Author Archives: Jonathan Williams

Susan SurfTone still making waves in the surf rock scene

For almost 30 years, Susan SurfTone has been quite comfortable being a woman in the mostly-man’s world of surf rock. But even before she made a career out of strumming jangly riffs and garage-y instrumentals, SurfTone was kicking ass as a Federal Bureau of Investigation agent, where her training included squaring off against male opponents in the boxing ring. After releasing her first solo album Shore last year, SurfTone has been instrumental (pun intended) in unifying the surf scene in her new hometown of Portland, Ore., most notably with the recent compilation PDX A G0-Go: Making Waves Up North. Featuring contributions from bands such as the Surf Weasels, the Outer Space Heaters and, of course, SurfTone herself, PDX A Go-Go can also be credited for the newest addition to SurfTone’s live show: go-go dancer and PDX A Go-Go cover model Seana Steele. “I saw her dancing with the Surf Weasels and I guess you could say I stole her away from them,” says SurfTone. “They’re on the comp with us, so they weren’t too mad about it. Actually, they’re drummer’s playing with us now, so I guess I raided them.” Already working on a new album for release early next year, SurfTone and her band embark on a brief West Coast tour beginning tonight and concluding Saturday with a performance at the L.A. Derby Dolls roller derby bout. Before hitting the road, SurfTone and Steele talk to Wrestling with Pop Culture about PDX A Go-Go, FBI sparring and general badassery.

How did the PDX A Go-Go compilation come about?

SurfTone: I hadn’t played live in Portland in about six years, but right after Shore came out I started getting some gigs and realized there were some really good surf bands in Portland. They had a steady crowd of people coming to the gigs and I thought it would be good to document that with a compilation CD because I don’t think there has been a compilation CD that had anything to do with Portland surf bands. I thought it was a new thing to do and it also helped solidify the relationships between the bands. Now we’re all friends and it’s a virtual love fest up here.

You’re doing a few West Coast shows this week. Do you have any plans to continue touring and maybe taking some of these bands on the road with you?

SurfTone: I hadn’t planned on taking any of those bands out with me. Sometimes day jobs get in the way. But we’re thinking of doing another European tour in 2013. I’ve done four European tours, the first of which was in ’96. Then I did some more tours there between 1996 and 2001 and I haven’t been back since. So I think it might be time.

One of this week’s tour dates is at a L.A. Derby Dolls bout. I’d imagine Susan SurfTone and roller derby will complement each other nicely.

SurfTone: The Derby Dolls seemed like a good gig. My dad was a baseball player, so I guess I just kind of like sports.

Before you were a badass surf guitarist, you were in the FBI and did some boxing. What was it like being that kind of badass before getting into music?

Paul Barrall, Avory Gray, Susan SurfTone, Seana Steele and Dan Ferguson (photo by Jeff Wong)

SurfTone: Some people say I’m a badass, but I don’t know if I believe them. I’m afraid of spiders, so I don’t know what badass is afraid of spiders. But I went into the FBI right after law school. We went to Quantico, Va. to the FBI Academy for training and part of the training was boxing. My father had shown me how to box because I’m an only child and, like I said, my dad was a baseball player, he was good at football and he was pretty much a natural sportsman, so I learned how to play everything. He taught me how to box and I was one of the few women who really knew how to do it. My fight partner was the smallest guy in the class and I always felt really bad for him because I could always give him a pretty good go-round and all the other guys in the class would make fun of him if I decked him, which happened a few times. He got me good a few times, too. I learned what it felt like to have your head snapped back, that’s for sure. We also had a guy who had been a Golden Gloves champ in our class and we had this one woman who wasn’t very popular. The day before I had to fight her, he came to me and gave me some lessons so I could go out and make short work of her, which I did. So that was kind of fun.

How long were you in the FBI and how did you go from that to fronting a surf band?

