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Interview with
Anthrax's
Charlie Benante
Interviewer:Dave Weddle
As masters of metal Anthrax embark on the UK leg of their 40th Anniversary tour, we caught up with drummer Charlie Benante. Charlie talks about the recent US tour, what we can expect for the UK shows, discusses Pantera, longevity, and artwork.
Check it out below.
Check it out below.
Charlie Benante Photo: David Weddle @dwconcertphotos
Hi Charlie, how are you doing, are you alright?
Hey man. Yeah, yeah I’m a little tired today my flight was really delayed yesterday, its just one of those days y’ know, but all good.
Big year this year. You’ve just completed the US leg of your 40th anniversary tour, with Hatebreed and Black Label Society. How did that go?
That went really, really well. It was very successful and when I say successful I don’t mean in a financial way, I mean it in erm, like emotionally it was a great thing to get back to doing this from the COVID situation that happened and having the audience all show up for it. Which is the other part of the success, we were very happy with that, everybody came out to these shows and it was some of the best shows that we’ve played so we are really on a high at the moment about that.
Your first UK gig is Birmingham I think then on from there?
Oh yeah, Birmingham. The thing about Birmingham, I mean I think every time we come over to play we’ve always played Birmingham of course, and for me when I was younger I always look to Birmingham as the place that Black Sabbath, Judas Priest where all those bands are from, its like the land of Heavy Metal y’ know. So for us to start in Birmingham it’s the best place to start it I think.
What can we expect from the Anthrax show? Is it going to be all your classics or have you got any of your newer stuff in there?
When you say new stuff you don’t mean brand new do you?
No, I’m talking from For All Kings.
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah absolutely. You know the set changed about three times on the U.S. run, we swap out this for another song, then we’d swap out this for another song. You know it’s hard to play your 40 years in an hour and a half set or whatever it is but um, we try. We really try to play the favourites but also try to play some deeper cuts. So the people who are coming to hear those favourites but also really wanna hear a song like “Keep It In The Family”, which we haven’t played in forever, you know, we put that back in the set and we really enjoy playing those old songs. And we put a new kind of twist on them too you know.
You had Chuck D out on the last tour in the US. Is he coming over to the UK?
No, no I don’t think so. I think Chuck made an appearance twice, in LA then he made an appearance in New York. And you know when Chuck comes on stage with us its like an earthquake. His voice just vibrates and it just resonates in your bones y’ know. He just got such a great voice, it’s like a Marshall cabinet in his voice you know.
It works so well with Metal doesn’t it?
It does work really well and y’ know, that song in general it was one of those songs that, man we didn’t know we just loved it so much and we just wanted to do our version of it. And people really reacted to it in a good way.
Over the next few months you’re also going out on the road with Pantera as well. How are you preparing for that and also the Anthrax tour?
Well trying to do for instance, there might be some shows, well there is one show in December where both bands are on the festival so, not the same day but the next day. If it works out like that then it will be great.
But I don’t want to say too much about the Pantera thing but for me it’s a very emotional thing for me personally. When we first spoke about it, Philip and I, that was one of the first things I said to him was ‘Dude, this is a very emotional thing for me because I was such good friends with Vinnie and Dime”, so for me this is going to be one of those things that I will have to represent them in this way so, I don’t wanna see any one else up there doing it but me.
Darrell was like the fifth member of the band for a while, he still is.
Looking back over the last 40 years with Anthrax in particular, the artwork style, I know you have had a lot to do with the album artwork. The only one you haven’t had anything to do with is “Fist Full of Metal”, but on from there you’ve had a hand in the cover art for most of the albums, is that right?
Pretty much every album cover. Except for Fistful, I pretty much designed or worked on.
How do you come up with the concepts for it? Is it during the writing or the recording of the album or do you come up with it completely separately?
It’s a weird thing. As the album kind of takes shape musically and lyrically, all of a sudden I will get an idea in my head of what the cover should look like. And its so weird to me because that’s how I am with the songs too. I’ll hear a song in my head already and I will have to get a guitar or something and get it on tape because I hear it, and I have to get it down right away. I love when that happens, because it comes from somewhere and I don’t question it but when it comes it’s the greatest thing because its like Wow this is something that, I didn’t sit down and think I need to write a song like this. Its just comes, its just natural. I think its something other musicians will probably agree with me that those are the best things when it happens that way, its kinda supernatural.
