Anthrax are Waiting to Release a New Album Until After Pandemic
Don’t tell Kataklysm’s Maurizio Iacono, who proclaimed it “un-metal” to delay an album release until after the pandemic, but Anthrax are poised to do exactly that.
Speaking to hard-hitting journalistic outpost Knotfest.com, Anthrax guitarist Scott Ian recently outlined the band’s plans for their next record. The band began writing new music last year and had planned to release it this year before Covid-19 came along and put everything on ice, and he says now they’re just gonna wait it out. He explained:
“We started writing new Anthrax last year — obviously, without a crystal ball knowing what was going to happen in the world, but with the intent of having a record out this year. Obviously, that’s not happening now. So we’re still writing — we’re still working on it. The COVID has obviously put a crimp in our plans, because we can’t just get together and jam when we want to, and traveling has become not so easy, and all of that. So we’ve just been, slowly but surely, working on new material. And if anything, it just affords us more time to come up with more stuff.
“We’ve never been the kind of band to have, like, 30 songs, and then we’re gonna choose the best 10 — we’ve never done that. I think the most we’ve ever had was maybe two more than we needed for a record, and it’s usually pretty obvious, like, ‘These two aren’t gonna make the record.’ But maybe this time around we’ll end up with 15 songs or something. But because we’re afforded this much time to be writing, it’s not like we’re gonna know, ‘These are 10 for the record, and who knows what we’ll do with these five.’ So I have a feeling it’s gonna be more, like, we’re gonna have 15 album tracks. We’re not releasing a double record, if it’s up to me, because what a waste of material that would be. But I just like the fact that we will have a lot of great material.
“Maybe sometime early next year we’ll be ready to go in and make a record — if it makes sense. I’ve said it before — I don’t wanna put a record out till we can play shows. For me, to put a record out in a vacuum, it makes no sense to me. I’m not gonna put a record out and not play proper gigs — I’m not gonna do that. So we have to be patient — everyone has to be patient.”
Anthrax aren’t the only band taking the wait-until-it’s-over approach, meaning a TON of new music is gonna come out all at once sometime around late 2021 or early 2022. That, in turn, means there’ll be a TON of touring right around that time, with bands struggling to secure venues (competing with bands in all other genres) and vying for fan dollars. Is all of that necessarily a good thing? I’m not so sure it is. Compare that to a band who releases new music now and has a clear lane for fan attention and dollars, albeit with no touring (they can always tour later). I dunno, I don’t have an answer, just thinking out loud here.
You can stream the whole chat below.
