Intervju med FRANK BELLO från ANTHRAX

Under intervjun kommer även Anthrax-sångare Joey Belladonna och Mastodon-basisten Troy Sandlers på besök. Frank smsar även med hans Big Four-kollegor Lars Ullrich (Metallica) och Kerry King (Slayer) under intervjun. Vi inleder vårt snack med att prata om hans absolut bästa upplevelse som medlem i Anthrax.

RS: Since you been doing this for so long.

Frank Bello: Yes! Way before you were born! (Laugh)

RS: What is your favourite experience from this whole journey?

FB - Woaw, the whole Journey! It's probably when we played Yankie Stadium last year with Big Four! Just to being a New Yorker! Thoose four bands playing Yankie Stadium together. And we did it the day after ''Worship Music''' came out, so we were going inside there with the new record and Big Four at the Yankie Stadium, so it was a very very special time!

RS: Are you going to use your Yankie shirt today?

FB - No, not tonight. Because those are actually at the Hard Rock Café! They took it at the Yankie Stadium which is great! They hung it up, so it's kind of cool!

RS - Cool! Is it anything you would do different or change from this whole bandtime?

FB - No. I think this is the only way to get what we did. Because it's hard! Well your here now and you can see the great thing about it right now but it's a lot of hard work behind it! It's very hard! It's not easy to travel, and be away from your family. I have a six year old son, so it's very hard to be away from your family. It's pain inside the fun to you know!

RS - Yeah I can see that! When you were young, did you use to go to a lot of concerts and stuff?

FB - Yeah sure I did! I mean, this is way back in the 70's! Like KISS and Van Halen, Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest and all that great stuff! And it made me wanna play!

RS - Cool! And now your band is one of the biggest thrash bands and it's - to be honest- really cool for me to sit down with you right now. But who would you like to meet?

FB - Oh god! Who do i want to meet now? I've met a whole lot of persons! And i'm very lucky that way!

RS - Who's been the coolest so far?

FB - One of my favourite people in the world is Steve Harris (Iron Maiden).

'Joey Belladonna comes'

RS - Hello Mr.Belladonna!

FB - Hey Joey! Wanna join?

Joey Belladona (While eating a banana): Oh no, sorry i'm going to eat now.

FB - Well you got something on your lip there!

JB - Yeah it's banana, right? (Laugh)

FB - (Points at Belladonnas glas bottle) Whats that you have in the waterbottle?

JB - Coffee! (Laugh)

FB - In the bottle? (Me and Frank laugh)

JB - Yes! It's warm!

FB - (Touch the bottle) Yeah it's hot!

JB - Perfect place for it! No toxic, no plastic no anything! (Walks away and keep on talking about his coffee)

FB - Hey Emil, all singers are crazy! Remember that!

RS - (Laugh) Yeah but you guys are both cool.

FB - Yeah I'm great!

RS - Okey let's go back to the interviewing! Joeys indian culture...

FB - (Mishears) No! i'm not indian! Joey are! I'm American Italian!

RS - Yes. Do you think the different cultures within the band inspire the bands music?

FB - Yeah! Or not the cultures, but we're from New York. We all grow up in New York for the most part. I still live in New York, the other guys live in different places. But i think it's an mentality, a kind of street thing going. You know, it made us a little tougher.

RS - While touring with Big Four and bands like that. Do you guys hang out together a lot?

FB - You see what we got here? (A lot of loges for all different bands at the festival)

RS - Yeah!

FB - That's what we got while touring with stuff like Big Four And were really good friends with Slayer so we are going to hang out with them toningt! And everybody in Big Four is really good friends. We could all hang out and just have a laugh. Everybodys good and nice people, and we all grew up together!

RS - Do you have contact with the other guys in different bands outside ''work'' or do you guys just keep it professional?

FB - Yeah! I actually just texted with both Lars (Ullrich) and Kerry (King). And I saw Kerry last day, we played the same place.

(Troy Sandlers from Mastodon walks buy)

FB - Hello Troy! How are ya? Everything's good?

Troy - Yeah. It was nice to hang out with you guys!

FB - Yeah, it was nice!

RS - And it took seven years between ''We Come For You All'' and ''Worship Music'', Why?

FB - Yes. It was too long. But we also went through legal problems.

RS - Like what?

FB - Lawyers and stuff. They get envolved with your buissness and when they do it they can expend stuff out. And then we got Joey back, we went through a singer transformation. But it worked out for the best, For me and what you told me, we both think Anthrax is best were it is today. People say it's the best record that we've ever put out.