That’s good, it must feel good when that happens from your point of view, seeing what you’ve created?
Oh, I love it. And when you collaborate with an artist, Alex Ross did the last few covers for us and Alex is a giant in the comic book world. Alex’s art is something that, you know, when you go to a museum you just walk around and stare at people’s art, that’s how I am with Alex. I just stare at them for like, y’ know, it feels like hours. He is just such a great illustrator. He is a great artist and I was so happy that we got him to really marry the music with the art.
In terms of artwork, you sell your own artwork on your website charliebenante.com Is that something you do in your spare time a lot, or is that something that you’ve done and you’re leaving it in a box or is there a continuation? I know you started off at art college.
I started to go to art school, but I had to leave because the band was going to go on tour for the first time. And it was that decision then and there. Do I continue exploring my art and capabilities of being an artist? Or do I follow that dream of being a rock and roller and I chose the rock and roll lifestyle. But I can still do my art, which is the greatest thing. I would go up to the record company art departments and sit with them and really get an education. Especially in a marketing sense, you really get to learn about what colours pop, I mean this was back in the day when people would walk in to a record store and you would have the vinyl in the bin and stuff like that, I learned about all that type of stuff. I am just happy I can incorporate music and art together in my career.
I started drawing when I was a little kid and I would always draw comic book characters. I was a big MAD magazine fan, I always loved MAD magazine and it just grew from there. And fast forward many years later when COVID hit, my girlfriend Carla, she really was the one to get me to do it more and more. She was like “We should do an art show”. That was the catalyst and I really worked on it and just found the love again of drawing. That’s basically how it all happened, and we did an art show and I loved it, and people asked me about “Can I buy some of the prints”, and that’s how it evolved.
On the subject of side projects, do you think that is one of the reasons Anthrax has been together so long? You all have the freedom to do your own thing outside of Anthrax, you have your artwork, your coffee brand, Scott has Motorsister and his artwork for example. But you’re all free to go off and do your own thing and come back to Anthrax rejuvenated would you say?
Yeah I would say that’s a good thing. But every one has an outlet, everyone has the freedom to explore, you know what I mean? Go play with other people, it can only help us. And I think that’s what its all about, exploring the musical landscape. If you do a project and its completely different from an Anthrax kind of project and you learn something from it and you incorporate it in to Anthrax and it only makes it better well then that to me is a great thing.
I never understood why certain bands would be so closed minded, “No you have to do only do this”. It was so weird to me because if Scott and I didn’t do that S.O.D. project many, many years ago maybe Anthrax wouldn’t have evolved in to what it was. I know other people were very influenced by that too so, you know, sometimes you change the world without even knowing it and I don’t mean that as in “we’re going to save the world”, I mean that in a musical sense. People hear certain things and it drives them in a different way.
One of your other albums that I’d like to talk about is “Silver Linings”. Where did you get the idea from to do that?
Basically it was the same thing like the artwork. When COVID first hit here in, I think it was February or March, things started to get a little crazy. That was about the time that I started to get a little crazy and I was glued to the television, watching news and trying to get a basic understanding of what was going on. And then we hit the quarantine thing and it was just me, my daughter and Carla here and I was losing my mind and again, Carla said to me you’ve need to stop watching this stuff, you need to go be creative, go play go do something. And that’s what I did.
I started to create music again and I called up some friends, and said would you guys be in to doing this with me? And they were like “yeah”, because I knew they were going through the same thing I was. It started with a Rush song because I was still very sad about Neil Peart’s passing. This was in a sense a very cathartic thing for me to do. So I set up this electronic kit in the room upstairs and it was kind of like the days of me being back home, coming home from school, going in my room and playing my drums. I can only equate it to that and we did a video and I put it out there and people loved it, and I got “how did you do this? How are you doing this?”. And I created more of them and I asked more friends to be a part of it and before I knew it I had a record. People were asking if they could buy these songs and I decided to put it out, and that’s how it happened. It was a very organic thing, like you said before. It prevented me from losing my f*****g mind.