SurfTone: I was in just short of three years. I quit because I wanted to play music. I was working in New York City and I really wanted to put a band together and start playing in the clubs. I asked them if they had a problem with it and they said they did, so I had to quit. I was 28 at the time and it was either do music or not do music, and I decided I wanted to do music. So I left the Bureau and started a band and 30 years later, here we are.

Did you ever consider pursuing fighting since you seemed to be pretty good at it?

SurfTone: Oh, God no. Back at that time, women didn’t box. This is all new. I think I’d be too small for it anyway. I’m not all that big, so I think I’d probably get knocked on my ass by a good female boxer.

Maybe you’d have a fighting chance in wrestling.

SurfTone: No. I’d get pinned, believe me.

Seana, how do you fit in with the band? Do you rehearse with them before going on stage or do you just go with the flow of the music?

Susan SurfTone by the "Shore" (photo by Robbie McClaran)

Steele: I normally do one rehearsal so I can become familiar with the set and have practice doing it live. But overall I just do freeform dancing. That’s kind of the spirit of go-go dancing is just letting go and having fun. Susan and I are also working on bringing a fusion of fashion and music because I’m also a model. We recently did a photo shoot for the artwork for the next album, so I’m assisting in creating that amalgam.

You mentioned your recording schedule a little earlier. Do you have any idea when the new album might be out?

SurfTone: We’re recording it the first week of February and if all goes well, I would expect to see it sometime in April. I think I’ve got two more songs to finish writing for the new record. Then I go through the process of re-demoing that to have clear versions of them in the studio. Seanna’s walking in Portland Fashion Week for one of the designers and will be walking to one of the songs off Shore.

Steele: That’s on October 11 and Nelli Millard is the designer.

SurfTone: Nelli’s Russian, and part of what I did when I was in the FBI was I worked in New York and I was in the foreign counterintelligence unit. I chased KGB agents around New York City and just kind of kept an eye on them to make sure they weren’t doing anything they shouldn’t be doing. So I keep making these jokes about Nelli being a Russian designer.

For more information, go to www.susansurftone.com.

Georgia Wrestling Now welcomes PCW’s Stephen Platinum

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For almost three years, Platinum Championship Wrestling has been one of the most talked about wrestling promotions in Georgia. The EMPIRE, which took over the Friday night Academy Theatre shows last November, has vowed that the night before Sacred Ground: Chapter Three will be the final Academy show. This Saturday is Sacred Ground in PCW’s new home of Porterdale, and Stephen Platinum is our guest on this week’s Georgia Wrestling Now to discuss PCW’s past and future, as well as where things will go following Sacred Ground. Listen live Mondays at 7 p.m. and call 347-324-5735 with your questions and comments.

PCW's Stephen Platinum is ready to fight the EMPIRE (photo by Harold Jay Taylor/Headlocks and Headshots)

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Wood Harris is breaking the law in “Dredd 3D”

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Judge Dredd (Karl Urban) and Cassandra Anderson (Olivia Thirlby) in "Dredd 3D" (Photo by Joe Alblas)

Based on the pulpy British comic strip (and the 1995 Sylvester Stallone-starring film adaptation) Judge Dredd, Dredd 3D is a dystopian action thriller that jumps off the screen thanks to its ambitious use of 3-D technology. But for a film so focused on the sights and sounds of the judges, who act as police, judge, jury and, if needed, executioner, the film is often just as much about what’s not being seen or heard. And Wood Harris’ character Kay is the perfect example of this point. A member of drug lord Ma-Ma’s (Lena Headey) clan, Kay is a street thug taken into custody by Judge Dredd (Karl Urban) and his clairvoyant trainee (Olivia Thirlby). Best known for his own role as a drug lord on The Wire, Harris’ character exercises his right to remain silent for a good portion of Dredd as Ma-Ma and her goons hunt down the very officers who have taken Kay into custody. But with a mind-reading rookie largely in charge of his fate, Kay eventually gets in on the action, verbally and physically. Judgment is out now that the movie is in theaters, and Harris talks to Wrestling with Pop Culture about Dredd‘s filming process and the similarities between the ruthlessness of the criminals and the judges.

