Anthrax - Dan Nelson breathes better on stage

Dan: ‘Because I’m terrible, haha. Well, I’m Dan Nelson, I’m 33 years old and I guess I didn’t get the right break. Until now, now everybody will hear from me.’

‘I’ve been singing in bands since I was twelve years old, so I’ve been doing this a long time. Never on as big a scale as Anthrax, obviously, but I’ve been plugging away since I was twelve. It’s always been metal or rock, never anything else. Heavy rock and metal, that’s all I want to do.’

‘I approached Rob about another band that he had and after we jammed together, he thought I’d be a good fit for Anthrax, so he called Charlie, Charlie called me...that’s pretty much how it went.’

‘I’m really handsome, haha. I guess I kind of had a mixture of what both Joey Belladonna and John Bush brought to the table. With John’s aggression and Joey’s range, it’s basically a mixture of what I’ve always done since I was a kid. I guess that’s what they heard and I think they also wanted a more forceful stage presence up front, someone who’s going to grab the audience and bring them in and that’s definitely what I do. When I get out there, I turn into something else, I go from being Dan to ‘the beast’. It’s kind of like Bruce Banner and The Hulk. I’m Banner offstage and when I hit the stage, The Hulk comes out. So I think it’s those factors: the stage presence and the mixture of styles they’ve had in the past, melodic to aggressive.’

‘Hopefully all of them. Plus, I’m coming from a younger, angrier, meaner, hungrier version of Anthrax, so I think we’re going to appeal to a younger audience than before too. As well as the old school fans, who are the best fans there are. I think when everybody hears the new album, it’s going to impress them. Or when they see us live. Last night we played in The Hague, it was out of control, it was off the hook. Anybody who’s coming to an Anthrax show now is defitely going to leave as a fan if they weren’t before.’

‘I’d like to think very big. They didn’t have many songs written when I first came in and they had no lyrics or vocal melodies written at all. We all collaborated together on the album. So I’d like to think and I hope that a large part was me. I feel it was, because I definitely left my heart on the tracks. Charlie writes most of the music, as far as guitar riffs and the arrangements. The lyrics, for the most part, are written by myself and Scott and most of the melodies were me and Frankie. That’s pretty much the way it went, with all of us giving a riff here or there.’

‘I don’t know. Since I was a kid, I’ve always liked performing. That kind of thing has just always been in my blood. I just love being on stage, I love connecting with the audience. I breathe better when I’m on stage than I do now. In normal life, I’m just waiting for my next chance to get up on stage. That’s when I breathe easiest. So it really didn’t face me. And I’m not saying that to sound cocky or anything, I just feel like this is what I was born to do and any chance I get to do it, I’m going to take full advantage of that. I’m just blessed now to be able to do it for a wider audience.’

‘Main influence is James Hetfield, hands down. James Hetfield is god and that’s it. I’ve had the pleasure of singing on stage the other night with Phil Anselmo and he’s been a huge influence on me as well. Then you get... Layne Staley, Jim Morrison, Steven Tyler, Robert Plant, Ozzy Osbourne... The list goes on and on, there’s so many singers.’

‘Yeah, I’m a big classic rock guy as well. And a lot of the bands I came from before Anthrax, I would sing and play guitar or bass, I wasn’t just the singer, so Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley from Kiss had a big influence on me because of that. So like I said, Hetfield, even Jason Newsted, Dave Mustaine, guys that were always playing and singing aggressively. That was always what drew me into metal. But they took my guitar away, so I hate these guys, haha.’

‘Exactly! Look at The Eagles! Or Iron Maiden. We had the pleasure of playing with them quite a few times. Bruce Dickinson, another guy who’s a metal god. The guy sounds like a cd live, he gets better with age, I don’t understand it. He gets better and more energetic... When I’m his age, I’ll probably in a wheelchair and have no voice, haha.’

‘Sure. You know, obviously, I don’t have a high speaking voice, so the higher notes I had to work my voice out to get used to doing that. But I’ve been singing in standard 440 tuning since I was a little kid, all throughout puberty actually, so I think that helped to keep my voice stretched out and prepared for the higher notes. But then again, if the guys want to drop the higher notes anytime soon, I’m not going to complain. I definitely have a plan b, you know, if I’m doing four shows in a row, the first two shows I’ll definitely hit more high notes than the fourth night. There’s another way to sing it without cheating the fans. That’s my main thing, I don’t want to cheat the fans. I know what they want to hear, because I was a fan too. I want to give them the best representation of the songs they love the same way I’d want to hear it. I would hate going to see an artist that’s so messed up or so untrained or unprepaired, whether it was cardio-vascular or because of drugs, that he couldn’t pull it off live. I don’t want to be that guy. That’s what it’s all about, to please them. But at the same time, I’m very much looking forward to doing more of the Dan Nelson-era, from Worship Music, which is probably the highest Anthrax vocals in some points, so a lot of people are going to be shocked. But with chest voice, it’s no falsetto, just real powered out singing, like Roger Daltrey from The Who, who used to just power it out and sing from the chest, there’s a lot of that on Worship Music.’

‘I tried it for maybe three sessions and I learned some cool stuff about when you make a long trip, make sure you drink a lot of water and this or that, but as far as warming up, I think it’s different strokes for different folks. I personally don’t like to warm up a lot. I think it hurts someone like me who seems a blues singer at heart, that sings from the chest mostly. If you’re a higher voice singer I think it’s better to warm up probably, because you have a thinner voice and you’ll have to warm your voice up to that. So like I said, it depends on a person. I don’t discourage singing lessons at all, but it just wasn’t my cup of tea. I’d rather just do what I’ve been doing all along, just go up there and belt that out. When all else fails, let it wail. Get louder.’

‘It’s definitely an Anthrax record. I don’t think it’s so different from the other records, but it’s definitely the heaviest Anthrax, but at the same time it’s very melodic. It’s a very dark album. You’re not going to listen to it and think ‘Who is this? This isn’t Anthrax’, but at times, it’s the most aggressive Anthrax you’ve ever heard, I believe. And if Charlie disagrees with me, I’ll put him in a headlock right now, haha.’

‘I hate it. I hated every minute of it, haha. It’s a necessity. I’m not a studio guy, I won’t lie, I love the stage. The studio is a whole different animal, you have to prepare in a whole different way. You have to put up with a caveman, pointing the finger at you and telling you: ‘Do it again. Do it again.’ All the hard work was definitely worth it, the end result is a killer product, but no, I do not like the studio. Once the red light goes on, I like to take a chair and smash it.’

‘I just want to thank everybody for all the support. The Anthrax fans are the best in the world. We played a show in Holland yesterday and the fans were amazing and I can’t thank them enough for a great show and I’m going to give them an even better one tonight. Metal!’

Read more: interviews