So that idiot Neil Turbin had gotten the head of Dan Lilker. “It was very exciting to make a record, too bad I got kicked out of the band three days after it came out“, the future bassist told me Brutal Truth in an interviewseveral years ago. Scott Ian explained that the singer of Fistful of Metal he was more interested in appearance than in music and therefore did not tolerate anything other than the tiny stages on which they played Anthrax at the time there was… Someone taller than him. Nobody could stand Turbin and a few months it was his turn to be kicked out. For lack of better ideas, the very young son of the drummer’s sister was recruited on the four strings Charlie Benante. “The first track I recorded was Lone Justice. At first my hands were shaking too much with emotion to be able to find the pick”, is the memory shared by Frank Bello in the long documentary series available on the group’s YouTube channel. What would become the greatest rhythm section in the history of thrash metal had just been born.
The singer, however, was nowhere to be found. One day a guy from New Jersey showed up in the room who would turn out to be a kind of Dan Nelson ante litteram. When there was the opportunity to play in support of the Scorpions he gave up and gave up. The others, however, had ambitions, enormous ambitions. It was 1985 and anything seemed possible. “We didn’t want to play Judas Priest covers, we wanted to become the new Judas Priest,” Scott said again. Meanwhile they found themselves in the recording studio, after having signed a contract with Megaforce, with no one to put behind the microphone. Out of desperation Ian himself had thought of trying it himself. Then a local producer recommended a guy who at first glance seemed unsuitable. Dressed in glam style, he had brought some covers of Journey and Foreigner, not exactly the genre he was aiming for. But he was too good to let it slip away. “We had found our Halford, our Dickinson, our God,” is Ian’s recollection of the Joey Belladonna’s first audition.
Having a singer with a similar vocal range and approach pushed the group toradical evolution. Fistful of Metal it was bad speed, a good job but nothing that foreshadowed what would happen next. Like i MegadethAnthrax exploded on their second album. Far from the Bay Area, they had developed a unique sound, where not only Nwobhm and punk, roots of the Californian school, but also New York hardcore and American hard rock collided. As an aperitif, it comes out Armed and Dangerousa half-ballad.
When you leave A.I.R. il revolutionary use of the double case Benante immediately hits the stomach. There are radio choruses and acoustic guitars but the average speeds are very high. Not as much as a Reign In Bloodclear, but Spreading the Disease played an important role in fixing new standards of sonic violence. The frenzy of Gung-Hothe particular structures of Madhouse. In terms of aesthetics and content, however, Anthrax couldn’t have been more different from the other three Big Four. Hetfield and Mustaine were alpha males to the nth degree, Araya was the vicar of the Devil. Anthrax, in comparison, appeared like very normal kids from the outskirts of a city too large, dispersed and sprawling to allow them to take themselves too seriously. People with an affable and slightly awkward look, with whom fans could easily identify. Two Jews and three Italians from Queens, not the bottom but not the top of the food chain, so to speak. And they certainly weren’t cool. Scott Ian was a nerd who loved comics, horror movies, Stephen King books and so on. And he poured all this imagery into the lyrics, albeit to a lesser extent than above Among the Livingwith which Anthrax would codify their sound. The charm of Spreading the Diseasewhich I continue to prefer, however, also lies in the fact that a precise stylistic direction was still missing: one The Enemy they wouldn’t write it again.
Once the recordings were finished, the studio remained available for another couple of days. Scott and Charlie had a reunion with Dan and called a singer friend of theirs, Billy Milano. The result was a record that, paradoxically, gained even greater historical relevance: Speak English or Die of SOD But that’s another story. (Ciccio Russo)
