John Bush Interview - Anthrax, Armored Saint, & Category 7 [23:06-28:07]

So and he did all the music to it. So it really kind of ushered in this kind of new way of thinking of things, at least for anthrax. And then we made the weird video with Mark Pelin. I think Mark Pelin was his name. I believe he did the Jeremy video for Pearl Jam. And it was weird. It was probably a little too weird for anthrax at that time. I don't think we were hardly ever featured except for one quick photo of our faces, which is in retrospect, probably a bad idea. And maybe Black Lodge wasn't meant to be the second video at that time. It would have been probably smart to do like the third or fourth, I think. And again, this is I'm being on Money Morning Quarter back a little bit with this stuff. But it doesn't really matter. And Chetta Elfman was in that video who went on to be a pretty big star. And she was nothing at that point. She was very just early stages of an actress. So it was a trip. But yeah, it's a great song. It's really, really cool. And I did my plan. I'll plan that by having this going to be awesome. Cool, man. So now back when you were, you got the call to join anthrax. Was there any hesitation or what were your thoughts about replacing a singer in a band? Because you found your own band at that point. I did. Yeah, I was taught. It was taught. You know, Joey Belladonna's voice is extremely distinctive and unique sounding and he was very associated with anthrax. I knew it was going to change because my voice is very different. Once I got the official approval of joining the band, I had it not look back. I had to just go and be positive. And that was the mentality I had. I embraced all the old tunes and tried to sing them as best as I could in association with the way they were recorded. But you know, it's kind of always, thank you very much, great to be able. But it's always going to sound a little different, of course, because our voices are different. But I honored them. They were like my stepcades, if you were to the parenting as a connection there. And I did everything, my power to be the best I could be in the band. So you know, again, I respect Joey because he's, again, he's associated with anthrax the most in the 80s and that and wasn't easy to replace a singer. But you got to do it. What are you going to do? You can't grow in there with any kind of hesitancy. You got to go for it. Right. Yeah. And I think it was cool that you came in and you made those songs your own. You sang them in your own style. You didn't try to replicate Joey Beladonna or do anything like that. For me, at least, that made all the difference. You're going to come in, make it your own and do that. And then it's not just a clone at that point. Yeah. I mean, our voices, again, are very, they sound very different. So there was no way that it wasn't going to sound a little different. I'm probably a little more, it could be a little bit viewed as more aggressive. But now I have kind of raspy or obviously, but I still sang them as the way they were, the phrasing, everything. I didn't want to change things too much. I wanted to keep them as was because, because that's what people want to hear. So they know those songs. I mean, I feel that same way about the songs that I'm doing that I recorded. It's like, they got to be right. They got to sound like those songs. So, you know, my voice has changed. It's funny. It's like, as with Frankie Bella, not too long ago. And he was saying, how's it singing these songs? I go, it's a good challenge because I was 30 years younger. But it's just about kind of going back, remembering, using the things that I've learned as a singer through the years to help myself out. And yeah, that's going to be fun. Absolutely. Well, I think you're still sounding great on your new project, category seven here. Quickly, as we start to wrap things up here, how did this project come together? Yeah, that was cool. It just kind of happened real naturally. Obviously, I know Phil from doing some stuff with metal legions. He's a guy who's been around the business for a long time and extremely talented. And yeah, this idea with him and my girl Anna were working on some tunes and Jason Pitner. And they said, would you be interested? And I said, well, send me some stuff. I don't know until you tell you hear it. And they did. And I was pretty blown away with a couple of songs that I heard. I was like, wow, this is this is really cool stuff and really heavy, but yet it sounds unique and it just sounds kind of retro, but at the same time modern. So the key ingredient was for me to write to it to see if I could add to it and make it better. And I started doing that. And the lonely hole we had a couple of songs within maybe a couple of months. And then we demoed them. But we all were just like, wow, this is awesome. So we just kept working and working and next thing we owe. We had enough material for a record. And it just made sense to make an album. Why not? We were talking all these songs. We went to metal blade records, which is the record they won with what I'm saying. And they were interested. And so I was excited about making this record