During 1991 they collaborated with pioneering rap artists Public Enemy on a joint version of “Bring the Noise”. This was a hit, and the band played a successful joint tour with Public Enemy. The EP “Attack of the Killer B’s” was recorded during 1991, featuring a new version of “I’m the Man” and a cover of “Bring the Noise” on which Scott Ian did some of the vocals. A short time later during 1992, Joey Belladonna was fired from Anthrax. Belladonna would return to Anthrax in 2010 to record their 2011 comeback album Worship Music, also their first in eight years.
John Bush era (1992–2004, 2009-2010)
Shortly after Belladonna was fired, he was replaced by John Bush, formerly of Armored Saint who had recently disbanded. Ten years earlier, Bush had been approached by Metallica to sing for them. The band also left Island Records and signed with Elektra Records to release Sound of White Noise in 1993.
Though it was quite a change from their earlier work with a dark, rockier feel, Sound of White Noise received mostly positive reviews and “Only” was a major hit (in the liner notes for Return of the Killer A’s, Ian says James Hetfield once told him it was a “perfect song”). In keeping with the band’s eye for unlikely collaborations, classical composer Angelo Badalamenti provided music for the track “Black Lodge,” a tribute to the TV show “Twin Peaks”. Importantly, the album demonstrated that Anthrax had at last shed its sometimes cartoonish outlook in favor of mature, thoughtful songwriting, a trend which had begun on the previous album Persistence of Time.
During the hiatus between Sound of White Noise and Stomp 442, longtime guitarist Dan Spitz left the band to quit music and become a watchmaker,[3] leaving Anthrax officially a quartet for 2 years. In 1995, the band released Stomp 442,, on which Charlie Benante played much of the lead guitar parts, assisted by Paul Crook – who would become the band’s touring lead guitarist for several years – and Dimebag Darrell from Pantera. Elektra refused to provide real promotion for the album and it quickly disappeared without a trace. Upset at what they felt was an attempt by the label to kill the album, Anthrax severed ties with Elektra.
Anthrax signed with independent label Ignition Records for the 1998 release Volume 8: The Threat Is Real that once again saw Benante playing lead guitar alongside Crook and Dimebag. Pantera’s Phil Anselmo also guested. Unfortunately, almost immediately after the album’s release, the label went bankrupt and disappeared, making the album difficult to find. Regrouping, the band signed Beyond Records and released the greatest-hits album Return of the Killer A’s, although Beyond soon went out of business as well. During this period, a two-vocalist tour featuring both Joey Belladonna and John Bush was proposed and set to go, until Belladonna decided to pull out at the last minute.[4]
During the 2001 anthrax attacks in the United States, the band altered its website to provide information about the disease after people began simply typing anthrax.com into their browsers. Amid what could have become a PR nightmare for the band, Anthrax issued a press release on October 10, 2001, that jokingly mentioned that they were going to change the name of the band to “something more friendly, like ‘Basket Full of Puppies’.”[5] They later sank all name-change rumors that erupted from the press release at the New York Steel 9/11 benefit concert in November 2001, when they took the stage wearing boiler suits with a different word on each one that spelled out the sentence “WE’RE NOT CHANGING OUR NAME”. A picture of the band wearing the suits can be seen on the inner tray card of We’ve Come for You All.
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