Kerry King to Perform with Megadeth Tonight

Slayer axeman Kerry King is scheduled to perform alongside Megadeth on stage tonight (October 21) at the Gibson Amphitheater in Universal City, California. They will collectively perform the Megadeth classic, "Rattlehead." Tonight's performance marks the second time King has performed the song with Megadeth. The first performance was 26 years ago, in February 1984, during which time King played as the band's second guitarist.

Tonight's performance is part of the final show for the Jägermeister Music Tour, which features 1991's original Clash of the Titans lineup: Slayer, Megadeth, and Anthrax.

During an interview with Decibel magazine in 2006, both Slayer guitarists - King and Jeff Hanneman - discussed King's decision to play with Megadeth over 20 years ago:

Hanneman: "I thought [Kerry] was an ass for doing that. [laughs] I remember talking to Tom [Araya] about it, like, 'I guess we're gonna get a new guitar player.' I thought he was kissing Dave's [Mustaine] ass or something, and I thought it was kinda fucked up. I think he was gonna join. Kerry will probably tell you something different, but why do that if you're not thinking about joining? I'm a loyalist, you know, and I thought Slayer was the best thing going. Why go hang out with somebody else? If Dave would've asked me to do it, I would've told him to fuck off."

King: "I did it because I admired Mustaine — I'd seen him play with Metallica. He'd be up there drunk off his ass, just ripping, not even looking at his fingers. Me and Jeff didn't know how to do that yet. [laughs] When he got kicked out and was sniffing around for a guitarist, I figured I'd do it because I thought I would learn something. The other guys in Slayer were probably unhappy, but we weren't really known back then, and the way I looked at it was that if people saw me playing in Dave's band, it'd be more publicity for Slayer. Now you look back and you think 'supergroup,' but back then, absolutely not. I played their first five shows, and then I was like, 'Man, this is taking too much of my time.' I can't speak for Dave, but I don't think he would've been unhappy if I stuck around."

Below is a video featuring former Megadeth bassist Dave Ellefson discussing King's time with Megadeth. Also below is footage from the 1984 performance of "Rattlehead." An image from Megadeth's official Twitter feed is included as well.

Anthrax Performs New Song with Joey Belladonna for the First Time

On October 8, Anthrax performed a new song, "Fight 'Em 'Til You Can't," with singer Joey Belladonna for the first time during a concert at Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Uniondale, New York. The performance was part of the Jägermeister Music Tour with Megadeth and Slayer.

"Fight 'Em 'Til You Can't" was first performed on May 28, 2008 at Double Door in Chicago, Illinois during the band's first gig with then-singer Dan Nelson. The song was also recorded with Dan for what was supposed to be the next Anthrax album, Worship Music, but ended up getting shelved - along with the rest of the album - following the departure of Nelson and return of Belladonna.(Read More)

Scott Ian Interviewed by Miami New Times

Recently, Miami New Times' Arielle Castillo interviewed Anthrax guitarist Scott Ian. Now Castillo has posted outtakes from the print feature of the interview. Below are some excerpts from that chat:

Miami New Times: Anthrax is billed as "special guests" on [the American Carnage] tour. Does this mean you're playing a shorter set than Megadeth and Slayer?

Scott Ian: When we got asked to do this, the tour was already an existing thing. They were already out there doing this with Testament opening, and then they were like, "Hey, do you want to come out for a month and do this?" Logistically they couldn't change it around and make it work where all three bands could play an hour-and-a-half. The show was already sold as a package for X amount of hours, and blah, blah, blah. I don't need to bore you with that, but basically there was no way to make it a longer night because the show had been sold as a set amount of hours. We're the special guests, so we'll get everyone nice and warmed up, and then drink beer and watch.

Miami New Times: You had already recorded some of your upcoming album when Joey Belladonna rejoined the band as the singer. What are you going to do with the previous material? Is he going to re-record the vocals, or are you just going to write new material for him to sing?

Scott Ian: Both, all that. We're keeping some of it and Joey's going to re-sing it, and we're writing new stuff.

Miami New Times: Early track lists for the record included covers of songs by Refused and Alice in Chains. Will those still make it?

Scott Ian: We have no idea.

