performing the classic Anthrax material from let’s say “Among The Living” or “Spreading The Disease” – material that was originally recorded with you in mind?

Joey: As far as difficulty is concerned or just like…

• …as far as emotional connection is concerned.

Joey: Well the only thing with new stuff is that until you feel it and know it well enough, like there are certain songs like “In The End”, “I’m Alive”, “Earth On Hell”, “Fight ‘Em Till You Can’t” that we know real good but those songs are so different than let’s say “Among The Living” and “Indians”, because people know them very well and some songs live are evident – big and large and well-known and that is the only difference really. Otherwise, you take them all the same but none of them are the same because they don’t have the same magnitudes. “Indians” is a totally different song to “Caught In A Mosh”, you know- they don’t even compare. They are both really good tunes but when you see them being performed live they do not get the same reaction from people. So, you’ve got to take the reaction that you get for the song and roll with it. I think that this is kind of what you were asking in a way. We are also pushing ourselves by putting new material on the set list like “The Constant” which we never did before; this will be the first time that we will play it since I sang it on the record and I didn’t even know it when I did it then! I literally just walked in each day and sang one song without even hearing it or even seeing any lyrics and by the end of the day I was done so for me to do this now it felt strange as I didn’t know it, but I knew it without knowing it. So to play it live it will be completely different because it just hasn’t yet sunk in – it hasn’t been felt all the way through yet. It takes a little while for some of the songs to really kind of develop and sometimes they just never get to a point where the expectations are what you would think you want and the crowd could love it, but you yourself may not get the same reaction from it. A song like “In my World”… (note: “Persistence Of Time” album, 1990); it doesn’t come across as big as another song but to me it is fun to play, yet it is quite straight-ahead – one of those fist-banging songs. Some songs just doesn’t work all the time and the same is with the new record. I mean, we are doing five songs as it is: I don’t remember us ever doing five songs from a new album except perhaps at the very beginning during the “Spreading The Disease” (1985) when we basically started to do new songs straight away, you know?

• When you perform certain songs live, do you find that sometimes they are ‘asking you’ for a different interpretation of them? Do you ever find yourself thinking things like “maybe I can change this or add that next time we will play this one live”, and to that to the point when a songs starts coming across as a slightly different entity?

Joey: Oh definitely. I mean, I obviously try to perform the songs as they sound on the record; I will naturally start singing that way. Sometimes it’s the feel of it; trying to find a part that just because it is a live performance it can be performed faster or it can be done in a different way, you know? In the studio you might just have enough time to let each part develop, you know, as you don’t have to do it all at once but live…I always add a few things, constantly doing something different. (note: During the interview the door is constantly opening and Joey finally decides to put his foot down – in a somewhat polite way, which did work as the door never opened again after that). Anyway, being able to do something live and just letting it happen…it is what it is, you know? But I love doing new stuff; I am constantly throwing something new like throwing a few notes in between verses and even in “In the End” I do a few of my own things with it and same with “Earth In Hell” – I just try to do what I can live with it because I want to have fun with these songs. I love doing stuff spontaneously but there are certain things that you just cannot change without messing things up or putting yourself into jeopardy with missing a part. There’s overlaps and lyrics that I find that I cannot finish on time in order to get onto the second verse and so into the next line as there are two different parts interacting and they would not have worked if you did them like you did it on the record…so you have to change them a little bit.

• One of the things I really enjoy about “Worship Music” is that I hear in it a Joey Belladonna that is so diverse…
Joey: Seriously? I cannot personally hear such a thing!

• Yeah! There are some songs like “Crawl”, for instance, which ten years ago I would never have believed that you would ever choose to sing.

Joey: Well, I can indeed do all that stuff because I think that the song is quite lined up for it, you know? I mean, I have a covers band at home and we do things from Rush, Journey and Zeppelin, Deep Purple and Triumph and Pink Floyd, Hendrix, Cream and all that stuff. I do all that kind of stuff but certain songs, their tunings are different, their tempos are not consistent – we do not have many songs where the guitars are going (note: at this point Joey sings a 4/4 guitar riff). In “Spreading The Disease” we did a song called “The Enemy” which was more of a slower, chunkier thing. I still cannot tell what I did for this new album that I am not supposed to do normally, but I guess I will take what you said in good faith (laughs). You see, it’s hard for me to hear what you hear, you know?

• It is supposed to be a compliment by the way! (I laugh).

