Last month, Anthrax shared an Instagram post that revealed the thrash metal legends were “forging new metal in an undisclosed location.” Bassist Frank Bello said the band hoped to have a new record out sometime in 2022, and drummer Charlie Benante said the new record “will span the history of our musical landscape. It’s weird and p*ssed off whatever it is.” In a new, wide-ranging interview with Metal Injection, guitarist Scott Ian shared more information on the forthcoming album. “We were just together writing,” Ian said. “We have songs and all I can say is we will get in the studio when we’re ready, which I hope is this year. I would love that. I think we’re getting there. I think we have great songs. I think people will be very happy. Not to make a weird comparison, but it’s our third record back together with Joey. Actually, it’s an odd comparison. I should just say it’s our third album since our kind of our reboot in 2010 and our third album back in the day was ‘Among the Living.’ I’m not saying that this is, because it’s not Among the Living II in any sense, but I just think we have some great songs and there’s like a f*cking mountain of great riffs. I think people are going to be very happy.”
Last month Web Is Jericho posted an article highlighting 10 underrated Anthrax tunes. Ian also spoke to Metal Injection about his ’70s rock influences ahead of the May 6 release of a new album from his side project, Motor Sister. The Mother Superior tribute turned full-blown band releases their sophomore album “Get Off,” on May 6 through Metal Blade.The group is comprised of Ian, vocalist and guitarist Jim Wilson (Mother Superior, Rollins Band), bassist Joey Vera (Armored Saint, Fates Warning), drummer John Tempesta (White Zombie, The Cult) and vocalist/Ian’s wife Pearl Aday (Pearl, Meat Loaf).
“Most of the people in the public world who know me, they know me from Anthrax and they have an idea of what that means to them and that’s all great,” Ian said. “But I’m a ’70s rock kid. I mean, if my beard doesn’t do it, I’m giving away my age. I started playing guitar when I was nine. That was in 1973. And the words heavy metal didn’t exist for all the ’70s. For me it was probably around ’79 or ’80 when that term actually became part of the lexicon. And even still, it was “heavy metal, that’s a magazine! What do you mean, heavy metal?” Of course the words thrash metal and speed metal was even a few more years into the 80s. You know, I’m a kid in the ’70s and by ’75-76 I’m listening to KISS and Zeppelin and Aerosmith and Ted Nugent and Cheap Trick and The Ramones and AC/DC. It’s ’77 and there’s Scorpions and Rainbow and Sabbath, so on and so on. I’m a hard rock kid from the ’70s. That’s how I learned how to play guitar by listening to all of those records and sitting in my room and playing along. And so getting to play in Motor Sister very much takes me back to the reason I started playing guitar in the first place. Because Motor Sister is very much more akin to let’s say Free or Bad Company or Humble Pie or Sabbath than it is to Iron Maiden and Judas Priest.”