Miami New Times: So were those covers ever supposed to be part of the mix, or was that something totally made up on the Internet?

Scott Ian: Possibly! I don't know.

Miami New Times: Um, so will you be including any covers on the new album, or not?

Scott Ian: I don't know. Who gives a shit about cover songs?! We're so far away from that.

Read more at the Miami New Times website.

Guitarist Dan Spitz Discusses Anthrax and Deuxmonkey

In a May 30th interview with Radio Kol Halev, guitarist Dan Spitz chatted about Anthrax (with whom he formerly played) as well as his new Deuxmonkey project. The interview can be streamed below.

It hasn't been long since Spitz was released from the hospital. In early May, he received treatment for a heart attack suffered in 2009. He had undergone open-heart surgery on June 5, 2009 after doctors discovered that his heart's main artery had almost closed completely.

Spitz is now working on the debut album from Deuxmonkey - his latest project. The lineup includes vocalist Wade Black (Seven Witches, Leatherwolf, Crimson Glory), bassist Peter Baltes (Accept), and drummer Patrick Johansson (W.A.S.P., Yngwie Malmsteen). More information on the project can be found on the Deuxmonkey MySpace page.

In 2005 and 2006, Spitz participated in the Anthrax classic lineup reunion. However, he left the band after the recent split with vocalist Joey Belladonna.

During a 2007 radio interview with Eddie Trunk (of the Friday Night Rocks radio show on Q104.3 FM New York), Anthrax guitarist Scott Ian said of Spitz, "Whether people are aware or not, Danny's, like, a big deal in the really, really fancy, expensive watch world - like crazy, super-high-end watches - and he's got his own line of watches coming out. It's weird, because before the reunion I would read this stuff online, and I would just kind of be like, 'What the hell...?' But then like after hanging out with the guy for 20 months and you actually talk to him and see the watches and what-not, I was like, 'Holy crap!' It's a pretty big deal."

Big Four Sonisphere Festival Tour Opens in Poland

The historic Big Four tour has finally come together, but the process has been a slow one. However, despite a number of setbacks, the tour has finally kick-started and on June 16 100,000 fans at Bemowo Airport in Warsaw, Poland witnessed history in the making as Slayer, Metallica, Megadeth, and Anthrax took to the same stage. (Read More)

Future Tour for the Big Four?

Metallica's official website has released footage from the band's September 17 concert at the Conseco Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, Indiana. (See below for clip.)

The following tunes made up the set list for the event:

01. That Was Just Your Life
02. The End of the Line
03. Ride the Lightning
04. Wherever I May Roam
05. One
06. Broken, Beat & Scarred
07. Cyanide
08. Sad but True
09. Welcome Home (Sanitarium)
10. All Nightmare Long
11. The Day that Never Comes
12. Master of Puppets
13. Damage, Inc.
14. Nothing Else Matters
15. Enter Sandman

Encore:
16. Last Caress
17. Motorbreath
18. Seek & Destroy

The band recently kicked off a new North American tour, which started on September 14 in Nashville, Tennessee.

Drummer Lars Ulrich has not yet confirmed reports of a future tour featuring the "Big Four" of the 80s thrash metal scene - Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer, and Anthrax. During a radio interview in Dayton, Ohio with 103.9 The X, Ulrich was quoted as saying:

"I think it would be a super-fun thing to do. It's something that I would definitely support. It's something that I would love to encourage. It's something I love to be very proactive in putting together. But right now . . . it's not something that's like hush-hush being worked on behind the scenes or anything like that. I read some of those Internet sites myself once in a while, and it's not something that's going down, but it's something that I would be totally for at some point if it could happen. And we would love to be a part of that at any level possible."

According to Ulrich, the idea for a Big Four tour started in March 2009. "...a bunch of us were sitting around way later than we should have been sitting around [having] a bunch of very heavily red wine-induced conversations . . . And the idea of doing that at some point came up in that conversation."

However, the chatty drummer's comments have been noted as contradicting those of Metallica bassist Robert Trujillo who, despite admitting that a tour was indeed in the works, offered a discretionary note in a Metromix interview saying, "It's not a sealed deal. We're working on it."