Joey: No, I know (laughs) – thank you very much. I am going beyond that now, I am trying to think what is it that someone hears that I don’t. Like when somebody says “you heard that new song where he sounds like this or that” and I normally go “really, I don’t hear that”! Well, that is cool! That is really great! I love it – I just didn’t expect it. That was what I was worried about, coming in and doing a record that I didn’t really have involvement in the beginning stages of and so get the opportunity to say things like “hey, can we move the key or change the part” which I never did anyhow in any of the records. Coming back after so long I was hoping that this thing would be in my favour and it was – it was much more open for me to do something with it, but even “Crawl”, you know, that would have been considered quite mellow by somebody…It could have gone the other way around and have people saying “these songs are so slow” or me thinking “he is here so where am I going to sing”? So certain things are right there, this is where you will have to do it and you will have to make it work because there are certain keys that you will have to be able to sing in and there are tempos that you will have to follow.

• Well, I personally feel that you have done an excellent job in the vocal department and as a result “Worship Music” is such an enjoyable album. I have to be honest with you; when I first heard the album in its entirety, the first couple of spins, I found it to be interesting but I was not what you would call ‘hooked’. Now, a few listens later, everything started to make sense and I truly believe that what we have here is a ‘grower’ type of album; you have to give it time and devotion – listen to it in an old-school kind of way. Once you honour all that, the end result is very rewarding indeed.

Joey: I think that some of the writing with Anthrax is trickier as it will not always follow the kind of format that you will get from any basic structured song. I mean, myself I need to understand how some of the things tend to connect and make those parts sound like they are a verse and a chorus and pre-chorus because some of our stuff…I remember one time during the “Persistence Of Time” there was a man who was listening to “One Man Stands” and went “where is the chorus” to which I replied “it just went by” (laughs). So, we don’t have structures that sound like straight forward to most and then there are some bands whose name I do not wish to mention that when you get their record you never have to wait for it to catch on, but maybe for ours you did. There’s nothing wrong with that; some stuff is a lot deeper than others and I like it when I listen to stuff that grows on me. There are so many things that do that to me and make me think “wow, I don’t believe how much I love this record”. At first I would be “Oh no, I don’t think that I like it” but you start to get at what we did when we were putting this new album together and you start figuring out how it works and then if something was made in such a way that you have caught on it straight away you might have ended up liking it less as a result because it just didn’t have much to offer in the end. It’s kind of neat: that’s what is great about songs if you get that far into it or someone else just doesn’t even go there thinking “I don’t like it, I don’t care and I don’t want to listen to it ever again”. I mean, how do you know? You might just like it in the end!

• What is the strangest thing that you’ve heard with regards “Worship Music”? Can you recall something that particularly annoyed you or something that you found to be strange?

Joey: My vocal thing is obviously the one thing that I am focusing on…I don’t know. I know that they (note: remaining members of the band) have changed the style of their writing; the tuning is a little bit different and some of the arrangements are a little bit more structured, you know, before consumption, should I say as people might want something a little more ‘intact’. I kind of came into something when they were going to find what route they were going to be taking and they pulled some old ideas and thoughts with new ones and then all of the sudden I came in. I sound different which to me is great again as if you got something that you did not expect and you like it then that is cool. My big thing was ‘can you live up to the expectation of long ago’? To me this is different but not too far off, so it’s all there – it’s just how different it was for you to either dislike it or like it. That was it but when people say “I love the way you sound on it” and for what little time I’ve put into it…that is my favourite part of it. I literally did four to five hours a day on it and that was it to be done with a song. I did not have four or five days to be pounding it out and trying all different kinds of shit or farting around with too many different ideas and burning out as a result. Nobody was there, either! That was one of the biggest things; I didn’t have anybody there – it was like being in detention! You felt like you were under the microscope all the time, but it sounds good too! The sonic aspects of it, the sound is one of my other favourite things about it. Jay Ruston, I don’t know, just made us really come to life. That’s a cool thing because over time we did work with some really good producers but sometimes…you just sit and hear this album and you know what is right and what is not.

• I also believe that “Worship Music” opens a whole new world of possibilities for you. I think it is the kind of album that will help you spread your artistic wings and thus enjoy new experiences.

Joey: Yeah, I hope that, looking ahead for another record, I hope that we have opened the door for a lot more interpretation where we can expand and explore a few more avenues and help us become even better because maybe you can end up finding a few more things that can make you say “oh my God, I love the way you are doing that now” and I hope that this is what we are going to do. I hope we will not get too…I know that it’s one thing to live up to certain expectations and if you don’t think about it, then that is good, you know?

• Well, you certainly made this album sound very approachable, the kind of album that even the traditional Anthrax fan will not really react badly towards.

