 Okay. And here we are live on the middle voice with the one and only Frank Bellow. What's up Jimmy? What's going on kid? All good, all good. A little babbling before the interview. If they only knew. We just... If they only knew. We were almost very late. We could have been very late if we just kept yapping along. Yeah, you know one thing leads to the other and you know the conversation is today. It's always shifting towards you know COVID-19, the pandemic and what people are doing. It's always shifting that way. My parents, that's what we talk about. Dude, it's the topic. It's life. It's life how it's affecting us, blah, blah, blah. I get it. Thank God for music on Jim because without that, where would our outlet be? Think about it with all this crazy stuff that life is going through people, everybody. I really am very thankful for music because I just had my headphones on upstairs because I shut the... I accidentally went to the news. What a stupid move that was because I got depressed immediately. So I shut the TV off, I went to my headphones and I went into a different world with my music. And that's... So I'm very grateful for the music thing, you know? But not only music, there's books. There's books. You could dive into books and lose yourself, get away from the misery and read about somebody else's misery. Yes, yes, you could read about my pain. If you want to read about my pain in my life, it's not at all painful, but... No, no, no, no. If you notice... Shane, let's bring the book. Bring the book. Can you grab it? Yeah, if I could. Would you like to read your Simmons doll, too? Would you like that? Sure. Yeah, I like that. How much is that worth? My friend gave it to me. My friend at NECA, he's awesome. My friend Randy, he's an awesome dude. There it is. Okay, so fathers... This is a long title here. I'm just trying to figure out what the title is. Yeah, just so you know, I only say fathers, brothers and sons. The rest of it's just like an added thing. So I just... fathers, brothers and sons, it's a title. And you could read the rest of it, yeah. Surviving, anguish, abandonment and anthrax. That's just the sidebar. Yeah, it's... This is COVID time, Jim, right? What? Okay, okay, and the first thing I thought of, okay, Scotty and sort of two books out there, everything we want to know about anthrax. What did you, from an anthrax perspective... Oh, jeez. No, it's okay. The thing I had this on, no problem. That's live, baby. I had this thing on... I had this thing on this new... this new thing I just bought. I bought a statue that I put this on top of Sorry Guys out there. I put this on this statue that just cracked in half. So this is all greatly live. Yeah, so Scotty and wrote two great books I thought that showed that pretty much told everything about anthrax, some great rock and roll stories and that... I wanted to go inside me. And my point of view and... I really wanted to go deep and say I have to let this stuff out. I have to get this stuff out because abandonment is a big thing in my life. It's a big deal. It's a big deal. Apparently, from the letters and comments I'm getting, it's apparently a lot of people... it affects a lot of people in this world. So I've been getting a lot of nice letters and comments about the book. And when you mean abandonment, you mean like you were abandoned as a child by your father. Is that what you mean? Correct, I am. Yeah, it's exactly... How has that affected you today, like the ripple effect to today? Well, what happens, and people will understand this that have been abandoned by a parent, my dad took off when I was 10 years old. It left an emptiness in me that I was always... Did I do something wrong? What is wrong with me? All that kind of stuff. And you're always searching for the father figure, all that, and you want something to give you a backbone. And you're also looking for something to make you feel better. And music, and that's why I talked about this before, Jim, music was my outlet to make me feel better. It's the only thing that really took that pain, that anguish, all that away, and it made me feel better. Look, I was 10 years old, right? I was the oldest of the family of five. My brother Anthony was six months old. So I never understood it. I could never even think that way as a dad. I'm a 15-year-old boy. I could never think that way because I know the other side. And from the great comments and letters that I'm getting from really great people that have read the book, and it's really helping them understand. And they're also saying, look, Frank went through this and he brushed himself off and did what he wanted to do, that maybe I can do it. And that means a lot to me. It really means a lot to me because I don't want anybody to feel like, there's enough shit feeling in this world right now, right? I'm tired of people feeling like shit. And I thought, while I'm off on this extended vacation here, I thought it was the right time. I was writing music, and there was only so much music I could write and play. And we've been good. I was already on a book. Yeah, so I said, but I called Joe McIver. I called him and I said, it's time. You know what's interesting? You probably don't even remember this. I interviewed you a few times. But back in Montreal in 2015, I was on the tour bus with you with my son. And you were laughing because I was there with my son. And it wasn't more laughing at me. You're kind of like that father-son relationship because he was doing the camera work. Yep, I remember. You know what? I'll tell you whatever, remember this. And here's where it is because I love the bond that you guys had. The truth of the matter is he's holding the camera. You were doing it. And I thought that again, again, even before I started writing this book, but I had these things. That's what I'm getting at. Go ahead. I'll let you. No, no, no. I'm babbling on. But I saw that because I remember this circumstance. Yeah. So I remember seeing that fondly and almost envious. I was envious of you had this beautiful thing with your