For a movie that’s as visually ambitious as this one is, what was the filming process like?

We shot for six months in Africa. I had a driver each day and it took about 40 minutes to get to the set each day. On the drive, we would go from the swanky area I stayed in through the underdeveloped African society. It was so underdeveloped that I thought it was a wasteland. After three or four weeks, I said to my driver, “There’s a lot of garbage.” He was like, “No, those are people’s homes. I must take you to see.”

I had never experienced anything like that. There were brothers and sisters there that dress like me and you, have cell phones and no plumbing. Imagine a whole community with no infrastructure and five Porta-Potties within two or three miles. It really raises your eyebrows to what’s going on politically. If you were born over there and lived over there, the land you stood on you could build a house on and you’re not going to pay rent or tax or anything. But you don’t have any resources. And there are beautiful women there, but you meet them and go back to the crib and there is no crib.

So that environment parallels what’s going on in the movie where the people with money have more control.

Judge Dredd (Karl Urban) is the law in "Dredd 3D" (photo by Joe Alblas)

Yeah, it’s definitely like that. They have gangs over there that are very ruthless, and they’re named after American cities. There’s a gang called New York and they wear Yankees hats twisted on their heads and act like Americans. When I say ruthless, I’m talking about cutting heads off and leaving them at grandma’s house. At the same time, the homicide rate there is lower than most American cities. So it’s still more peaceful there. Over here, if black people and white people play basketball, you always see the black dude win the game. We just dominate most sports. Not over there. You can turn on the TV and see brothers losing at sports all the time. It was just unbelievable. So they have a fondness for American black culture because 50 years before they stood up and said, “No more apartheid,” we were already civil activists. They just stopped being the way we were in the ’40s and ’50s in 1996. In 1996, you would need a dummy pass to go from a black area to a white part of town. It would last ten hours – eight hours to work and two hours for the commute. They would do sweeps every day, so if they caught a brother walking down the street after a certain time, he went to jail. I just realized a lot from that experience. We still have residue, but at least it’s smoke. They’re dealing with fire still. It made me realize that the sacrifices and struggles that people are going through over here are not to be taken for granted.

For a movie that is as focused on the sights and sounds of 3-D as Dredd is, it’s interesting that you never see Judge Dredd’s face and your character doesn’t even speak until pretty far into the film. And even then, you don’t have a lot of lines since so much of it is action and psychology. What was it like working in an environment where it’s often just as much about what you’re not seeing and hearing?

That was a challenge, but I liked that challenge. I didn’t have to memorize a lot, but I still had to figure out what they were saying and if I was giving the right responses and I still had to be in the moment. It might seem easier, of course, but at the same time it’s not because you could easily get lost in what’s going on because you don’t have to say anything. But the good thing about not having a lot of lines was that I didn’t have to do a lot of memorizing.

I would imagine that it was even harder in a movie like this where so much of the action isn’t actually happening in front of you.

Wood Harris plays the thuggish Kay in "Dredd 3D" (photo by Joe Alblas)

There’s lots of action happening in the film. There’s one scene where we’re against this wall and Judge comes running down the hall and they’re shooting at him and the wall gets blown out. That was a squibbed wall with real explosives and we had to be in front of it when it was blowing up for real. So a lot of the effects were right there in front of us. I had a stuntman in that same scene and when the wall gets blown out, Dredd, his partner and myself jump out of this rooftop. It was about a one-story drop and my stuntman broke his femur bone because they had him handcuffed and he just didn’t have any hands to land on.

You play the villain, but there seem to be some parallels between the criminal you play and Judge Dredd, who has the authority to do some of the same things you do because of his badge.