Joey: Yeah, that was the hardest thing and nor did we want to put ourselves in the position of staying with this classic thing, you know what I mean? We are advancing our whole musical horizons, everybody is into all different kinds of new things and new ideas are always manifesting themselves into new things, you know? I have been out of the band for a long time and I have been singing so many different things which kind of helped me go back to where I used to be musically and to be heavier without doing any of the classic stuff right now…I don’t do anything like this, ever, but to come in and sing those new songs was easier for some reason. It wasn’t like I was singing that new stuff all day long when I wasn’t with the band. I have been gone since 1990 and even though I came back for the reunion (note: 2010) we did not play anything other than old songs!

• Now that you are back in the fold do you find that perhaps your approach towards certain things has changed? Are you seeing things in general through different eyes when it comes to touring or the way you approach and work on your vocals? Do you do things differently now?

Joey: Yeah, I mean, I am now more into ‘how this all is working’, ‘what are we doing here’, ‘who is taking care of this’ and ‘why is it like this’- it’s all business. I also want to have a lot more fun with the other members of the band, a lot more hands-on with each person so that you can connect better. Say that Scott (note: Ian/guitars) is in ‘that’ room and I am in ‘that’ room and that’s it – I try to change that. Then again, I also try to conserve myself because I am doing the singing and it’s not like somebody can stay up till four in the morning and then just get out of bed and feel “Ok” – there is something about the voice that makes it very sensitive and I always do my best to maintain it.

• Well, you are not doing yourself many favours vocals-wise on the new album. The band has a very long tour schedule to work with and that will certainly push your voice to the limit in the weeks/months to come!

Joey: Nobody thinks about those things, it is always “how many things can we do”!? I looked at the last schedule and I thought “shit, we are doing nine/ten days in a row” – I mean, nobody is doing that! If they are, I don’t know what they are doing music-wise and how far they are travelling, you know? I have done more even with my own band; we are doing things like fourteen shows in a row and we are also driving fourteen hours a day to get to the next show and blowing tyres on the way there! I don’t know, I just like to play! I don’t really think about it so much but there is also a point in time where you want to make sure that things are going to work and people are going to enjoy it more so we can do it more, otherwise this can be…not what you are hoping for, you know? It won’t work! You’ve got to make it happen and everybody needs to be happy when doing it because I find that if I am to be in a band where people are just satisfied without saying anything then it’s just bound to get kind of thinned-out, you know? You don’t want to put anybody in the position where he is just going to be like…if I feel that way…I have played with people like that who have never been to where I’ve been and I know that they are not right for me because they do not have my priorities checked out – they do not want to be here in the first place! I feel that and I cannot be with those people! The guy that I play with now, we are on the phone all day talking about the night before for hours! Just methodically thinking about what went wrong, what would we do and what can we do to change it. That’s how things should be. We say the same things over and over again but that makes a lot of sense to me, you know? Or we watch DVDs and we say things to each other like “I watched this thing and I noticed so much stuff that we can do” and I feel like a little kid, you know? But that is part of it.

• Joey, forgive me but I really need to ask you this question. Believe me when I say that there is no ulterior motive, it’s a question that comes from the heart and from somebody who loves this band and simply wants to know what is really happening with it. I have read quite a few articles and interviews with you and other members of the band these past few months and I am left with the impression that it has not been decided if you are back with Anthrax for the long run or whether this is simply a temporary arrangement. Now, I am one of those people that cannot think of Anthrax without Joey Belladonna behind the mic so, as you understand, I am really interested to hear what it is that you have to say on the matter! What’s the deal here? Have you guys openly spoken about what will happen when the touring for “Worship Music” is over?

