Now the Rob Caggiano Drama Gets Interesting: Anthrax Drummer Speaks
Anthrax drummer Charlie Benante has broken the silence since ex-guitarist Rob Caggiano announced he had joined Volbeat earlier this week. I’ll stop short of saying Benante’s comments are controversial, but he seems just as confused as we were about Caggiano’s decision to join another band.
Metal Insider recently spoke with Benante and addressed the issue on everyone’s minds right away instead of beating around the bush:
I’m not going to dwell on this, but I’ll start by addressing the elephant in the room, which is Rob’s departure. Did you know he was creatively unsatisfied with Anthrax, or did it come as a surprise to you?
It was a bit of a surprise to me. I was bummed. He said that he wanted to pursue more producing options, and that was his reason for leaving. He had other reasons, so I guess it was something that he’d been thinking about for a while. He wanted to get back to producing and getting off the road. And you’re probably going to tell me, ‘well you do know he joined another band, right?’ That makes it a bit confusing. I know a lot of our fans were sad to see him go, but were like ‘if you want to go produce, we understand that.’ But when you read that he went to go join another band, that makes it seem a bit sketchy.
To be fair, Caggiano’s stated reason for leaving Anthrax (at least publicly) was that he didn’t feel creatively fulfilled — in other words, he wasn’t allowed to contribute to the writing process as much as he would’ve liked — and that he planned to pursue more production gigs to fulfill that creative need. Caggiano never explicitly said he wouldn’t join another band. He did, however, cite “the relentless touring schedule” as one reason he could no longer continue with Anthrax, so joining another, younger band who presumably have an even more relentless touring schedule does seem, to quote Benante, “a bit sketchy.”
Read the rest of the Metal Insider interview with Benante here; topics covered include Anthrax’s new covers EP, new fill-in guitarist Jon Donais (of Shadows Fall) and the band’s upcoming stint on the Metal Alliance tour.