son. And I looked at this, you and your son together. And it was a fitting right there that I didn't have. And I was kind of envious. I said, man, that's, and, you know, I've always, I've always wanted to do that with my son. I said, look, I'm going to have that kind of relationship with my son. I want to be that. I want to be because I didn't have it. So everything that I missed, I'm making up for in spades. That's what I saw when I saw you do that with your son. So it was a beautiful moment. And you probably, I probably just went away from the interview and just watched that, right? Because I tend to do that because I look at it and longingly, I said, then see, that's beautiful. I'll just call it straight out. That's, I don't think this, I don't think there's enough of that. And that's, that's what I'm calling. You know, the connection between that you didn't have with your father and then you saw me and I'm not rubbing it in here. I'm just saying that the seed, you didn't write, you started writing your book there. Then you start talking about your brother in that interview, or maybe it was off camera. I don't remember. But were you from that, and my question is this actually, from that point or around that era where you started to think, I'm going to put this down in a book. You know, these are great, great. That's a great question, Jimmy. Because these are all mental notes that you file away. You have them. You file them away. These are the points that I wanted to touch. I mean, when Joel, my co-writer Joel McIver and I started writing this book, I had this stuff that he just lit the fire under. And then he would just say a line to know to get this stuff out of me. And stuff like that was filed away. We were just talking about that stuff was right there. It just came, it kept coming out, man. And it was almost, it was so cathartic, it was almost like a breath. It was a breath because it was coming out, and I can make it, I can pay it forward. You understand what I mean? I can pay it forward by doing this. I thought it was important for people that were like me, that had that same kind of vibe that go on. If you read the book, you understand the other stuff that went on in my life. And maybe pay it forward and then let them see, look, yeah, you go down, you get beat down, you brush yourself off, and you move on. Maybe I got lucky with the music and stuff like that. But maybe you can make your life the way you want it to. That's the idea is that don't make it get you down forever. You can't do that. You got to get up. And that's why people are finding this book inspiring. And I'm glad to hear that because that's all I meant out of it. I just want to say, look, you can do this. I'm not a preacher, but this is my story that I'm just tired of people feeling like shit, quite honestly. Is it weird? You know, you get your mental notes, you put it on paper, it's a book, and then you go, shit, this is my life. Yeah, man. When this book came out, I was scared shit, man. I was really, really scared the first week because all of a sudden, as you just said, oh my God, it's out. It's out. I remember release day, my stomach was bothering me all day. I was like, oh, this is bad. This is bad. Shots, you know, I was doing shots and stuff like that. Just celebratory shots. But in real life, I was really nervous about what are people going to think? And thankfully, for the most part, I mean, it's been, we've had some great reviews, so I'm very, I'm very humbled and proud of it. And the idea of it is really getting through. You know, there's got great rock and roll stories in it. Yeah, we have the whole Pantera Metallica, all the slayer stuff, all that great stuff, kiss. But more importantly for me, it's about how this, coming from that life that I once had, and just rallying, trying to rally around it. And look, still trying to do it, by the way, still dealing with that, a lot of therapy, still trying to deal with loss, you know, abandonment. It is what it is, and it's a day-to-day thing. And then, I mean, okay, so your father abandons you at a young age. You connect with Charlie and, you know, his family. You guys become one, I guess. Sure. You attach yourself to the Anthrax family, we'll call it. But then your brother, you know? And you told me this again in 2015, right? And when you told me this, I was like, what? And you know, because it hits you. It hits you, right? I mean, because you don't expect, I think people, you know, we're all human, right? This is, my story is, I wear it on my sleeve with my brother. People that are watching this don't know the story and have read the book. Unfortunately, March 25th, 1996, my brother, Anthony, was murdered in the Bronx. Three gunshots. Some guy just took him out. It was a horrible, horrible experience, as you can imagine, for my family. But it went deeper. It went deeper with all of us. And it was, it took me out of my game. And, Jimmy, I know what you're going to say. The next part of the book is where I went dark. After this, so after, two weeks after, pretty much, after my brother's murder, I snapped. And then, again, I documented this in the book. I snapped to where the point, whereas I became the hunter. Where I kind of lost everything. I kind of lost who I was. I just saw black, I saw black, man. I was just, it was dark. I didn't care about anthrax. I didn't care about a family. I just had a goal. And it was about revenge. And it was bad. I was stalking and I was hunting and sitting out coffee shops in the Bronx for quite a long, for two weeks, just about two weeks. And it was ugly. It was ugly. Can I ask you this? I mean, I didn't understand it. You never, they never convicted the criminal. Is that it? No, I have to say alleged. The alleged criminal. Yeah, the alleged criminal. They never, but you have an idea who the alleged criminal is. Of course. Well, we went to the pretrial, right? Yeah. And there were witnesses. There was one specific witness that got, again, this is how we describe it in the, in the book. It's like a Scorsese movie. You