For the first time in twenty years, Anthrax will share a stage with Black Sabbath when the band performs at Sabbath’s “Back to The Beginning” concert set to take place on Saturday, July 5 at Villa Park in Birmingham, England. Anthrax toured with Black Sabbath on the band’s 1986 “Seventh Star Tour,” which was also Anthrax’s first arena tour. The last time they were on the same bill as Sabbath was in 2005 at the Download Festival in the UK.
“I’m a huge Black Sabbath fan,” said Charlie Benante, “and Black Sabbath was so, so instrumental in the sound of Anthrax back in the day. Back in ’86, when we were working on our third album, we wanted to do a B-side of a Black Sabbath song. ’Sabbath Bloody Sabbath’ was the song that we chose. We did it as a B-side, we played it live, and it became a big thing for us. Growing up Catholic, in a Catholic household, my mom did not appreciate Black Sabbath. One day when I came home, my sister took me to the record store and I got one of those iron-on Black Sabbath t-shirts, it was the cover of ’Sabbath, Bloody Sabbath.’ I got it home, my mother saw it, she made my sister take me back to the store and return it. She would not have it in the house because it had the ‘666’ on it. I was still a Black Sabbath fan so I had to kind of keep it hidden from my mom.”
“I discovered Black Sabbath when I was about eight years old, sitting in my uncle’s room at my grandparents’ house,” said Scott Ian. “My uncle was 17 or 18, had a big vinyl collection and blacklight posters all over his walls, and I thought he was the coolest dude in the world. I would go through his albums, pull records out and he’d play them for me. I remember pulling out this record that said ‘Black Sabbath’ on it, the album cover was kind of scary, so I asked him ‘what’s Black Sabbath?’ And he said, ‘oh, they’re acid rock…” and I didn’t know what that meant…I thought maybe that was the terminology back then for a genre. And then he put the album on. Everyone knows how that record starts, with the sound effects and the rain and the bell, and then the band kicks in…there’s nothing like it. At that point in time, the scariest, heaviest thing I’d ever heard in my life. Maybe still to this day, when that song ‘Black Sabbath’ kicks in, there’s just nothing like it. I started playing guitar when I was about 10, and Tony was definitely an influence, so I’d try and figure out how to play ‘Iron Man’ or ‘Paranoid.’ Just listening to the records, Tony Iommi was essentially my guitar teacher.”
“I’m definitely a huge Sabbath fan,” said vocalist Joey Belladonna, “and over the years I have covered many Sabbath and Ozzy songs. We toured with Sabbath on the ’86 tour, and it was so electric. That was a huge tour for us, and we were just overwhelmed to be part of it. That Anthrax was asked to be part of Sabbath’s ‘Back To The Beginning’ concert is quite a big honor.”
“I heard about Sabbath through my friends at school,” remembers Anthrax’ Frank Bello, “who said the band was great. Plus, I thought the album cover was scary as hell. Although I love most Black Sabbath albums, that first one, Black Sabbath, is still my favorite because it was my introduction to them, and the songs are still amazing. I’m also a HUGE Geezer fan, I grew up on his playing, and I’m honored now to say he’s a friend. Geezer was and still is one of my main influences on bass. He always puts beautiful musicality & melody into everything he plays. His bass lines make you want to play bass. He is also an amazing person. “It’s an honor to be part of this show and I’m very grateful to Black Sabbath & Sharon Osbourne for asking us to be part of it.”
“I’m absolutely, 100% a Black Sabbath fan,” admitted Anthrax guitarist Jon Donais. “I was an Ozzy fan first because I grew up in the ‘80s, and of course, Ozzy was on MTV all the time, so he’s who I got into first. And then, my teen years were in the 90s, and I started getting into Black Sabbath. When I start to lean into a band, I usually get the band’s greatest hits or some kind of compilation. But my first Black Sabbath album was Sabotage, which is actually my favorite Sabbath record. Sabotage was a little darker than the others, and I would listen to it all the way through as soon as I put it on. A good friend of mine and I went to the same college, and we’d be up until three or four in the morning just listening to Sabotage and then having to get up for school the next day, and that sucked.”
Anthrax’s upcoming concert dates are as follows:
JULY
3 Blackweir Arboretum, Cardiff, Wales, UK
Line-Up: Slayer, with Special Guest Anthrax
5 Villa Park, Birmingham, UK •
Line-Up: Black Sabbath, “Back to the Beginning,” w/ Anthrax
6 Finsbury Park, London
Line Up: Slayer, with Special Guest Anthrax
Photo credit: Ignacio Galvez
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