Last December, legendary heavy metal vocalist John Bush hit the stage for three special U.S. concerts to perform material from his decade-long run as the frontman of Anthrax. The setlists covered all four studio albums he recorded with the thrash metal pioneers: Sound Of White Noise, Stomp 442, Volume 8: The Threat Is Real, and We’ve Come For You All.
For the live dates, Bush was backed by his Category 7 bandmates, guitarists Phil Demmel and Mike Orlando, alongside drummer Jason Bittner, with his lifelong Armored Saint collaborator Joey Vera stepping in on bass due to a scheduling conflict for Category 7 bassist Jack Gibson. The shows featured a unique format where Category 7 opened the night before returning as the backing band for the Anthrax material.
During a June 3 appearance on SiriusXM‘s “Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk“, Bush discussed the possibility of taking the tribute shows overseas.
“I would like to do some stuff, especially in Europe. Every album I made with Anthrax, I toured Europe, and it would be a shame not to go there and at least play a handful of shows. So we’ll see. And nothing’s booked at this point, but I’m open to it,” he said (via Blabbermouth).
When 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.”
Bush also provided an update on the current status of Category 7, who released their self-titled debut album via Metal Blade Records in July 2024. The vocalist confirmed that the group is not a one-off project and that a sophomore album is already in the early stages of development.
“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 concluded.
Over its 42-year history, Anthrax has featured multiple lead vocalists, including Bush, Joey Belladonna, Neil Turbin, and Dan Nelson. Today, guitarist Scott Ian and drummer Charlie Benante stand as the only members to have performed on every one of the band’s studio albums.