go into the Bronx criminal court system. We're literally in the Bronx court. There's a judge. The whole thing is real. You have the alleged murderer on that side, his family and friends who all kind of want to be, you know, there's a lot of want to be guy tough guys, you know, and my family just a family, you know, and it is what it is. A lot of looks, a lot of intimidation, all that stuff. They put us in the same elevator. It was very ugly. And I don't wish it on my worst enemy. Yeah. Long story short, the witness came for the pre-trial. We were all there for the pre-trial. He said what happened. He pointed the alleged person out. The next thing we hear a couple of weeks later, they couldn't find the witness. He was. It's a New York story, my friend. It's a New York story. As you go, it's like, you could read it, but it is what it is. And this is all real. Unfortunately, I don't want to say this, but it's all real and it's a cold case. And I'm sorry to say that, but look, things happen in life and I believe in karma and all that, all that stuff. So every dog has his day, right? Well, I know about the end. When you were talking about the intimidation from the other side, I went through that too in court. Really? Yeah. Somebody tried to steal my car and I had to go to court for that. And they had the audacity, the guys who stole my car to sort of give me dirty looks. Like I was, I was like, they were the victims. Yeah. Yeah. So they were trying to intimidate me between sort of sessions. Yeah. I know it well. And I think I bumped into them in a little coffee shop, like as we were taking a break and they were like going to ready to like to rumble or something with me. It's like the audacity, the nerve to be like that. They should be humbled. Of course. The crazy thing about that, there's no, I mean, we went to kind of through the same thing. We were in the same elevator as the people as the, as the other side. There was no, I mean, we had security guards, all the court, the court guards had to follow us in. It was really ugly. I don't wish you're on my worst enemy because it was just terrible. And this is all, you know, this is all like so in the midst of the whole anthrax thing too. We were all, we were going to go on, we were planning tours and stuff like that, but that didn't matter to me. Nothing mattered. What, what album was it? What album was it? Was it 1996? It was a stomp. I forgot whatever record was there in 1996. Yeah, so it was, it was a tough ride. And look at the end of the day and what pulled me out of it was sitting in that car in front of the coffee shop and holding this thing in my hand, waiting and saying, I had this thought of my mom. And I just thought, how did I get here? What am I doing here right now? I was like, what am I doing here? I've never held a gun in my hand. I've never done this. I have my mom here and in my head and I'm saying, imagine what happens if I do this? She loses two sons. She loses her son already. And me, I mean, look, retribution, we all know the deal. Either you're going to die or you're going to go to jail. And that's not even sound like a tough guy. It's that hot blooded Italian. It's that hot. My wife's Italian. I get it. Don't worry. It is. That's reality. I'm not playing the tough guy. That's just what was going to happen. And it kind of pulled me out thinking about her. And then I thought about my brother who passed. My brother, Anthony, if he saw me in that position when I was doing, he would have slapped the shit out of me. He would have said, get back home to mommy. She's not going to lose two kids. And it kind of pulled me out of it. It kind of pulled me out of it. So I went home, stuck myself in therapy immediately. And that's what I needed. And then after a while, life came back. It was tough though. People are interested in that story. It's a great read, that part of the book. Thank you. The sort of the forward is by Gene Simmons, which I found this relationship with you and Gene over time to be fascinating. And this is before you were sort of, let's say, a celebrity and anthrax or an artist and anthrax, right? Yeah. Lick it up. Yeah. You managed to squeeze into the studio as he was putting together Lick It Up. I mean, what? Well, you know, those were the days. Remember, my friend Tom and I were pretty tenacious about going downtown and meeting these guys. We knew where they were for the most part. My friend Tom had an in at their management. So he had the inside word about where they were going to be. He had heard they were going to be at Rye Track Studios in Manhattan on 48th Street. And Tommy and I went down there as we did a lot to go meet Kiss in the City. We took the bus. It was about a half an hour down. Got in front of the place. Tommy goes right to the studio. I'm so intimidated. I'm like this kid that doesn't want to do it. Tommy's the opposite. He presses the button. Hi, we're here to see Gene. Just a friend. Like he belongs there. Like he belongs there. I'm like, what are you doing? What are you doing? He goes, yeah, we're here to see Gene. They let us in. I couldn't believe they just let us in the studio. We walk in this long hallway, 48th Street, Rye Track Studios, which isn't there anymore, unfortunately, to this elevator. And I say this all in the book. It's like I'm walking in molasses. I'm slow. I said, Tommy, I can't do this. I can't come on. It's the longest walk in the world because I don't want and I don't want Kiss to get mad at us. I didn't want that. We get in the elevator. Tommy presses the button like, oh my, I'm sweating bullets, man. I'm sweating. Oh my God, Tommy, don't. I'm not going out. I'm not going out of the elevator. Door opens. See the desk right there of the studio. Nobody's at the desk, right? Tommy goes, of course, right out, right out from the doors. I'm like, still in there. He goes, come on, come on, come on. Shit. All right. I walk out as a wall, partial wall right here. And you see a TV and you see a chair or something with somebody's feet on the cowboy boots, cowboy