Anthrax: 'Metallica Gave Us A Kick Up The A--'

Anthrax have revealed that Metallica's decision to offer them the chance to tour as part of Big 4 forced them to focus and finish their album.

The thrash veterans, who will release their long awaited 10th studio album "Worship Music" on September 12, have also revealed they had almost finished the album when they were forced to re-record the whole thing after singer Dan Nelso left the band and former frontman Joey Belladonna rejoined.

Speaking to NME backstage at Sonisphere Festival in a video which you can see here, drummer Charlie Benante said: "I've got to say, Metallica and the whole Big 4 thing really gave us a kick up the a-s. It was like 'Right, get your shit together, let's go' and that gave us a deadline for the record."
Asked about "Worship Music", guitarist Rob Caggiano said the band were relieved to have finally finished it, saying: "It's a relief now that it's done. We've been working on the record for a really long time and we worked out we've been in 15 different studios. It's been an emotional rollercoaster."
Benante also spoke about the decision to re-record the album with former vocalist Joey Belladonna, who rejoined last year. He said: "The record was 85% done and then we had no singer, so we kind of waited for Joey to want to go in and record and once he did, it all came together really quickly."