During the '80s, when most of the New York band's thrash and metal peers were playing heavy tunes with dark lyrical themes and clothes to match, Anthrax's members were wearing shorts, T-shirts and sneakers, decorating their guitars with stickers of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
In 1987, when mixing rock 'n' roll with rap music was virtually unheard of, especially in metal circles, Anthrax recorded its own rap tune, "I'm the Man," and sold a million copies. Later, the band collaborated with hip-hop royalty Public Enemy on a cover of PE's "Bring Tha Noize" and the two acts toured together.
Now, when most acts with a 20-year history are hanging up their guitars or breaking up, Anthrax is bringing together its five original members - singer Joey Belladonna, bassist Frank Bello, drummer Charlie Benante and guitarists Dan Spitz and Scott Ian - for a tour opening for Judas Priest, including a stop in West Valley City on Wednesday.
It marks the first time the original quintet has played together since Belladonna left the band in 1992. Other members left through the '90s: Spitz quit music and became a watchmaker while Bello played in Helmet for a while. Ian is the only member who's been in Anthrax for the band's entire existence, and he said the reunion was easier than one might think.
"It came together immediately," Ian said. "People had done their homework, including me, because I had to go back and look at some of the older stuff we hadn't been playing over the past 13 years. When we got in the rehearsal, everyone was pretty right on.
"There's a couple of songs we're doing that we haven't played since back then. A song like 'Medusa' that I thought I would never play again in my life, now I love playing that song in the set. It just seems fresh because I don't think we played that song after 1987."
Ian said every band member had a different reason for getting back together. Benante, for instance, felt compelled to try after the onstage murder of friend Dimebag Darrell of Pantera and Damageplan made him realize how short life can be.
"We initially started talking about it last summer, way before Dime's murder, but I think for Charlie, personally, Dime's murder affected him a lot," Ian said. "And I guess Dime had said to him just recently before [his death], when Charlie was talking to him about the reunion idea, Dime had some very positive comments to say about it. Like, 'Go ahead, do it! Why not? You don't hate those dudes, so why wouldn't you want to go do it?'
"For me, it was more a case of why not try it? If we don't do it now, we'll never do it, so let's at least make the attempt."
That's music to many headbangers' ears, because Anthrax is responsible for some of the most ferocious hard rock music of the past 20 years, thanks to songs such as "I Am the Law," "Indians" and "Belly of the Beast." Whether the reunited Anthrax and this tour will lead to new songs is still a question, though.
"We don't know what we're doing," Ian said of Anthrax's future. "Seriously. We're just going day by day, and when we finish the reunion tour, we'll see what happens. We're going to start writing music over the next couple of months, and that will probably answer a lot of our own questions about what we're going to do after this."
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Contact Dan Nailen at nailen@sltrib.com or 801-257-8773. Visit his blog, "Urban Spelunker,” at http://www .sltrib.com/blogs. Send comments about this story to livingeditor@sltrib.com.
Potent pairing
l Anthrax opens for Judas Priest on Wednesday at West Valley City's E Center at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $35, available at all Smith's Tix outlets and the venue.
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