Joey: There hasn’t been any such talk but, if anything, we are already gearing up for more stuff. We’ve got a lot of new personal people involved who are putting things in the position that we are touring the right way, putting things on a specific timeframe and where things are thought out right and not for us to miss a good opportunity as a result of not thinking things through properly. We are doing all that stuff. All the touring between now and the end of the year is all really planned out nicely and everybody has enough time to prepare themselves properly. Now albums-wise, it obviously takes time to do stuff and people do tend to say things like “you guys started writing new stuff again” but our answer would be “not yet” as we have been touring. Put it this way: there is no such thing as ‘testing waters’ happening right now – we are not at that stage. We are at the stage where we are rolling; we are a band and I guess that all that you can do is to make sure that everything that you are doing is made properly and in everybody’s hands so each person has a fair shot at looking at exactly what has been done so that they can make some changes. I am up for it… I am not here to test anything – all I know is that when you are doing something that you want you have to make sure that everything is as fair as possible so that you are not just riding for the hell of it, you know what I mean? It’s just one of those things that make more sense. I mean, I am not going to sit around to see if the band is good enough for me or whether I am good enough for them because, either way, if it doesn’t multiply then fine – that’s the way it is! I mean look at…why…they had to bring out all that stuff without me – why was I not there before? I didn’t do…I am no different now, if anything I am better! It’s just something that they wanted to do and I am still baffled by that anyhow! I mean, we missed out on a lot of time there! Unfortunately, maybe it worked out for the better but I didn’t choose that, so…I am not sitting around thinking “do I want to stay or do I want to go” – it’s not that! It absolutely isn’t that. I wanna be good at what we are doing and do it right and I would love to do it for as much as possible. Who in this band can do what we do if we are not together? We can’t! It’s just…really, I shouldn’t say that we can’t but it’s really hard to put yourself into another band and hope that you can really do what we do as a group because we are together – it’s the right recipe, you know? It seems to work.

• Joey, take it for somebody who has been listening to this band loyally over the years; Anthrax only really make sense if you guys stick together! I mean no disrespect to any past singers but that is how things are.

Joey: That’s a hard thing too! The whole thing is probably one of the…not hard but the one thing that I never thought I would be dealing with is like comparing because I don’t feel that there’s any comparing – these were too different things (note: Joey seems to be referring to the John Bush era here). Do I really need to get into that? I don’t really care! It’s not whether I like or dislike anything, it’s just that I don’t have any time to think that one was better than the other or whatever, you know? I do what I do so I do not think about such things!

• That is the healthiest approach one can follow for sure.

Joey: I am glad that I do not have to chase any of it to be honest with you. I did one song live from the old stuff…he had to but not me – I just rather not, you know? I don’t want to have to sit there and have to dwell on comparisons. If you name any other bands that have been through such a situation you will see that they don’t really follow that either – there is no need to. When it comes to a voice, you don’t need to try to change somebody’s style, that is the thing. I wanna have my own style and to be this ‘dude that wasn’t there before’. I mean, it’s hard to do that. I do that in my cover bands all day long but I do that because I want to but at this stage I’d rather not. I think that we’re doing quite well right now, I think that everything is really the best that it can be and we just have to make sure that we keep doing what it is that we are doing. We haven’t stopped yet; we just keep plugging away!

• You guys have spoiled people rotten with this whole ‘The Big 4’ thing! It has been a huge success; it has been well documented and as you will certainly appreciate people are simply left wanting more. Will you guys consider repeating the exercise sometime in the future?

Joey: I don’t even have any say in that and neither do we all. I just think that there is a great possibility for this to happen again but I also think that this is something for Metallica to figure out. It’s really Metallica who are going to dictate when they are ready to do something, when it is that they are going to do it and whenever we receive ‘that call’ we will be there! We always have the ‘bat phone’ ready to go, you know (laughs)? As soon as the phone rings we will find the time! I think that you will see something.

• Do you remember there being a form of healthy competition between the bands? Do you remember thinking to yourselves “you know what, I am going to go on stage now and show them how it’s done”?

Joey: Oh no. Believe me, everybody’s got the best intentions of being as good as possible but I know that on that whole tour there is no way for each to compare with one another. I love that because we are so different from one another and yet we belong in the same ‘building’. We may play together but there are so many differences. I mean, just the fact that I am the only lead singer without holding any guitar, which is cool!

• You know what, I never actually thought of that one – quite an interesting point indeed.

Joey: That is awesome! Just that alone makes us different but I also think that our music is much different from the rest of the bands but, again, we all seem to fit so well together. There are some people who went “why do you guys go out first” and I am “I don’t mind going out first”. I mean, that is a very exciting time of the day, even though it is early in the sense that people are still filtering things in I still love that because it is something else…what a kick off, you know? And then we’re done, you know – we’ve done our part. Then we would go out later we used to join them every night and so we got to see everybody again.

• Joey, once again, it has been an absolute pleasure talking to you. I want to wish you all the best on both a personal and professional level, health and every success possible.

Joey: Thank you man – I really appreciate that! I hope so too! I really cannot wait for more things to come and I still like to do some of my own stuff just to keep myself busy. I do have to go and play small bars when I go home, play drums and sing and be as happy as I can be, you know? It’s all just a part of making noise, music and getting to watch people to come and hopefully enjoy themselves with what we do. That’s really what I like most about playing, you know?

• Ok, thank you very much.

Joey: You’re welcome.

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