March 28, 2024
Bassist Frank Bello is really proud and honoured to have Anthrax be part of the 'Big Four' of thrash metal



Photo by Christopher Lee Helton

Bassist Frank Bello is really proud and honoured to have Anthrax be part of the ‘Big Four’ of thrash metal

Anthrax‘s long-time bassist Frank Bello was recently interviewed by Andrew Daly for Metal Castle. Bello released his autobiography titled Fathers, Brothers, And Sons: Surviving Anguish, Abandonment, And Anthrax via Rare Bird back on November 2, 2021.

Photo by Christopher Lee Helton

With respect to his book, Bello indicated: “Yeah, the book came out November 2nd, Fathers, Brothers, and Sons: Surviving Anguish, Abandonment, and Anthrax. I’m very proud of it. Available on Amazon or wherever you get your books, I’m very proud of it. I’ve been doing the whole press thing and writing songs with Anthrax. I’ve been writing solo songs for myself, just a lot of writing. You’re looking at the place I do pretty much all of these. [Laughs].”

Daly noted that Bello‘s autobiography covers “everything” to which the bassist noted: “Well, the book is pretty much about abandonment. The story is when I was younger; I have a family of five; I was the oldest. Anyway, my dad took off, and so we lost the house, went into poverty, and all that stuff. I moved in with my grandmother, the same area where my drummer, Charlie Benante, was living, and he got me into music, and it became this thing that I had to do in my life. I found my thing, and it really was my outlet for all. The hole that the abandonment left; this book has a lot to do with that and how I tried to fill that void and look up to my heroes, which were all musicians, bass players, KISS, and different bands. My favorite bass players, my heroes, I wanted to do that. I also wrote it for my son. I said, You can brush yourself off, and no matter what curveballs life throws you, brush yourself off. It’s very important to do that, and you can make a better life for yourself and never say you should have. I did it. You have to do it.” I guess…it’s a reflective time in my life. And there are a lot of great rock ‘n’ roll stories in the book. So, it’s got a little bit of everything.”

In terms of Anthrax being part of the ‘Big Four’ of thrash metal along with Metallica, Megadeth and Slayer, Bello stated (with slight edit): “I’m really proud of that. I’m honored to be part of that. There are a lot of great bands out there and look; I’ve been around a lot of great bands. It’s an honor just to be here and to be talking to you as a musician who gets to play music for a living. I’m very grateful for that. Maybe, this is all part of it. I guess it’s a cathartic thing I’m going through right now; it’s like, “Man, it’s been a good ride,” and maybe this whole COVID thing we’re going through now has made me realize that I need to stop and think, and that’s why I think we had the time.

We had the time, Joel [McIver] and I; we’ve been talking about doing this book for years. We talked at the beginning of COVID and said, “Maybe this is the time.” And there you go. It is the time. It was the time. And it worked out. We had a great schedule, and it was really conversational, “Yeah, yeah, and that, and that, and that.” It was back and forth; it was just a lot of fun. And some of it was very painful; the stuff with my brother, my brother’s death, was very painful, and you have to live with that. It’s life, man; this is life. And how you can bounce back; it’s important that people know as shitty as life can be sometimes, you can bounce back and rise to it again, rise to life. I think it’s important for people to know all that.”

You can read the rest of the interview with Frank Bello at Metal Castle‘s website.





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