boots. Of course, we get out. We look around that wall. Who is it? None other than Mr. Gene Simmons, relaxing after a take in the studio. So he has a plate of cookies. He's watching TV, relaxing probably after a take like that people do. So Tommy and I go in there. He sees us and I'll give you the exact expression. It looks up from his cookies. Jimmy, just like that, dude. It was like, oh my God, what are they doing here? Because we've met Gene quite a lot by this time. Bumping into him. Oh yeah. So Gene would just say straight out. And I've said this in other interviews. He looks up and he goes, what are you doing here? Straight out. I'm like, I'm fucking so scared right now. Tommy goes, oh, we just want to hear some new music. And Gene goes, now Gene just gave us a little speech and he just said, do I come into your living room while you're working and bother you? And he just gave us this whole kind of thing. We shouldn't be there kind of speech. And of course my friend Tommy comes right back with a zinger. He goes, yeah, you come over my house anytime. He had this high voice. So yeah, come on over. You come over anytime. So Gene kind of understood that we would die hard fans. So he goes, would you like to hear a song? Dude, that was it. I couldn't believe he just said it like that. He just said it straight out. Tommy and I, we looked at each other like, oh my God, this is really happening. Yeah, Gene led us into the room where he was mixing. Young and wasted. And he calls the engineer, would you play Young and Wasted for my friends here? We go in there. They sit us down right in front of the speakers blasting it. It was a great song. We loved every second of it. We go outside, go back to the Gene. Oh my God, we're screaming with how much we loved it. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Now Gene, Gene, you finish this off. Okay, I've given you what you want. Now, can I get back to work now? And that was it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We were all happy. We were a cloud nine, dude. We went to the elevator. I was like, oh manly, because I just heard the new kiss song before anybody else. We were just flying on air from then on in. So that's how great Gene's music is. Did you know that Vinnie Vincent was the guitarist back then? Or it was just like he didn't know who the guitarist was? No, Tommy, my friend Tom knew everything. He had the inside word to everything. So yeah, he wasn't there. It was just Gene there that day. Yeah, yeah. And let me go one step back. Yeah. You know, as a kid, you know, I was, you know, love kiss, but I never knew what they looked like back in New York. Did everybody know what kiss looked like? Like, did you know what Gene looked like? No. And I say this in the book too. A coin management, kiss is all management was on Madison Avenue. I'd actually just recently went back there. I did a post on it. You probably look for those of you guys looking, look at some of my posts. I did a post on it on Madison Avenue where the original a coin management was the building. And we would go down there. We cut out of school. Tommy will find out when they're going to have a meeting. He had an inside, like I said. So we go down there and just wait, February, January freezing our fucking balls off outside like this freezing for hours on end, waiting for these six foot plus guys with high heels on. Remember that they had those high heels. They had suits with long hair. And if there was a photographer around in those days, there were the photographers around trying to get them without makeup. These guys would men wear masks or something always over their face. That's how we knew a kiss look like we got to know them after a while because we saw them so often. Yeah. Yeah. What about, okay, you know, you talk about rush, you know, so, you know, in Montreal rush, it's like, you know, the band, right? Of course. Of course. You know, it's, you know, did you ever, I don't remember in the book if you ever met Getty Lee or if you ever, you know, got to worship him. I'd worship him from afar. From afar. I met as a fan, as a fan when I was right after Russia, I was thinking it was at the garden. I saw them at the garden one year. A bunch of my friends and I followed them. We needed a hotel where they were going to stay at. So we, we wanted to get autographs and I met Eddie real quick. But somebody was taking, I remember this when I met Getty, somebody was taking with a flash. He was taking pictures that was really bothering Getty's eyes. So this dude behind me, so again, he was like, can you put the flash away? So he had to rush it. So the security guy grabbed them out. He signed my thing. He signed my album, but then he had to go right back in because the guy was taking so many pictures. So he just wanted to get inside. Really nice though. But, but never as a professional, right? From one professional to another. Never, never. Unfortunately, no. I met most of my heroes, but Getty Lee is a professional. No. And I'm a diehard as you know. So. Yeah. Yeah. I met Getty Lee just at a book signing. No, that, I don't know if that counts, but. That counts. He's doing his book. Yeah. We got a picture. Hey, Getty. That counts. He has a new pedal out that I'm going to probably buy and I have, you know, all these things I do. So you never, you never forget these guys. Yeah. Yeah. What about, okay. So now look and feel free to, you know, you know, say what you want about the book. If you want to leave some parts out, you know, for people to sort of have something to read, you know, about the book, feel free to stop. I'm just. I'll give you the teaser, but look, of course I want people to get the book and check it out. And look, thankfully it's doing well. So I'm happy, but I'm an open book. No pun intended. I like telling these stories because there's, there's so much more in there. So I'm not really worried about it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's Rare Bird, the publisher, correct? Rare Bird. Yeah. You can get the book. You can get the