DAN NELSON WON’T LET A LITTLE CASE OF ANTHRAX GET HIM DOWN

Dan Nelson is already a legend, and not necessarily in a good way. Like Gary Cherone or Blaze Bailey, he’s going to go down in history as a dude who was hired to be the new singer for a well-known band, only to get the boot fairly quickly; unlike Cherone of Bailey, the work he did with this particular well-known band will either never see the light of day, or slip out only as a bootleg. A fairly limited number of ‘Thrax fans ever got to see him perform live with the band, so really there’s only a small part of the population that has any sense of what his contributions may have been, positive or negative.

But Nelson is from Strong Island, and ain’t gonna let no Scott Ian or Charlie Bananas get him down. According to Metal Underground, Nelson has started a new project with drummer Paul Bostaph.

If for some reason you’re not familiar with Bostaph’s work, please allow me to school you. He was a founding member of Bay Area thrashers Forbidden and took Dave Lombardo’s spot in Slayer for eight of the ten years that Lombardo was out the band. And even though he’s obviously no Dave Lombardo, well, no one really is, and I think his work with Slayer – particularly Diabolus in Musica and God Hates Us All – to be really underrated.

Most recently Bostaph played for Exodus, and he’s currently hittin’ skins for Testament.

One dude. Who’s been in Slayer, Exodus, and Testament. Motherfucker obviously has what industry insiders like to call “insane talent.”

So it speaks well of Nelson that Bostaph wants to play with him. And hopefully something exciting will come of the collaboration – something exciting that allows Dan Nelson to reserve a cushier spot in metal history.

-AR