What I hope people will think about after seeing this film is if you really consider a judge to be a judge, jury, cop and executioner all in one person, that’s pretty terrible. And it’s possible. If there is a police state, it could be like that. With these guys, there’s no court date. They catch you, you did it wrong, the sentence happens and if an execution happens, it happens where you stand. That helped fortify me in the role of Kay because when you play a bad guy, you really have to just try to be a normal person who does bad things. With Kay, I didn’t have room to do that because this is a comic book-based film where the villains have to be villainous and they can’t be based on the real stuff that I would like to base it on. But when I considered Dredd being an executioner, a judge and a law enforcement person, he’s not a good guy. He’s a hero because they say so, because he’s a cop.

For more information, go to www.dreddthemovie.com.

“Dracula: The Rock Opera” gives rock ‘n’ roll life to the undead

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When the Little 5 Points Rockstar Orchestra first gathered for its low budget interpretation of Andrew Lloyd Webber‘s Jesus Christ Superstar a few years ago, it seemed like a self-indulgent undertaking by a bunch of Atlanta rockers who had little, if any, knowledge of how to properly stage a theatrical production. Sure, they had seen their share of stage theatrics, but the spontaneous energy of a live rock performance is very different from a well-rehearsed stage production, even when music is involved.

Over the years, the Orchestra became more ambitious, staging theatrical interpretations of Iron Maiden‘s The Number of the Beast and Rush‘s 2112, as well as absurdly sacreligious holiday productions such as Christmas with the Devil and the Krampus Xmas Spectacular. The group graduated from the tiny stage of the Five Spot to the legitimate theater space at 7 Stages. And in February of last year, the Orchestra staged its most impressive production yet: Haus Von Dracul, a rock opera interpretation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula.

Rob Thompson as Dracula (photo by Yvonne Boyd)

Haus Von Dracul, the first act of a work-in-progress, revealed a more sophisticated side to the Orchestra. With Orchestra leader Rob Thompson now working with theatre veteran Del Hamilton and the rest of the 7 Stages staff, the marriage of rock and theatre he originally envisioned was finally complete. And last weekend, the Orchestra staged the world premiere of Dracula: The Rock Opera, which builds upon Haus Von Dracul‘s foundation to bare theatrical fangs worthy of it’s namesake vampire.

Directed by Hamilton and accomplished actor Justin Welborn (The Final Destination, The Signal), Dracula is perhaps the most accurate depiction of Stoker’s novel to ever have been conceived theatrically. Rather than the dark lover Hollywood would tell us is Dracula, this production retains the demonic fashion sense established by Bela Lugosi and Gary Oldman with the monstrous demeanor of Max Shreck’s Nosferatu.

“You get Max Shreck as Nosferatu, then he starts to morph into Lugosi a little bit, then he turns into Christopher Lee,” says Shane Morton, who plays Texan Quincy Morris (and also runs attractions such as the Silver Scream SpookShow and Atlanta Zombie Apocalypse). “You see him do the whole gamut and you can tell he’s been working hard on it and studying a lot. Rob’s jump in acting has been insane. I snuck out and watched the first act and I couldn’t believe it. I know Dracula, and this is the best Dracula I’ve ever seen. I know I’m too close to the project to say anything unbiased, but I really feel that way watching his performance. And that’s all because of Justin and Del really getting on everybody and making actors out of a bunch of musicians and stuff.”

“We’re working towards a more professional atmosphere,” adds Welborn, who has been largely responsible for the Orchestra’s evolution over the past few years. “We told them we could make it bigger if we rehearsed a little bit longer, if everyone showed up on time, and this time it was very much about being as professional as we could be and not getting drunk during rehearsals. There are just certain things you do if you’re going to take something as serious and invest as much money, time and effort as we have in this. For everybody to actually come to that mutual agreement makes Del and my job so much easier because that’s what you have to do. Everybody’s performances came up – our ensemble had a chance to really gel together and work on what they were going to do, and the innkeeper woman (played by Naomi Lavender, who also plays Mina Harker and one of Dracula’s brides) didn’t look like something out of Disney, she looked like something out of a horror movie. I agree that Rob’s Dracula is one of the spookiest, weirdest, craziest that I’ve gotten to see. He’s taken his natural moves and put those natural moves into something very streamlined and knows what he’s doing the whole time. That’s the thing that takes it from out-of-control rock ‘n’ roll to a focused and true artistic performance.”

