In the early 80s, a revolution was happening in heavy music, and it was Anthrax, a wild bunch from New York City, who gave it a name. In three bands’ debut albums from 1983 – Metallica’s Kill ’Em All, Slayer’s Show No Mercy and Exciter’s Heavy Metal Maniac – a new form of metal took shape. Harder and faster than anything before it, it was inspired by Motörhead, Venom, punk and hardcore as much as by Iron Maiden, Judas Priest and Black Sabbath. And on Anthrax’s debut album Fistful Of Metal, cut from the same cloth and released in 1984, a fast-driving song, about driving fast, proved hugely significant. British rock journalist Malcolm Dome bastardised the song’s title, Metal Thrashing Mad, in a phrase that defined a genre: thrash metal.
The guy who wrote the words to Metal Thrashing Mad, Anthrax singer Neil Turbin, was in the band only for that one album. But in the years that followed, Anthrax, with Joey Belladonna as vocalist, became one of the so-called Big Four of thrash, alongside Metallica, Slayer and Megadeth.
For all the fury that Anthrax whipped up in landmark albums such as Spreading The Disease and Among The Living, there was a degree of levity that set this band apart from their peers. They wore board shorts instead of the regulation thrash attire of jeans and leather jackets, and spoofed hip-hop in the 1987 song I’m The Man. But their love for rap music was genuine, and in 1991 they collaborated with Public Enemy on the genre-crossing classic Bring The Noise.
Guitarist Scott ‘Not’ Ian has steered Anthrax since it the band came together in 1981. Another founding member, bassist Dan Lilker, departed in 1984 to form Nuclear Assault, but joined up with Ian and Anthrax drummer Charlie Benante in the controversial hardcore crossover project Stormtroopers Of Death.
Ian, the primary lyricist, and Benante, chief songwriter, are the only members to have appeared on every Anthrax album. In the 80s the band’s line-up comprised Ian, Benante and Belladonna plus guitarist Dan Spitz and bassist Frank Bello. After Belladonna’s exit in the early 90s, Anthrax made four albums with ex-Armored Saint singer John Bush, beginning with a brilliant post-grunge reinvention on Sound Of White Noise. But after some lean years, it was 2011’s Worship Music – their first with Belladonna in 21 years – that breathed new life into the band. They carry on as they started: metal thrashing mad.