CHARLIE BENANTE: 'Now It Feels Like The ANTHRAX Of 1987'

Steven Patrick of Uweekly.com recently conducted an interview with ANTHRAX drummer Charlie Benante. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

Uweekly.com: So Charlie, when exactly will the recording process be completed for the upcoming album, "Worship Music"?

Charlie: [laughs] Um ... I don't know. I can't give you an accurate date or an accurate answer. All I can tell you is we are working on it out here on the road, and we will have it out by next year — probably summer or spring.

Uweekly.com: Are the songs totally changing now that Joey (Belladonna) is back on vocals?

Charlie: It's totally changing, yes. It's totally changing. Joey's already laid down vocals on one of the songs in a demo form and it totally sounds like ... kinda like "Spreading the Disease" or "Persistence". Around that time. It just took on that sound, right away.

Uweekly.com: How in the hell did you manage to keep what was recorded of "Worship Music" with ex-vocalist Dan Nelson from being leaked on the Internet?

Charlie: Because I was smart. As soon as the label in Europe said, "We want it. Send us the tracks," I said "Absolutely not." Ninety-five percent of the leakage comes from Europe and if a journalist has it, they're gonna put it up there. So Scott (Ian) went over to Europe and played it for everyone, individually and sometimes in a group. So, no one actually got a copy of it.

Uweekly.com: Do you think that the whole rap/metal thing you guys did with PUBLIC ENEMY back in the '80's and early '90s overshadowed your contributions to thrash metal in any way?

Charlie: No, we're considered one of the "Big Four" and that whole thing has gone ... it's like this whole entity in and of itself, you know? So, we're a metal band. We've always said that we are a metal band. We started out as a metal band. If we wanted to continue in the rap/metal genre then "Sound of White Noise" would have been, you know, a totally different record. But as you can see, we didn't want to do that. We pretty much stuck to what we know.

Uweekly.com: So how are things different now with Joey compared to the reunion tour back in 2005?

Charlie: For me, the reunion tour was not done in the proper way. We didn't have a chance to just get to know each other again, and it was like boom, boom, boom. You're on tour and fix your relationships out there. In the beginning of it, it was okay. It was like the honeymoon period but then the weirdness shit started to show again. I don't think we were prepared mentally for that. The difference between that and now is that we did that already. Now it feels like the ANTHRAX of 1987, like that period, because it just seems to be gelling easier with Joey and things are moving together a lot quicker.

Read the entire interview from Uweekly.com.