I’m looking forward to seeing you in Newcastle very soon.
I love Newcastle, I always equate music to certain cities and Newcastle to me is Brian Johnston, Venom and Raven.
Hey man. Yeah, yeah I’m a little tired today my flight was really delayed yesterday, its just one of those days y’ know, but all good.
Big year this year. You’ve just completed the US leg of your 40th anniversary tour, with Hatebreed and Black Label Society. How did that go?
That went really, really well. It was very successful and when I say successful I don’t mean in a financial way, I mean it in erm, like emotionally it was a great thing to get back to doing this from the COVID situation that happened and having the audience all show up for it. Which is the other part of the success, we were very happy with that, everybody came out to these shows and it was some of the best shows that we’ve played so we are really on a high at the moment about that.
Your first UK gig is Birmingham I think then on from there?
Oh yeah, Birmingham. The thing about Birmingham, I mean I think every time we come over to play we’ve always played Birmingham of course, and for me when I was younger I always look to Birmingham as the place that Black Sabbath, Judas Priest where all those bands are from, its like the land of Heavy Metal y’ know. So for us to start in Birmingham it’s the best place to start it I think.
What can we expect from the Anthrax show? Is it going to be all your classics or have you got any of your newer stuff in there?
When you say new stuff you don’t mean brand new do you?
No, I’m talking from For All Kings.
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah absolutely. You know the set changed about three times on the U.S. run, we swap out this for another song, then we’d swap out this for another song. You know it’s hard to play your 40 years in an hour and a half set or whatever it is but um, we try. We really try to play the favourites but also try to play some deeper cuts. So the people who are coming to hear those favourites but also really wanna hear a song like “Keep It In The Family”, which we haven’t played in forever, you know, we put that back in the set and we really enjoy playing those old songs. And we put a new kind of twist on them too you know.
You had Chuck D out on the last tour in the US. Is he coming over to the UK?
No, no I don’t think so. I think Chuck made an appearance twice, in LA then he made an appearance in New York. And you know when Chuck comes on stage with us its like an earthquake. His voice just vibrates and it just resonates in your bones y’ know. He just got such a great voice, it’s like a Marshall cabinet in his voice you know.
It works so well with Metal doesn’t it?
It does work really well and y’ know, that song in general it was one of those songs that, man we didn’t know we just loved it so much and we just wanted to do our version of it. And people really reacted to it in a good way.
Over the next few months you’re also going out on the road with Pantera as well. How are you preparing for that and also the Anthrax tour?
Well trying to do for instance, there might be some shows, well there is one show in December where both bands are on the festival so, not the same day but the next day. If it works out like that then it will be great.
But I don’t want to say too much about the Pantera thing but for me it’s a very emotional thing for me personally. When we first spoke about it, Philip and I, that was one of the first things I said to him was ‘Dude, this is a very emotional thing for me because I was such good friends with Vinnie and Dime”, so for me this is going to be one of those things that I will have to represent them in this way so, I don’t wanna see any one else up there doing it but me.
Darrell was like the fifth member of the band for a while, he still is.
Looking back over the last 40 years with Anthrax in particular, the artwork style, I know you have had a lot to do with the album artwork. The only one you haven’t had anything to do with is “Fist Full of Metal”, but on from there you’ve had a hand in the cover art for most of the albums, is that right?
Pretty much every album cover. Except for Fistful, I pretty much designed or worked on.
How do you come up with the concepts for it? Is it during the writing or the recording of the album or do you come up with it completely separately?
It’s a weird thing. As the album kind of takes shape musically and lyrically, all of a sudden I will get an idea in my head of what the cover should look like. And its so weird to me because that’s how I am with the songs too. I’ll hear a song in my head already and I will have to get a guitar or something and get it on tape because I hear it, and I have to get it down right away. I love when that happens, because it comes from somewhere and I don’t question it but when it comes it’s the greatest thing because its like Wow this is something that, I didn’t sit down and think I need to write a song like this. Its just comes, its just natural. I think its something other musicians will probably agree with me that those are the best things when it happens that way, its kinda supernatural.
