Frank Bello has been in ANTHRAX for more than forty years, which makes him qualified to assess the old line about a band being a marriage to several people at once.
"Oh, it's a total marriage. It's a total marriage," the bassist told the BREWtally Speaking Podcast. "You know what it is? It's a family. You have brothers and sisters... Occasionally, look, some shit goes on, and that's the bottom line. You have to weather the storms."
What holds it together, he says, is a specific and non-negotiable payoff. "There's no feeling like stepping onto an ANTHRAX stage for me. I think the other guys feel the same. There's an energy that I can't explain... it just goes from 1 to 10 immediately, and you're on. And everything, everything for me is fulfilled. It's just the audience, and you're one with the audience, dude, and that is the drug you keep going after. And all the other shit goes away."
Asked what four decades has taught him, his answer was about restraint rather than resolve. "Take the step back instead of being right away, without thinking it out, just being in attack mode. No, you gotta pull it back and listen to everybody's view. I think that's really important... Maybe it's wisdom after a long time. You get to know everybody's vibe. And it's really [about having] respect for everybody in the group."
He does not claim a clean record on it. "I haven't always done this, other people in my band haven't done this, but we know this works. So, we all know we'll get over it at the end of the day. But there isn't a lot of that anymore, honestly, because I think we're so into what we're doing. That was the growing stages."
The reason for the good mood is arriving in September. "Cursum Perficio", the band's first album in a decade, is out September 18, and the response to the singles has caught Bello off guard. "The reaction for the first three singles has been insane. We're so humbled. Humbled is seriously the word."
One detail surprised him more than the rest. "We're getting a lot of new fans now, which is awesome. It's turning over. I didn't see that coming, to be honest with you. But the demographics are changing, which is awesome, along with our normal fans that have stayed with us through this whole time."
Source: blabbermouth.net