One of the former Anthrax singers (#7 and #9) John Bush recently did an interview for the Mars Attacks podcast, talking about why he didn’t want to re-join Anthrax on a permanent basis, after playing a couple of concerts with them last and early this year.
“The main factor was that I felt like it wasn’t really time for me to resume my lead singer role in Anthrax on a permanent basis. I kind of felt like not enough time had elapsed. You’ve gotta remember that the last Anthrax record was ‘We’ve Come For You All’, of original material, so if I would have [gone] back in and re-recorded [the vocal tracks on the unreleased Anthrax album ‘Worship Music’, which was completed with lead singer Dan Nelson] and resumed my position in the band, there would have been nothing in between that, and I just didn’t think that was… It didn’t feel right.”
On not joining Metallica in the early 1980’s, despite being asked to, Bush had the following to say;
“[Joining Metallica] just wasn’t my fate, it wasn’t my destiny. It would have changed metal in the most gigantic of ways and I wasn’t meant to do that. Of course I was always flattered that those guys had an interest in me way back. You’ve gotta remember — this was, like, around [the time of the release of Metallica’s] ‘Kill ‘Em All’ [1983]. It was way back early in the stages of their career and Armored Saint. And Armored Saint was doing well; we were starting to escalate in our popularity. So I didn’t wanna just go join some other band. I was , like, ‘Hey, this is my band, these are my friends. You guys are great, but I’m cool here.’ So it wasn’t my destiny and I can’t even imagine what life would have been like; who knows what would have happened? I would say it would have much more of a bigger mistake to not join Anthrax.”
Read more excerpts of the interview or listen to the whole podcast here.
