Anthrax drummer Charlie Benante was recently interviewed by Robert Cavuoto of Metal Rules and talked about his touring schedule with Pantera and whether that will delay the follow-up to Anthrax’s 2016 album “For All Kings”.
Benante said, “We’re actually going in two weeks to start recording the record. But it probably wouldn’t come out til ’24 anyway. But the good part about it is we are going in to start recording it. So that’s awesome.”
Benante explained the time between albums, “If we didn’t get hit with this whole global pandemic thing, it would have been out probably two years ago, three years ago. But we all know what happened. But now, being that some of the songs were [written] before the pandemic hit, they’re old to me. So now there’s a bunch of new songs that kind of came in the mix. So that’s a good thing. You can never have enough… We’re still working on the older ones because we really like a lot of those.”
Charlie talked about maybe releasing EPs and not full-length albums, “What if it wasn’t a full album? If we released six songs and then we released another six songs. I know from a record company’s point of view that really doesn’t work, but in these days. Think about it. If Anthrax released five songs and you have these five songs, and you absorb it in such a different way nowadays, too. I think that may be the way to go, rather than give everybody 11 songs and it’s like, ‘Oh — I only had a chance to listen to the first four or five.’ I don’t know. I just think maybe the business model is different.”
You may remember back in January that Benante told We Go To 11 that Anthrax was going into the recording studio this spring to work on a new album, “Between the Pantera [tour dates in 2023], we’re gonna be working on this record, this Anthrax record. We’re hoping to have it finished before Pantera go to Europe [in late May]. I have a little window after that, before [Pantera’s stadium tour with] Metallica starts. At least if I get my drum tracks done, then the other guys can continue to work on it. That’s the plan. Unless something else happens, but hopefully nothing will happen.”
Exciting news, right? Expect big things from one of the ‘big four’ bands.