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Watch: ANTHRAX Performs JOHN BUSH-Era Song ‘Only’ Live For First Time In More Than A Decade

todayJuly 27, 2022 20

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ANTHRAX kicked off its North American tour with BLACK LABEL SOCIETY last night (Tuesday, July 26) at Van Buren in Phoenix, Arizona. ANTHRAX‘s 12-song setlist included the surprising addition of the John Bush-era track “Only”, which hadn’t been performed live since 2011.

“Only” originally appeared on 1993’s “Sound Of White Noise”, one of four albums Bush recorded with ANTHRAX during his 13-year tenure with the band.

In a 2016 interview with KazagastãoBelladonna said about his exit from ANTHRAX in 1992 before officially rejoining the band in 2010: “It’s sucky that I was gone for that long, you know what I mean? I never understand that. It does bother me [that I was fired], even today, ’cause… We didn’t miss a beat and I think we would have done… I can’t imagine what we could have done along the way. No offense to anything else, but I just didn’t see any reason for it.”

Asked if he had heard any material ANTHRAX recorded with Bush during the time Belladonna was away from the band, Joey said: “I don’t listen to it. I have no interest in it. I don’t know… Something about it. It doesn’t really appeal to me, for some reason. I mean, I enjoy that they play the way they do and everything, I just never… I never was interested in it. It wasn’t anything against [Bush] at all.”

He continued: “I always like to look at it like… I remember when [SammyHagar came in [after joining VAN HALEN], he had to do the old stuff. But when [David LeeRoth came back, he wasn’t gonna touch anything, even though he probably would have a hard time doing it. So we’ve got enough material; I don’t need to go back. I’d just as soon leave that alone. I mean, once in a while I get people complaining, and then after a while, it got really old too. I hate that whole thing, ’cause we’re not even the same… We happened to be in the same band, but it’s a completely different thing. And who’s judging? What’s the deal with that? To think that what he was doing, that he could have done what I did in the beginning, I don’t believe that.”

Joey went on to say that he dislikes being compared to any other other ANTHRAX singers. “That’s what I hate about the whole thing,” he said. “I hate that there was even anybody else in there that I have to… But now I just don’t care about it — I really don’t — ’cause I can’t. To me, it’s just a bunch of hype. It sucked in the beginning; it really did.”

In one of the video testimonials to coincide with ANTHRAX‘s 40th anniversary in 2021, current and former members of the band reflected on Belladonna‘s original departure and Bush‘s addition as his replacement.

Regarding the decision to part ways with BelladonnaIan said: “By the time we finished the year-and-a-half touring cycle — 20, 21 months of touring cycle, and then ‘[Attack Of The] Killer B’s’ comes out. I think the last thing we did together as a band with Joey was [our appearance] on [the] ‘Married With Children’ [TV show]. And then it wasn’t long after that when we made the change. But it wasn’t a quick decision. We were very much a united front, the four of us. Because otherwise it wouldn’t have happened.

“Obviously, things are meant to be,” Scott added. “I am somewhat of a spiritual person. I’ve seen and done enough in my life to know that sometimes shit doesn’t just happen randomly. The way everything worked out in the end, with Joey coming back in 2010, and the band, for the last 11 years, being creatively better than we’ve ever been and in a better place than we’ve ever been, I have to say that I really believe that it all worked out for some reason. That doesn’t make it any easier on Joey certainly; there’s nothing I can say that ever would.”

Bello said about Belladonna‘s exit from the group: “It’s so strange for me to even talk about this now, because Joey‘s back in the band now, and it’s like he’s never been gone.

Added Benante: “The 1991 me was more arrogant than I am now. Because the problem is I love Joey so much, and at the time we were different people doing it, and we felt this was the only thing for us to take us into the next level or the next chapter of the band. Yeah, it was tough.”

Ian previously opened up about the decision to fire Belladonna three decades ago during a 2016 appearance on the “WTF With Marc Maron” podcast. He stated at the time: “I just truly didn’t have the patience anymore. I think my biggest problem was I was writing the words, and I couldn’t deal with the fact anymore that someone else was singing my lyrics, but I couldn’t sing; there was no way I could be the singer of ANTHRAX. I think it really, really did come down to that — that I couldn’t stand it anymore. These are my words, these are my feelings, it’s my emotions, and you’re not me. And even learning the songs and hearing them back, that’s not how I hear it in my head. ‘No, no. Like this. Like this. Like this. Like this.'”

“If you listen to ‘Persistence Of Time’ [1990], musically, that record has more to do with ‘Sound Of White Noise’, the first John Bush record, than it has to do with ‘State Of Euphoria’ [1988], the previous ANTHRAX album. Musically, we were already going somewhere else, but Joey, for us, I guess at the time, felt like, ‘He’s not representing us anymore.'”

Ian went on to say that he has since come to see Joey‘s unique vocal contributions in a different light than he did more than twenty years ago. “Of course, I spent a year of my life writing a book [‘I’m The Man: The Story Of That Guy From Anthrax’] and looking back on that time and really kind of getting back into those shoes, and… we should have given the guy a shot,” he said. “Why we didn’t give him the shot, I really don’t know why we weren’t able to… Because I even remember, I remember Jonny Z, our manager, he was, ‘Are you sure? Are you sure this is the decision you wanna make?’ ‘Yes, yes, yes.'”

“I wanted it to be harder,” Ian said. “I couldn’t do it, but I wanted someone who could almost… I wanted it to be harder. I didn’t want Lemmy — I didn’t want it to sound like that — I just wanted it to be harder. And John [Bush] brought it, for sure.”

Bush told Metal Talk about the task of replacing Joey Belladonna in ANTHRAX back in 1992: “I respect Joey Belladonna; he did great for ANTHRAX in his heyday and in the years that he made records and they were popular. You know, I think I just went out and did it from my heart and just said, ‘Hey, I’m gonna go out and kick ass and sing to the best of my ability.’ And I think we made some great records. I just think they were different records than what ANTHRAX did in the ’80s.”

ANTHRAX‘s latest album, “For All Kings”, which features Belladonna, came out in February 2016 via Nuclear Blast.

ANTHRAX‘s setlist for the July 22, 2022 concert at Van Buren in Phoenix, Arizona:

02. Caught In A Mosh
03. Madhouse
04. Metal Thrashing Mad
05. Breathing Lightning
06. Keep It In The Family
07. Antisocial (TRUST cover)
08. I Am The Law
09. In The End
10. Only
11. Bring The Noise (PUBLIC ENEMY cover)
12. Indians

ANTHRAX‘s tour with BLACK LABEL SOCIETY will wrap up in Philadelphia at the Fillmore on Sunday, August 28. Both bands are playing headline sets. HATEBREED, celebrating the 20th anniversary of the “Perseverance” album, is the special guest.

Source:  www.blabbermouth.net

Written by: Andy

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