signed copy, hard copy at rarebirdlit.com. You can go to my website. It has everything on it. You like Frank, the Frank bellow.com. All right. You jump into it. Now you're the, I guess you're the roadie of anthrax. I don't know. I don't know things. I wasn't exactly good. You know what I mean? You're the helper. Dude, I was hanging out. You're hanging out with anthrax. What about the early days? Okay. I saw the whole web series. I really enjoyed it. You know, kind of like the early days to the present. It was really cool. Thanks. You know, I've interviewed most of the guys past or present in anthrax. What was it? Tell everybody what was it like before you joined? Like, like I remember Neil telling me that they used to rehearse five days a week. Yeah. They were like tight. Like the band was, you know, that's why the first song, there was so much of that energy there. Absolutely. Absolutely. That's when I was the friend slash crew guy because listen, you hang out with them. Charlie, I'm related to Charlie, as you know, Charlie the drummer. So I would go and just hang out and you know, I would just change strings and I became the tech, the roadie, right? I didn't know shit. Quite honestly, I didn't know, but I played, I played bass and it became more friends. We were friends and that's why it was an easy transition when I, when I joined the band, because I think it's important to be friends and get to know each other. You could live on the road together and all that stuff. So when I got in the band, I actually got in the band the day, the record, fistful of metal, I didn't play on the record, but the day the record came out at the release of the record, I remember that was the official day I got in the band. But, and then we toured that record. Yeah. And that's it. And I feel like I've been on tour since then. But what were you, what was your first, I wouldn't say your first impression, what were your early impressions? Like, man, I think we could do it. When you used to watch the guys jam and you're the tech. Yeah. These guys are really getting their stuff together here. Absolutely. It was a tight band to begin with. I love the tenacity. I've always loved the tenacity of Anthrax. It just go, go, go. Nothing can stop us. I love that. I still love that to this day, that that exists. It's, it's from the music. It's from more kind of where we're from, who we are. Like what do you want to call it in New York, whatever it is, it's that energy that I think we have that drive, there's a serious drive in Anthrax. To this day, I'm proud to say. And yes, I'm watching it from the side. Absolutely. You know what happens? Your brain is a sponge. So the song sink into your brain, obviously. So you know, I mean, I wasn't worried about the song. So when I got the audition, my friend Tom told me, look, you better start learning the songs. I heard they're auditioning bass players. So I already knew them. So it wasn't, you know, it wasn't an issue. To get into the audition, I remember auditioning. That was the scary part because all of a sudden I'm coming from my bedroom, Frank and the Bronx in the bedroom. And all of a sudden this is real time. This is real. Charlie must be saying, don't worry about it. Don't worry about it. I put in a good word. I think Charlie was like hands off. He's like, look, you can do it and see what happens. If you suck, you suck. But you know, the bottom line is you have to prove yourself. And thankfully I did okay. Were you the tech when Metallica came from, you know, their little stay in New York? That was before me. That was before. But you were the tech, right? You were the tech. I was the tech after Metallica hung out and all that stuff because Charlie was in the band and then I started hanging out. So it was all great memories though. I mean, believe me, in those days, we were all around Metallica, Anthrax, we were together a lot. So we played a lot together. You know, Dan Leiker was a friend of the band, a friend of Scott. Did you ever have that guilt, like, oh man, I'm taking his job? I always had. You know what? And here's what happened. And I say this in the book, Jimmy. When the audition came up, I felt bad because I had heard that they were getting a new bass player. They were going to start auditioning bass players. I had obviously nothing to do with it. I was just the tech. I was just the tech. And that's when my friend Tom called me, you should start learning the songs. I said, I know them already. I said, all right, if I can get an audition, I'll get an audition. But they were going to audition other bass players. Long story short, I guess I was one of the guys. I went in and it just worked. And also, thankfully, I knew the songs and all that, but it also helped that I was actually friendly. And so that part was done already also. So that actually, that, you know, we bonded. And it's important too in music. It really is. If you don't get along, you don't stay a band long. That's what just happens. So yeah, I did have guilt. I did have guilt. But I thought to myself, look, I love Danny. Danny's, I love Danny. Danny Leoker. He's a great dude. Still great friend of mine. Awesome. He's a great writer. All good stuff. But I figured if they're going to audition bass players, why shouldn't I try out too? Exactly. You know what I mean? Why not me? Why not me, right? Instead of somebody else getting the gig, I know these guys already. So why wouldn't I try out? It makes total sense. Of course, I felt guilt. But I was like, somebody else is going to get it. I'd rather me be getting it, you know? That's what's going to happen. I remember when Fistful of Metal came out. I have it here on CD. I have an album over there. I remember when it came out, Neil's band. Did you guys ever say, okay, this is a good idea? No, wait. I'm second guessing this. Maybe this is not a good idea. I remember the momentum that was happening, at least in Montreal. I can't speak for the rest of the world. There was a lot of momentum happening. And then suddenly it was a big question mark, right? Yeah. Was everybody kind of afraid at second guessing it? I think anytime you make a business move like that, it's scary. It's a scary move because you're on a momentum. You're on a momentum. You don't want to hurt the momentum. But things happen. I love Neil. He came to one of my bass clinics in LA. He's a great dude. He's a sweet guy. It just didn't work out. That's the way I look at it. It just didn't work out. He's a great singer. He's got his own band thing going so good. