Anthrax guitarist Scott Ian had a chat with MTVhive.com regarding the groups recent happenings and future plans. When it came to this months departure of guitarist Rob Caggiano from the group, Ian stated:
“We didn’t know he was planning on leaving while we were tracking this. He was literally finishing solos in Berlin on the last days of the tour. It wasn’t until after the tour ended and we started having conversations, and just to put it in a nutshell, he just needs to do his own thing at this point in time.
We knew he had a record that he was going to be doing possibly. We had already told him, if you need to take a hiatus, that’s fine. The best thing I can say is that he’s on a mission to do his own thing at this point. And I’m certainly not going to stand in his way.”
On how they picked his his temporary replacement, Shadows Fall‘s Jon Donais:
“It was actually Rob. He had already spoken to Jon and had kind of filled him in about what his plan was. He didn’t want to leave us hanging. As much as it sucks, this whole thing has been friendly.
I may think Rob has made a mistake by leaving the band, but at the same time he’s my friend and I back his decision all the way in whatever he needs to do. He feels the same about us. We all know Jon.
I’ve actually worked with him before on [comedian] Brian Posehn’s record. We all know he’s a great lead guitar player. And Jon said absolutely he wanted to do it.”
Regarding new Anthrax material:
“We did demo a song while we were over in Germany. We thought might get used in this TV show. So that kind of gave us the kick in the ass to start working. We also had a song that we never finished for Worship Music because it just needed some rewriting.
At the time, we were happy with the album and didn’t think it was missing anything, but then we started reworking this track on the tour in Europe and we finished it. I’d say it’s about 90 percent now. Once that one gets finished, I can say we started writing.
I’m pretty sure this song will be on the next record. And I know Charlie’s got a pretty good vault of ideas built up from over the last year, and I certainly have ideas. It’s just a case of getting together at some point in 2013. We’re not doing much touring this year.
By August, we’re done and the rest of the year we’re off, so we’ll be in writing mode and hopefully in recording mode by the end of the year.”
Anthrax will release their “Anthems” EP on March 19th. It finds the bands covering tracks from the likes of Rush, AC/DC, Boston, Thin Lizzy and more.