Dracula (Rob Thompson) and his brides Naomi Lavender (left), Madeline Brumby (center) and Jessika Cutts (right) (photo by Yvonne Boyd)

Though last year’s production was essentially the first act of Dracula, a lot of changes have been made between that show and the current one (running through Oct. 14). The stylized stage itself has been completely reconfigured to help the show (and blood) flow a little better, the costumes are a little more flamboyant, and some fresh blood has been added to the cast. One of the standouts of this new cast is Jeff Langston, whose Van Helsing is just as eccentric as Thompson’s Dracula. In fact, between the costumes and makeup, the two characters almost look as if they could be related. And like Thompson, Langston, whose only prior stage time was as singer for Ledfoot Messiah, is the latest example of a musician previously unfamiliar with the acting discipline.

“The directors had never met him at all until the first day or rehearsal,” says Welborn. “And he began by saying, ‘I just want you to know I’ll accept any help because I’ve never acted in any play ever in my life.’ Then he began to sing and it was like, ‘OK, we can work something out here.’ He probably worked harder and came farther than anyone else because he’s never worn a costume or gone onstage without a guitar. He told me the other day that he used to think he was born to play music, but now he thinks maybe he was born to perform.”

There’s no shortage of great performances in Dracula, and most everyone involved has to perform in both musical and theatrical capacities. But it’s the music that helps convey the drama and emotions, whether it be through seriously psychedelic scenes or funk-laden numbers with a sense of humor.

“My inspiration grew out of my love for Jesus Christ Superstar and putting this group together to do that,” says Thompson. “I pretty much hate most modern music that comes out and the ’70s are definitely my favorite, so I was thinking of Alice Cooper, Rainbow, Deep Purple, Thin Lizzy. I just wanted a classic rock opera and this has turned out to be better than I imagined.”

And while the first act is dominated by the ominous sense of Jonathan Harker’s impending doom after arriving at Dracula’s castle, the second act, with it’s Gwar-like gore and lighthearted songs, really delves into the comedic value of it all.

“If you don’t give them a release valve and give them something to laugh at, they’re going to start laughing at stuff they’re not supposed to laugh at,” says Morton. “So these songs that, when I originally heard them I was like, ‘What the fuck is this?’, they have to happen because it helps the flow of everything. Between all the horror, you’ve got to give them some comic relief.”

Ledfoot Messiah’s Jeff Langston as Van Helsing (photo by Yvonne Boyd)

“I’ve never seen Dracula done without all this serious stuff,” says Welborn. “It’s almost never funny, and that’s why I don’t think I’ve ever seen one that I loved. I love the [Francis Ford] Coppola movie in it’s own way and I love Lugosi’s movie and some of the old ones, but you begin to laugh at things because it’s just kind of absurd. Every Dracula I’ve ever seen on stage, I’ve absolutely hated. The first time I heard we were going to do this, I was like, ‘Wow! OK. That’s a challenge in and of itself because it’s always so [romanticized].’ Then these guys start telling me he’s a monster and that’s it, and I began to think that gives humanity to everybody else around him.”

“The really great thing about this show is it’s not just another musical or another play or another rock show,” says Jessika Cutts, who plays Lucy Westerna and one of Dracula’s brides. “It’s got the intelligence and finesse of an opera, then it has this careless fun you have when you go to see a rock concert, mixed with all these spectacular effects.”

The Orchestra has big plans for Dracula once the coffin closes on this initial run. Welborn has already been talking to his agents and managers about possibly staging it in New York, Thompson hopes to properly record the score in a studio for a future soundtrack release and there are premonitions of taking the show on the road, or even overseas, if the opportunity arises.