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. So after that, you don't know what's going to happen. You don't. But you have to believe that you're going to keep going on. That's what matters. I got to say that's one of the biggest recoveries in Metal music. Yeah. Next to Iron Maiden, I would say, you know, like, you know, that's, you know, the momentum to keep it going is not easy. And after that, you know, there was a time before Joey, before Joey came in and auditioned for Anthrax. We were up in the studio. Scott and I were talking about doing vocals. That's a true story. Scott and I were talking. He'd do the rougher side. I'd do the more cleaner side. And we were talking about doing, but we wanted a frontman. It was important for Anthrax to have a frontman. So Joey, Joey's an awesome singer. You know, we've been blessed with that stuff with great singers. All right. Then you go out. I think was, was it blacks? I'm just kind of quickly going through the chronology of this. All right. I'm not going to sit here with every single album. You know, now you're at what point did you say, okay, now guys, can I start like contributing musically to this band? At what point was that? At least listen to my arrangements or, you know, I know Scott's doing the lyrics. Charlie's doing a lot of the music, but I want it. I want in. You should start jamming on the second record. Start jamming. I remember just putting parts in, you know, if Charlie come up with the riff, I try to come up with something else there. That something that fits it, you know, and it still continues to this day. It kind of me, Scott and Charlie always doing that. And to this day, that's what happens. We write music together, melodies and Scott writes most of the lyrics, you know. All right. Black Sabbath. You know, I guess everybody asks you this. You're on this. I remember when this happened. You're on the sidelines. Glenn Hughes is sort of like disappearing. Ray Gillins in. Sitting on the sidelines, you're saying, what's going on here? I mean, it wasn't that many few, that was just a few weeks, right? No, not even. I think it was six shows, dude. I think it was it. And we only did six shows in that tour. Most, the most it was six shows, but it was great because Tony Iommi is obviously the best average, the nicest person in the world. Riffmaster, all of the above legend. We love him. He's always been great to anthrax. And, you know, it was a fun thing to see, to be on tour in a big arena. Think about that. We came from these little clubs and all of a sudden on these big arena stages, you know, it didn't do that well that tour, but it's still it was still an escalator. You know, we went up. We went up another level for us. It was a big time, little taste of what could be. You know, it was it was great. And then Ray Gillin took to go for the vocals. Remember seeing Ray do the sound checks. And that was kind of crazy. You see, you see for sound checks, Ray would sing and sing amazingly. Rest is sold. It was amazing. It was amazing to see that. But, um, look, um, that was again, uh, a little taste of what, um, what we wanted to to achieve to go into bigger places and stuff. So, and then probably one of the biggest tragedies in Metal next to maybe Randy Rhodes, tragic and Cliff Burton, right? I am. I don't even think I would even understand it if that happened to me like, you know, it's beyond tragic, right? Yeah, it's no words. There are no words. There are no words because, you know, think about it. We were young. We were all young back there, you know, back then. And, um, and this is just a matter of fact, touring every day you get to use. You get used to the same people hanging out with them every day. You're on this tour at the Rex Metallica, right? You're touring every day. I would watch their show every night. Every night because I was, I always liked what Cliff was doing. I love Metallica, but I was a big fan of what Cliff was doing. He was talking with his bass, and he was innovative. And Cliff always thought outside the box as a bass player. And I love that about him. So I would just, a lot of the nights I stayed at the sound board with Big Mick and just watch and what he would do. And it was great. And then, you know, after the shows, there would be a catering place where you get some, some bus food, you know, you have some food and then you bring some stuff to the food. You know, you sit down, hang out, maybe a drink or something, whatever. And you talk a little bit. So it would be us, some of the Metallica guys. And I'd be sitting with Cliff and just bullshitting about the show or something else. And I remember this, this little thing we had. It's just like, hey, maybe I'll see you later. Maybe I won't. And I say this in the book, the last thing I have in my, the last vision I have of Cliff in my mind is, his bus was going to go to go. And he was walking out the door. And I said to him, hey, Cliff, maybe I'll see you later. And he, he was past right. He came back in and he goes, yeah, maybe I will. And that's the last, that's the last face. It's a crazy thing. And it still kind of haunts me to tell you the truth. But I see it with love because, you know, it was my time with Cliff. You know, I get it. Don't worry. And I mean, I don't even know how people could recover after something like that. But I guess we all march on. We just have to keep going. Right. A lot of credit is due to Metallica there for, for, you know, again, brushing themselves off. And having to go forward after that, that's, that's just tragic. It's just tragic