With rumors swirling since Anthrax drummer Charlie Benante and bassist Frank Bello were seen together with former Anthrax vocalist Joey Belladonna late last month in New York, the band — Benante, Bello, and guitarists Scott Ian and Rob Caggiano — is elated to announce that Belladonna has officially rejoined the band.
In his once and current capacity, Belladonna will make his first appearance with Anthrax this summer when the band joins Metallica, Slayer, and Megadeth — the "Big Four" founding bands of the thrash genre — to co-headline a series of Sonisphere Festivals in ten European cities, as well as playing a handful of Anthrax-headlined shows.
"I am super-excited about this," said Scott Ian. "Joey and the rest of the band came to see me play at a club in New York, I hadn't seen Joey for years, since the end of the reunion tour. Joey taps me on the shoulder, instant big hug, it felt like no time had gone by. The band dynamic is an interesting one — in Anthrax, Joey and I spent so many years of our lives together, we grew up together, we know each other so well, so it was like no time was lost."
Belladonna, an essential part of Anthrax's lineup from 1985 to 1992, sang on some of the band's most popular albums including "Spreading The Disease", "Among The Living" and "Persistence Of Time". He had reunited with original members of Anthrax for the 2005-2007 "Among the Living Tour", but this situation is different. Explained Belladonna, "I had been in touch with Charlie and Frank, then I got a call from their manager who said that everyone wanted me back in the band. I thought, 'are you guys for real? You want me up there, fronting the band like it was before?' I was thrilled. We've already started to reconnect with the old ways of having conversations. Everything is easy going and feels really good."
"We're going to do these summer shows and gel as a band," explained Charlie Benante, "get comfortable playing with each other again, and the energy from that should go right into making new music."
Immediately following the final Sonisphere festival in early August, the band will fly back to the US and begin writing and rehearsing for a new album that's expected to be out in early 2011.
*article from ultimate-guitar.com
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