RS - Yes! I think it's the best to.

FB - Thank you! Thank's for the compliment. I'm appreciating that! You'll see, you just said that and you are the youth. You see, you, your fanbase, and your agegroup 15 right?

RS - Yes.

FB - Well we have everyone from your age to 45.

RS - I've met older Anthrax fans today too!

FB - You have? Great! Everybodys welcome! We love it. We did and we do the Big Four and our new record and that helped us a lot to! It opened us up to a whole new crowd. And it's very sucessful now! I'm very happy!

RS - How was it to play with Jason (Shadows Fall) & Gene (Testament)?

FB - Jason who?.. Ahh! Jason Bittner?

RS - Yes.

FB - Yeah, Gene Hoglan and Jason Bittner filled in cause Charlie had to be away for a while. They are both great. I've known Jason forever and Gene Holgan is just a machine! He's amazing! So they're both great people, great drummers that did us a favor to come out to play with us when Charlie could not make it.

RS - So Charlie's back?

FB - Yes. Charile is here. We're related Charlie and I, and my grandmother just passed away so we had to take some time away, I had to go away for a while and my friend Joey Vera filled in for me on bass in Anthrax, but it was hard. She was like my mother so it was very hard! We had to take some time of but we didn't want to cancel shows, but they did a great job filling in for us!

RS - What is the worst experience in the band?

FB - Ever?

RS - Yes. I know it was hard when your mother passed away. But is there anything else you feel is a real bad experience?

FB - Yes, when you loose somebody like that it's the toughest time. My brother was murdered at 23 years old.

RS - Ahh that's really sad, i'm sorry.

FB - No it's okay. It was a tough time and i had to go on tour 10 days later. I didn't want to but i had to cause you had the tour and you could not disappoint the fans. But life goes on after touring sometimes you know.

RS - Yeah. I understand you love your fans when you do something like that! So how much is for the fans and how much is for the money then?

FB - Well think about it. Anthrax have been around for 40 years. And I don't even have a big house! (Laugh). My house is not big at all and I have a son, so all i want to do is to make a living. And I'm really lucky to make living of playing music. I know how lucky I am. But nobody's a millionare in my band, we just work. That's what we do. And we have to keep doing it. Don't get me wrong, we are very happy to play music - we love it.

RS - Alright. Well since you have so much fans and probably a lot of ''fans''. Do you get much negative response?

FB - You know if it's somebody that's don't like the things you do or the things you've done in the past, all I can say is 'I'm sorry, i'll try harder next time. Sorry hope you like the next think we do!'. Everybody got different music taste. You got yours, I've got mine, and on and on. But almost everyone likes something on "Worship Music" so that's important to us, and we are very happy!

RS - The fans like Anthrax, so as long as you like it they should be happy.

FB - Yes, cause we are fans of our band to! So if we like it, we know the fans will like it!

RS - Well since you are a quite of a big band, what is your biggest inspiration now compared to back in the days when Anthrax started?

FB - Well now we're going back to the bands like KISS, Steve Harris, Geddy Lee, Geezer Butler. Those guys and you know there are so many great bands. Led Zeppelin and some Aerosmith, old Aerosmith. And there is so much great music! Today i still want to learn stuff! You're never stop learning! Like you're 15. I started in Anthrax when I was 17, and I just said 'I wanna learn everything!'. And I don't want to stop learning! I wanna keep on going!

RS - When Anthrax started when you were so young, do you miss anything that you couldn't do as a teenager? (I doubt it)

FB - I had a choice. College or Anthrax? I love music, so it made sense for me at the time. If Anthrax haven't worked out i would went to college. I would not change anything.

RS - What is going to be the next big thing for Anthrax?

FB - Mayhem!

I go home tomorrow 10 days from now it's starting! With bands like Slipknot , Slayer, yeah you've probably heard about it. It's a big festival in America and it last for 6 weeks, so that's the next big thing and in the fall we tour with Testament and Death Angel.

After that we come back over here to Europe, we come to Europe with Motörhead so the rest of the year is full.

RS - Is there any Sweden dates coming up?

FB - I hope so! I haven't seen the dates yet. I hope so, we're gonna keep on going.

RS - Could we expect any new material soon?

FB - Yes, eventually we start working on a new album next year, but we're gonna do some fun cover stuff and have some fun with that! You'll see that later.

RS - That's all I got for this time! Hope to talk to you later on! Good luck with the show and the furture of the band!

FB - Thanks a lot! You're good! Bye.

Intervju Av Emil Agrell 18 jun 2012 05:58