With a twelfth album arriving next week, Scott Ian has been blunt about the arithmetic of putting an Anthrax show together: someone always leaves wanting a song they didn’t get.
The guitarist was asked by Steve Harkins of “TalkShopLive” how much of Cursum Perficio will make the live set when the band tours it.
“It’s not easy [putting together the setlist]. This is our twelfth record. That’s a lot of material to choose from. And the thing is, too, we’re such a physical band live. Our live set is extremely physical. And I’ve always said, a 90-minute Anthrax show is minimum two-and-a-half-to-three-hour any other band show. Because the physicality of our show is really intense. So on a headline set, to make everyone happy with our setlist, it’s just never going to happen. You just gotta hope that people enjoy what you’re doing. It’s not something we really stress about too much. Look, we know there’s certain songs, our so-called — and I’m putting big quotes here — the so-called ‘hits’… Not that ‘Caught In A Mosh‘ was ever an actual hit, but it’s certainly an Anthrax live show hit, and I wouldn’t wanna play an Anthrax show without playing that song. So trying to find that balance, certainly we’re gonna wanna play a lot of new songs off this record. We’re already playing three. We played St. Vitus in Brooklyn the other night. We reopened the St. Vitus club in New York, ’cause they were gone for, like, two years, and we played ‘It’s For The Kids‘, ‘Everybody’s Got A Plan‘ and ‘The Edge Of Perfection‘. So we’ve already got three together, and it’s pretty safe to say that another song that we did that night called ‘NYC 93‘, which nobody’s heard yet, we shot a video for that at the show the other night. No barricade, old-school chaos, just stage diving and insanity. And [it’s] safe to say ‘NYC 93‘ is gonna be in the set. And there’s some other ones on the record that I would love to play. I really love the song ‘Infectious‘ on the record. I think it’s just got an amazing groove. And I love ‘Target On My Back‘. It’s the one [called] ‘T.O.M.B.‘. That riff and just that song, it just crushes me. I’d like to think that over the two years, let’s say 2027, 2028, I’d like to think maybe at some point we’ll get to play every song live at some point,” he exoplained (as transcribed by Blabbermouth).
The three songs already in rotation are the album’s singles. “NYC93“, which has not been released, was filmed for a video at the Brooklyn show.
Cursum Perficio is Anthrax‘s first studio album since For All Kings in February 2016, which reached the top ten of the Billboard 200. Ian pushed back on the framing.
“It didn’t really take a long time. We started working on this album for real in the beginning of ’22, and I had the finished copy in my hands in November of ’25. So whatever that math is — three, almost four years from when we actually really started writing it to recording it and mixing it,” he said. “So when people say 10 years, I get it — on paper, from 2016 to 2026, it’s 10 years, but you gotta remember, we toured For All Kings until the end of 2019. And then we had COVID, which we weren’t in any kind of head space to really be working. We would send demos to each other, but it wasn’t till we got in a room together again as a band in early ’22 that we started arranging the new music. And we were so happy to just get to do it again, and I really think that’s what you hear on this album. That’s that energy of us getting to be a band again after those two years of COVID. We were just thrilled to be there.”
Speaking about the band’s mindset while making the new album, he added: “It’s gotta be something that we love first. When we’re working on an arrangement and we’ve got what we think is a really tight arrangement of a song — this is before there’s lyrics on it or anything; it’s just the music — and we’ll be having so much fun just playing it musically and banging our heads and usually smiling a lot, because once we feel that way, it’s pretty easy for us to know how much fun it’s going to be to play it live.”
The Latin phrase translates as “My journey has come to an end”, “My journey is over” or “I complete my journey”. Drummer Charlie Benante has said he found it while watching a documentary about Marilyn Monroe, inscribed on a tile at the house in Los Angeles where she was living when she died.
The band has been clear the title is not an announcement of retirement. Benante has said that while their journey has come to an end, they are not saying this is their last record.
Cursum Perficio is out on September 18 through Megaforce in North America and Nuclear Blast in Europe. It was recorded at Dave Grohl‘s Studio 606 in Northridge, California, and produced by Jay Ruston with the band. Ruston also produced Worship Music and For All Kings.
The lineup is unchanged: Ian and Jonathan Donais on guitars, Frank Bello on bass, Charlie Benante on drums and Joey Belladonna on vocals.
Three singles have been released so far: “It’s For The Kids” in May, “The Edge Of Perfection” in July and “Everybody’s Got A Plan” in August.
Cursum Perficio tracklist:
- “Persistence of Memory“
- “The Long Goodbye“
- “It’s for the Kids“
- “Everybody’s Got a Plan“
- “The Edge of Perfection“
- “Infectious“
- “NYC 93“
- “Cursum Perficio“
- “T.O.M.B.“
- “Watch It Go“
- “My Victory“
The band is marking the release with a signing in Louisville, Kentucky, immediately after their September 17 set at Louder Than Life. The event starts at 12:01 a.m. on September 18 at Guestroom Records, 1330A Bardstown Rd.
Places are limited, and only fans who pre-order the album directly from Guestroom Records will be admitted.
