Rockbites: Anthrax, the band, discuss their name

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October 2001 • Rockbites Alternative Daily

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Anthrax, the band, discuss their name
12 October 2001

Formed 20 years ago in New York city during thrash metal’s heyday, Anthrax have evolved with new approaches and new members but have remained unusually relevant to their genre. For their most recent studio album, 1998’s Volume 8: The Threat Is Real, they tracked the songs in their own Yonkers, New York studio and released it through NY indie Ignition Records—having left majors Island and Elektra/Warner.
Acknowledging the new global focus on the spore-forming bacterium Bacillus anthracis from which the members naively took their name in 1981, the band have issued the following press release:

“In light of current events, we are changing the name of the band to something more friendly, 'Basket Full Of Puppies'. Actually, just the fact that we are making jokes about our name sucks.

“In the twenty years we’ve been known as 'Anthrax', we never thought the day would come that our name would actually mean what it really means. When I learned about anthrax in my senior year biology class, I thought the name sounded 'metal'. Everyone in my neighborhood had a band with an 'er' name, like 'Ripper' or 'Deceiver' or 'Killers' and I wanted to be different. 'Anthrax' sounded cool, aggressive, and nobody knew what it was. Until a few years ago most people thought we’d made it up. Even our album, 'Spreading The Disease' was just a play on the name. We were spreading our music to the masses.

“Before the tragedy of September 11th the only thing scary about Anthrax was our bad hair in the ’80s and the 'Fistful Of Metal' album cover. Most people associated the name Anthrax with the band, not the germ. Now in the wake of those events, our name symbolizes fear, paranoia and death. Suddenly our name is not so cool. To be associated with these things we are against is a strange and stressful situation. To us, and to millions of people, it is just a name. We don’t want to change the name of the band, not because it would be a pain in the ass, but because we hope that no further negative events will happen and it won’t be necessary. We hope and pray that this problem goes away quietly and we all grow old and fat together.

“Be safe,
“Scott, Charlie, Frank and John”

The current lineup, founding members Scott Ian (guitar) and Charlie Benante (drums, guitar) along with Frank Bello (bass) and John Bush (vocals), contributed six tracks with various collaborators on last month’s Ghosts Of Mars soundtrack album. | Anthrax | | Anthrax health info from the US CDC | | soundtrack CD from Amazon US | | discography | | top of page |

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