That’s good, it must feel good when that happens from your point of view, seeing what you’ve created?
Oh, I love it. And when you collaborate with an artist, Alex Ross did the last few covers for us and Alex is a giant in the comic book world. Alex’s art is something that, you know, when you go to a museum you just walk around and stare at people’s art, that’s how I am with Alex. I just stare at them for like, y’ know, it feels like hours. He is just such a great illustrator. He is a great artist and I was so happy that we got him to really marry the music with the art.
In terms of artwork, you sell your own artwork on your website charliebenante.com Is that something you do in your spare time a lot, or is that something that you’ve done and you’re leaving it in a box or is there a continuation? I know you started off at art college.
I started to go to art school, but I had to leave because the band was going to go on tour for the first time. And it was that decision then and there. Do I continue exploring my art and capabilities of being an artist? Or do I follow that dream of being a rock and roller and I chose the rock and roll lifestyle. But I can still do my art, which is the greatest thing. I would go up to the record company art departments and sit with them and really get an education. Especially in a marketing sense, you really get to learn about what colours pop, I mean this was back in the day when people would walk in to a record store and you would have the vinyl in the bin and stuff like that, I learned about all that type of stuff. I am just happy I can incorporate music and art together in my career.
I started drawing when I was a little kid and I would always draw comic book characters. I was a big MAD magazine fan, I always loved MAD magazine and it just grew from there. And fast forward many years later when COVID hit, my girlfriend Carla, she really was the one to get me to do it more and more. She was like “We should do an art show”. That was the catalyst and I really worked on it and just found the love again of drawing. That’s basically how it all happened, and we did an art show and I loved it, and people asked me about “Can I buy some of the prints”, and that’s how it evolved.
On the subject of side projects, do you think that is one of the reasons Anthrax has been together so long? You all have the freedom to do your own thing outside of Anthrax, you have your artwork, your coffee brand, Scott has Motorsister and his artwork for example. But you’re all free to go off and do your own thing and come back to Anthrax rejuvenated would you say?
Yeah I would say that’s a good thing. But every one has an outlet, everyone has the freedom to explore, you know what I mean? Go play with other people, it can only help us. And I think that’s what its all about, exploring the musical landscape. If you do a project and its completely different from an Anthrax kind of project and you learn something from it and you incorporate it in to Anthrax and it only makes it better well then that to me is a great thing.
I never understood why certain bands would be so closed minded, “No you have to do only do this”. It was so weird to me because if Scott and I didn’t do that S.O.D. project many, many years ago maybe Anthrax wouldn’t have evolved in to what it was. I know other people were very influenced by that too so, you know, sometimes you change the world without even knowing it and I don’t mean that as in “we’re going to save the world”, I mean that in a musical sense. People hear certain things and it drives them in a different way.
One of your other albums that I’d like to talk about is “Silver Linings”. Where did you get the idea from to do that?
Basically it was the same thing like the artwork. When COVID first hit here in, I think it was February or March, things started to get a little crazy. That was about the time that I started to get a little crazy and I was glued to the television, watching news and trying to get a basic understanding of what was going on. And then we hit the quarantine thing and it was just me, my daughter and Carla here and I was losing my mind and again, Carla said to me you’ve need to stop watching this stuff, you need to go be creative, go play go do something. And that’s what I did.
I started to create music again and I called up some friends, and said would you guys be in to doing this with me? And they were like “yeah”, because I knew they were going through the same thing I was. It started with a Rush song because I was still very sad about Neil Peart’s passing. This was in a sense a very cathartic thing for me to do. So I set up this electronic kit in the room upstairs and it was kind of like the days of me being back home, coming home from school, going in my room and playing my drums. I can only equate it to that and we did a video and I put it out there and people loved it, and I got “how did you do this? How are you doing this?”. And I created more of them and I asked more friends to be a part of it and before I knew it I had a record. People were asking if they could buy these songs and I decided to put it out, and that’s how it happened. It was a very organic thing, like you said before. It prevented me from losing my f*****g mind.
I’m looking forward to seeing you in Newcastle very soon.
I love Newcastle, I always equate music to certain cities and Newcastle to me is Brian Johnston, Venom and Raven.