and just becoming the biggest band in the world to their credit. So with the spirit of Cliff, I think the spirit of Cliff will always be with Metallica, no matter what it always be. Rob's a great bass player. Jason was a great bass player. Cliff, you know, there's a spirit of, of Cliff in every Metallica self. There really is. We're going to pause from the book. You know, before we started this, I did a post and I go, okay, name your top three anthrax songs. And I go, wait a second, I can't name three. Okay, five, five, five. No, no, no, wait, I can't do five, 10, 10. No, no, I can't do 10. But in what you realize is what you realize is there's just, I don't know, top 50, top 100, you know. And then I would get these, and if everybody's chatting here, there's a chat going on too. If they want to tell us what their favorite anthrax song is, it's just off the chart. It's like, it's every era, you know, from the first down to the last down to the middle to the bush. It just, it goes all over the place. Jimmy, that's why it's so hard to pick a set list. I mean, I'm grateful for these songs that we have these, this catalog of great songs. And I'm very, as a fan, I say that as a fan. But it is, it's tough when everybody wants to hear their thing, you know, everybody wants to hear their song on their set list and try to make everybody happy, but there's only so much. And here we go. Catharsis. Catharsis. Wow. Where do we start? Everybody just throw out the songs. Indian. Wow. Well, Indian. Madhouse. I'm just going to read them. Okay. It's fun. Catharsis was a curveball. Catharsis was a curveball. I like that one. Good. Okay. Here we go. Top anthrax songs are from White Noise with John Bush. That is the only lineup I like. I mean, do you get a lot of that? Do you get a lot of that? See, yeah, I think everybody's entitled to their opinion. I love that people have opinions. And that's great that I'm glad you like something that we did. How about that? Thank you. That's Queen Bodisha is saying among the living. That's another one. Okay. Let me ask you something. Is there, I get it. Look, I get it. I get it. I get it. Joey's in the band. He wants to do his, he's got a lot of songs in his catalog with people love. But is there a little, sometimes you guys go, come on, let's throw in a couple of those Bush era songs. Okay. I'm ready to play anything from any of our albums. I'll learn it to, I'll relearn it again. There's a lot of set, a lot of set time. I mean, to put in, I'm willing to throw any curveball because I love, I feel like we had two different bands in this, in this career of ours. There's the Joey Belladonna era and there's the John Bush era. And I love equally. I love them both. Joey is the singer of anthrax. That's what's going on now. Of course. Yeah. So you have to pay, I pay respect to that. And now, but I, it's not that I don't love those songs. I truly love those songs. Yeah. There's just not enough time. I truly do. What about Scotty? And he said in an interview that, you know what, maybe just maybe we'll do off a one-off show with all three singers, all eras. And could that be something that would be cool? I never say never. Why? Because life is this short as we all know, Jim, right? So I don't say never to anything. I refuse to say never. So I'll, yeah, you know what, if that happened, I would play that show, right? I'm going to, I'm going to read you what the other, hold on, let me just grab this here. Every single top song. And they don't have a whole list here, but I'm not going to read everything. Yeah. All right. Here we go. Just going to mix it up here a little bit. I like it. I like it. It's boring to say old questions, right? It's spontaneous. I want to get with people. So tell me about when you first joined Anthrax, right? No. Well, I'll start it well. Well, well, well, okay. Jason saying, I am the law Orlando only block lodge, right? Death Riders. Great. It says Death Riders. That's like old school. What was the last time we played Death Rider? We actually, we jammed that last year sometime. We pulled it out. I mean, that's what's fun about being in the band. You can pull something like that out. All right. Invitation of life. Oh, I love that song. That's a fast song. It's fun. And I mean, metal thrashing matter. You still playing that in the set list? Like an encore? Not recently. Not recently, but we throw it in once in a while. I like that song. See, I'm a fan. I like that song. It reminds me of Manowar. Yeah. It's a great song. Because lost the boss probably had his hand in it back then. Yeah. From the, yeah. From this single. Yeah. Indians. Okay. That's a given, right? And there's another Death Riders armed and dangerous. That's, that's a, that's a very non-typical anthrax song. Yeah. Yeah. We, we jammed that in sound check a couple of times and that's a given. There, AR, you know, that's a given, Black Lodge, Black Lodge, a lot of love for Black Lodge. Yeah. I love, I love that song too. It's fun. Medusa? Who doesn't love Medusa? We play that in a lot of sets. Among the living, among the living, I got two among the livings here, armed and dangerous again. See, Howling, Howling Fury is like, we're getting really old. We're getting back to the demo, the demo era. I have to relearn that. We did that. I really have to relearn that. I don't get tired of playing these songs because I watch the reaction that gets from the people and that gets you pumped. So there's no, it's like playing a fresh song right there. So it's great. I like it because that's when the whole mosh pit starts. So, you know, absolutely. It's nothing like that, man. It's the best feeling in the world. Who cares wins? Love that song. Who cares win? Yeah. Let's see. Are there cool ones? Got the time. That's a given. That's a trademark, right? Yeah. Fun stuff. Caught in a mosh, a lot of that, caught in a mosh, a beast. Yeah. For a long time. Yeah. We did that on the NFL. Yeah. God. All right. That will leave it on that. On that. It feels like there's a whole set list right there. They just put