INTERVIEW: Charlie Benante - Anthrax [Download Festival]

The last time thrash metal legends Anthrax toured Australia was in 2013 for the now defunct Soundwave Festival and fans have been itching to catch the band live again ever since. The wait is over as the band are set to return down under for the 2019 Download Festival! After coming off a North American tour with Slayer for their final world tour and currently celebrating 30 years of iconic 1988 album “State Of Euphoria” with a re-release package, we chatted to drummer Charlie Benante about the latest with Anthrax and their upcoming tour to Australia.

Andrew: We’re obviously excited to see you coming to Australia again for the Download Festival. it’s been a while since the last time we saw you.

Charlie: It’s been a long, long time! I don’t know why it takes so damn long for us to get back there.

Andrew: [laughs] Well every time you do come here we definitely get excited about it because we can’t get enough of Anthrax. It’s going to be a good tour, you guys will be doing a couple of shows for Download and hopefully and I don’t know if it’s been confirmed or not, you might be doing some side shows on top of that as well?

Charlie: It hasn’t been confirmed but it could possibly go that way!

Andrew: Obviously there’s a difference between club shows and festivals, do you approach each type differently or is it all the same to you?

Charlie: Well it’s different in the sense that you have to reach way more people. You can’t just play to a couple of thousand people or whatever, this is massive so you want the person at the back to also feel like they’re part of it.

Andrew: Do you have a preference between the two types of shows at all?

Charlie: I kind of enjoy them both, it’s a different vibe. Sometimes you have to be a little more animated at festivals as you would on say a theatre or arena type of place but for the most part you are still playing the songs that people want to hear and you’re hoping that it’s reaching them no matter if they are 50 feet away from you or 5000 feet away from you.

Andrew: So I understand that you are now celebrating 30 years of ‘State Of Euphoria’ which is an amazing album but also amazing for the fact that it’s been 30 years. So can we expect a lot of material from that album then?

Charlie: We’ve really been trying to incorporate a little more of that record into some of the shows. We’ve managed to throw in 2, maybe 3 but I would like to throw in another obscure one so I mean by the time March comes around maybe we will be well into it.

Andrew: Yeah hopefully! What was it like to revisit some of these songs when you were putting together the re-release package? Was it nostalgic to revisit these songs again and think about what you were doing when you were first recording these songs 30 years ago?

Charlie: Oh absolutely and the one thing about it is I totally approached these songs in a different way. I was listening to them with a different set of ears because back in the day when we were actually doing the record, I was so close to it and I was listening to it from the inside looking out. Now I kind of approached it in a different way, I was looking or listening from an outsider and it was quite different and I liked it a lot better now.

Andrew: Yeah I guess there’s an appreciation for it after some time. It did say in the press release for the album that you had mentioned that the album was never really properly finished, can you elaborate on that and what you meant by not finished properly?

Charlie: Yeah I really gotta clarify that. Basically I think that kind of got a little out of hand with people thinking that we hated a record and blah, blah blah, that’s not true. I would say about 75 to 80 percent of that record is finished, there was just a little bit of it that we felt it could of used a little more attention and a little more time. The problem was we had the record company a little bit on our back and we had this massive tour that was about to take place in Europe called Monsters Of Rock that we couldn’t pull out of, we had to do that so our timing got a little affected by the whole thing. We don’t hate this record at all, there’s some great moments on this album so I just wanted to clarify that.

Andrew: Yeah definitely! I mean 30 years, a lot has obviously happened in that time. What do you take away from the fact that it’s been 30 years? What keeps the band going at this stage?

Charlie: That’s a good question in it’s easy to say that the whole audience, the music, all of that keeps you going which of course is the truth. The hardest part for us at this point is the travel and stuff like that, that’s the hardest part about doing this and I’m sure every other musician will tell you the same thing that the moments that you’re up there and enjoying it is the greatest thing. It’s the other time, the down time and the flying time and travelling and all that stuff, that’s the thing that gets to you the most. That’s what makes it, ‘Aargh’, boring.

Andrew: Sure and you just did a run of shows with Slayer in North America and obviously they are calling it quits next year or the year after so has that made you think of the longevity of Anthrax as well then?

Charlie: I mean when they announced it, and other bands have announced it too here and there – Kiss have announced it now – but I think the Slayer thing was maybe a bit of a shock and maybe not so much of a shock but I think they want to go out in a different way and I totally respect that. I think it’s very respectful the way that they are doing it. I don’t have that thought in my head at this point, I still think we have a bunch of things to achieve, especially personally so I don’t see that happening with us at this point.

Andrew: I spoke to Scott Ian recently as he had just come down here for a spoken word solo tour and he was saying that you guys are going back to the studio pretty soon to record the next Anthrax album.

Charlie: Probably next year some time. I have a ton of material that we have yet to kind of start to get together, I’ve sent them demos and stuff like that but it’s still not in the shape of the band is playing it now if you know what I mean. So it’s in no way ready to be recorded but I’m very excited about the possibility of creating new music.

Andrew: Yeah absolutely, looking forward to that. So it’s been about 5 years since you were last here and when I asked Scott Ian about some of the career highlights coming down to Australia over the years, he said nothing really special has happened here as far as crazy tour stories, at least from his persepctive. Are you able to share with us any great moments in Australia over the years at all?

Charlie: Every time I come to Australia it’s an event because like I said, I don’t get to do it that much. So when we come down there, even right now just to be honest with you, I know we’re coming down there in March, I’m already trying to plan certain things that I could do on a day off like go check out some sharks or stuff like that and once I get down there I’m so burnt I never get to do anything.

Andrew: [laughs] It is a long flight and like you mentioned about the bad part of being in a band is the touring side of things with travel, I’ve done that flight a few times myself so I don’t know how you can do it constantly all the time.

Charlie: Yeah it’s definitely a long flight! The last time I was down there I had a day off in Melbourne and my Paiste rep had gotten me in to see a tattoo artist who I spent the whole day with doing some tattoo work. So that’s how I spent my day off in Melbourne!

Andrew: [laughs] Well that’s alright! We are looking forward to seeing you again, it has been far too long so we are excited to see you guys put on another show for us at Download Fetival. Thanks for your time Charlie, it’s really appreciated and we will see you next year.

Charlie: Oh thank you so much, take care man!