John Bush will perform his Anthrax material in Europe for the first time next summer, with Wacken Open Air confirmed as the opening date.
The festival runs July 28 to 31, 2027 in Wacken, Germany, and has listed the singer on its first announced wave as “John Bush – Celebrating The Songs Of Anthrax“. Further European dates are expected.
The vocalist framed the booking as the next step after four American shows.
“Totally pumped to bring the celebrating the songs of Anthrax ’93-’03 show to the continent of Europe.”
“The four shows we did in the States were awesome. Now it’s time to bring that material over the pond and have some stellar shows at some killer festivals, the first of which is Wacken!”
“The fans were always great during my time in the band and I have some special memories, so let’s belt out some tunes in 2027 and relive it!”
Bush played three concerts in the United States last December, followed by an appearance at Milwaukee Metalfest in June 2026. The sets pulled from all four albums he recorded with Anthrax, Sound Of White Noise, Stomp 442, Volume 8: The Threat Is Real and We’ve Come For You All.
His backing band was Category 7, the project he fronts alongside guitarists Phil Demmel and Mike Orlando and drummer Jason Bittner. Joey Vera, his Armored Saint bandmate of four decades, covered bass after Category 7‘s Jack Gibson hit a scheduling conflict.
The December shows ran as double bills, with Category 7 playing their own set first before returning as the backing band.
While speaking on SiriusXM‘s “Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk” on June 3, host Trunk suggested that revisiting the older material after so many years must have been an emotional experience. Bush agreed and detailed the physical and mental effort required from both himself and his bandmates to pull off the performances.
“Yeah, it was kind of two sets, ’cause we did the C7 as the opening band, ’cause they were my backing band, if you will,” he continued. “So then we kind of piggybacked it, and then we did one set of C7. It was a condensed set. And then we took a small break, and then we came back out, and then we did the Anthrax stuff. And so they worked very hard, and they learned a lot of material as they’re doing this weekend [on June 7 at the Milwaukee Metal Fest] as well [where John will once again play a set of his Anthrax-era songs]. So, it was a lot of work, but it was fun work. And it was fun to play those songs… It was weird how much they just kind of came back to me, even songs that we didn’t play live many times, which we incorporated some of those in it, which was cool. We played the song ‘Strap It On‘ in New York for one particular fan specifically, ’cause he was relentless in requesting it. And Anthrax never played that song, ever. So, it was fun to do that. And I was stoked about my memory banks ’cause a lot of lyrics just came back to me, which was funny. So lot of lyrics in my brain. This weekend [at the Milwaukee Metal Fest] will be no different. I’m playing a Saint set, and then we’re doing this other set, you know, doing Anthrax material. So lot of lyrics in my brain, but I’m doing pretty good at remembering them. Knock on wood, I won’t make too many mistakes,” he said at the time.
“Strap It On” appears on Sound Of White Noise, the 1993 album that marked Bush‘s arrival in the band.
In that same interview, Bush confirmed a second Category 7 album is planned, following the group’s 2024 self-titled debut.
“We talked about making a record. I think it would be cool just to make it seem like it wasn’t just a ‘one and done’. Mike Orlando is actually giving me a lot of material. I’m trying to kind of get to it. I needed a break a little bit because I didn’t wanna go right into writing heavy metal music after writing the Saint record. And so I just needed a break, just to get my head together and make sure that I’m not just kind of redoing ideas and stuff. It’s not easy to go back and go, ‘Okay, let’s make some metal music again,’ because I just did that. But I have some cool ideas, and it’s about putting it down and making some demos, and I think on to that, hopefully, in the rest of the month of June and into July. And we’ll see what happens. I mean, there’s not an urgency to putting this record out, simply because that’s just not the circumstance here. But I think, like I said, eventually it would be cool to make another record and show that these guys are really, really talented, ’cause they really are, all of them. Bittner, Orlando, Phil Demmel, Jack Gibson, they’re all just awesome players,” he explained.
Anthrax have worked through several vocalists across their run. Neil Turbin sang on 1984’s Fistful Of Metal before being dismissed. Joey Belladonna followed and appeared on four albums including 1987’s Among The Living, then departed over creative and stylistic differences.
Bush arrived in 1992 and held the position until 2005, when the band reunited with Belladonna for a 20th-anniversary run. After that fell apart and the tenure of subsequent frontman Dan Nelson unravelled, Bush came back for a period before Belladonna reclaimed the role in 2010.
Guitarist Scott Ian and drummer Charlie Benante are the only members to have played on every Anthrax studio album.