a set list together. Buddy, we just, we just defined the next set list. I'm fine. Right here. I'll reload some of those songs. Get Scott on the horn, get Charlie on the horn and we'll work it out. Yeah. We'll have the rhythm down at least. Here's another question I wrote down. I remember there was this Paul Diano rumor that Paul Diano, when you were in between singers, there's this Paul Diano rumor that he was going to join the band. I don't even know how it started. Wow. I haven't heard that one, but that's cool. I love his voice. I love Paul's voice, but I'm a big Iron Maiden fan, of course, but I haven't heard that, but cool. I can, I can hear that. But, there was actually an anthrax statement made after that rumor to clarify that, you know, this never happened or. No, that's what I'm saying. I don't remember any of that at all, but I just love Paul's voice. There's too much to say. There's too much to say. There's a lot of rumors. There's a lot of rumors. All right. The Big Four. Who would you include into the Big Four? If you, right now, who would you include? Exodus. Straight up. Straight up. Nobody else? Well, there's a bunch of bands. You get Testament. You got all the other bands. Death Angel. There's a lot of great bands out there. You can go down the line. Yeah. Look, for me, the Big Four is very special because it was a celebration of this music. So I think it's for everybody. Yeah. The four bands that played the shows, but it was a celebration of this music. That's the way I looked at it. And I think the fans came out to celebrate. And look, let's face it, Metallica didn't need to do that tour. Right. They could have played those places on their own, which is, so I always say I tip my hat to Metallica for actually bringing us on tour to celebrate this music and playing these huge places. All right. And my buddy Mike, I'm going to go back to his question here. He said, you know, the Dave Alveson project, when you guys tour together, it was a call. They're just altitudes and attitude. He kept asking me over and over again, ask him if there'll ever be another album, like a second album. I never say never. But in the meantime, your friend can tell them this. I've written some solo songs that are kind of like the extension about if you like that, you'll like what I'm writing because I just, that's what everybody's been, what I've made here. The extension of what that was. So yeah, I'll be coming out probably next year, sometimes some new songs. So a solo album? So you can call it a solo. I don't know if it's an EP or a record. I have no idea. But there's a bunch of songs that I have that I've recorded with some studio dudes, studio drummer, play the other stuff my own, sang it. And yeah, so everybody I've made heard that so far. I made hear that, say it sounds like an extension, the next record from that, which I like. So I'm psyched about it. All right, you're gone solo. That's good. It's a little bit of a solo project, a side project. Side project. And I guess last, I mean, anthrax, I mean, are we ever going to see an album in the near future? Yes. Yes, absolutely. Okay, good. We're absolutely psyched. Believe me, if we could just imagine being in the same room together, you know, when there's not another variant coming down, you know, where we all have families, as you guys know, and we have to be careful. But in the new year, we've been writing just so you guys know. So, yes, that's what our plan is. Hopefully everything's back to know, somewhat normal, the new normal, whatever you want to call it. We want to tour. We have a tour book next year for Europe. And hopefully we want to come to the U.S. and look, we're abiding at the bit like everybody else to work. We want to, we want to play. We want to, we have a record we're going to write and finish hopefully next year. So, are you kind of like reluctant to start a tour out of the fear that they might cancel halfway through? That's more the promoters. That's more the promoters being, and I, can you blame them because one person gets sick, they have to pull and they lose their shirts. So it's a very much a business thing also. So if one person goes down and you pulled the tour down, that's a shitload of money, man. People lose. And not just us. It's everybody, even the crew guys. It's a, it's a really tough situation right now. Let me show you a book here. Hold on on the screen. Cool. Oh, you can get that technology. What will they think of next? I don't know. Fathers, brothers and sons, Frank Bellow, surviving anguish, abandonment and anthrax. Yes, but you could just call it fathers, brothers and sons. Just make it easier for people. We'll call it the FBS. Yes. FBAS. I'll get stickers made. FBS. Fabra. Anything else you want to promote, talk about? No. No. My website, we just redid my website. So I promised my webmaster that go to thefrankbellow.com. I'm on the socials at the Frank Bellow Instagram, Twitter, all that good stuff. Follow me. We'll have some fun on that. All right. And this has been great. Jimmy, I want you to be and stay healthy so we could do this again in person one day. Yeah. Hopefully you come back to Montreal soon. Wouldn't that be nice? Buddy, there hasn't been a show here. There has been, like these one-offs here and there. You'll see Voivod, you know, play some area and outside of Montreal and get a couple of shows. Like, Unleash the Archers is just an example. They were supposed to come into Montreal from the west coast of Canada. Canceled. Yeah. I was supposed to, Tuesday, I was supposed to go see my buddy's band, just a local pub band, a really good pub band. Tonight, they just canceled all the shows for the rest of the year, the place they're playing. So it's, New York is going through a really crazy time, as you know, like at the rest of the world, it really hit, apparently, really hard right now. So, hopefully, better times ahead, right? Yeah, man. All right, thanks a lot. We'll talk soon. Thanks for having me. Appreciate all your time, buddy. All right, you take care of yourself. Be safe.