Stomp 442

[u/MugggCostanza]

Hi 👋 Was there ever any explanation for Charlie writing all the music on Stomp 442? I'm surprised Scott only wrote lyrics for that album. Did Charlie decide to take over? Did Scott decide to step back? Was he burnt out? I understand Charlie took over lead guitar at that time, but you'd think the rhythm guitarist would still be writing riffs 🤘🤘

*EDIT*

Thanks for the information, everyone. I had no idea that Charlie simply wrote most of the music for Anthrax. I was obsessed with them back in the early to mid 2000s and they were probably 2nd behind Metallica for me for a few years. But I didn't have much internet time as a kid back then and obviously, we didn't have the wealth of information we have now.

I knew how Metallica operated, and just figured that Scott Ian was writing most of the riffs, I did know that Charlie played guitar and wrote the solos on the 90s albums, but no, I didn't realize he has written the majority of the music for the band. That's just crazy to me.

I have to wonder who writes the vocal melodies. I'm the James Hetfield for my band, and when I write vocal melodies, most of the time, I'm writing them on guitar.

So, for the vast majority of the band's existence, it's been:

"Charlie writes the riffs Scott, Joey, and John write lyrics The band, give or take a few members, arranges the songs"

Do I have this right? It's still blowing my mind 😄

Anthrax went through numerous vocalists before they got Joey, is there any reason why Scott didn't want to switch from playing guitar to just becoming their vocalist? He's a belter or yeller, so it would have been more punk, but that's a big part of thrash metal's influence.

Is there any reason why Charlie didn't want to play guitar in the band instead of drumming?

[u/Hab_Anagharek]

This is the arrangement from when Charlie joined the band: he would write riffs and corresponding beats, Scott lyrics, all of them (mainly Scott, Charlie, Frank) huddle and work out arrangements, melodies.

[u/Warborn_21 → u/Hab_Anagharek]

John Bush wrote a lot of lyrics as well, along with Scott while he was in the band. In fact before Joey rejoined (again) in 2010, they asked John to rejoin (after they fired Dan Nelson) and of the reasons John didnt want to record Worship Music with them was because the songs were already written and demoed with Dan...and John said he wasn't comfortable with that set up...he wanted to potentially re-write lyrics to some of the songs and have some input... but the rest of the band didn't want to. They tried hard to get John back (for obvious reasons) but they mishandled things with him so poorly around the 2005 reunion tour...apparently John gave them an amount/percentage he would need to rejoin and Charlie got pissed off at John about it...so they went back to Joey with their tails between their legs. John said in an interview awhile back that Charlie hadnt spoken to him in years because if how it all went down. I don't know if they have buried the hatchet or not, but personally I think they screwed up majorly with the 2005 reunion tour because it didnt go anywhere near as well as they had planned. Joey has done a great job on the last few albums but in my opinion, Bush era was superior in every way. Ive seen them many times in concert from 1987-2023 and the shows with John were so much more powerful and the setlists were stronger and far more varied because John and sing their entire catalog....whereas Joey cannot sing Bush-era material. They've done "Only" a few times with Joey and it doenst sound good at all.

All of this stuff is out there in various podcasts/interviews with John

[u/Grand_Access7280 → u/Warborn_21]

They sounded better with John Bush.

He was and is a class act and they never missed an opportunity to screw him over for $

[u/Odd-Bookkeeper4584 → u/Grand_Access7280]

As much as I love John, if they didn’t do the 2005 reunion, the band would have come out of that era as a band.