“My whole life I feel like I’ve been gearing up to this,” says Morton. “I’ve been obsessed with [Dracula] since I was three years old. Jesus Christ Superstar is a great rock opera, but I think Rob has written a better rock opera and if the right people get ahold of this and it gets out, people will see that it’s really something special.”

For more information, go to www.7stages.org/dracula.

Georgia Wrestling Now welcomes TNA’s Pat Kenney and “The Revelation” Shane Marx

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This week marks Georgia Wrestling Now‘s 50th episode, and Wrestling with Pop Culture (alongside Team All You Can Eat’s Matt Hankins) has plenty of reason to celebrate. In addition to discussing recent and upcoming happenings in the Georgia wrestling scene, we also talk to Total Nonstop Action Wrestling‘s Pat Kenney (you might also remember him as Simon Diamond) about the recent Gut Check seminar at the Gainesville Impact Wrestling house show. Then we hear from EMPIRE Wrestling Champion “The Revelation” Shane Marx about his upcoming matches against former WWE star Bull Buchanan at Universal Independent Wrestling and Platinum Championship Wrestling Champion Mason at Sacred Ground: Chapter Three. Listen live Mondays at 7 p.m. and call 347-324-5735 with your questions and comments.

EMPIRE Wrestling Champion "The Revelation" Shane Marx is one of the guests on GWN's 50th episode (photo by Harold Jay Taylor/Headlocks and Headshots)

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“Finding Nemo” is an even bigger adventure in 3-D

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Amidst the ocean of movie releases that comes out each year, Finding Nemo has eluded me since it’s original 2003 release. But after receiving accolades as not only one of the best animated films, but one of the best feature films, of all time, then becoming one of the best-selling DVD releases in history, Nemo and his friends jump from the proverbial pond that is the small screen back to the sea of movie theaters, this time making an even bigger splash in 3-D.

Nemo (Alexander Gould) and Marlin (Albert Brooks) are a happy father and son in "Finding Nemo"

Though I can’t honestly compare the original version to this new 3-D version, what I can say is that Pixar definitely created a beautifully rendered animated version of the already colorful world that exists in the coral reefs and in the deepest, darkest parts of the oceans. It’s a world most of us never get to see in person, so seeing it brought to three-dimensional Pixar life is an impressive sight.

Like most Pixar films, no matter what setting the characters are in, it’s going to be a comical adventure. And Finding Nemo is no exception. After his wife and eggs are eaten by a predatory sea creature, Marlin (who’s not a marlin at all, but a clownfish voiced by Albert Brooks) becomes the lovingly overprotective father of Nemo (Alexander Gould), who is born with a gimp fin. Nemo has never betrayed his father’s trust, but in a sole act of defiance on his first day of school (see what they did there?), Nemo is captured by a scuba diver and added to the aquarium of an Australian dentist’s office. From there, Marlin’s search for Nemo is a parallel adventure to Nemo’s attempts to escape from the aquarium and get back to the ocean.

Along the way, they both encounter an interesting cast of characters. Marlin befriends Dory (Ellen DeGeneres), a Pacific blue tang with short-term memory loss. And Nemo meets an aquarium full exotic creatures such as a pufferfish names Bloat (Brad Garrett), a starfish named Peach (Allison Janney), a shrimp names Jacques (Joe Ranft) and Gill, a scarred moorish idol voiced by Willem Dafoe who wants Nemo to find his freedom as badly as Nemo himself does.

Dory (Ellen DeGeneres) and Marlin (Albert Brooks) are pursued by a great white shark (Barry Humphries) in "Finding Nemo"

Along the way to Sydney Harbour to find Nemo, Marlin and Dory encounter an Alcoholics Anonymous-like group of sharks who have vowed that fish are friends, not food, illuminated predators from the oceans darkest depths, a group of laid-back sea turtles and other helpful creatures willing to lend a helping fin. After a chase scene reminiscent of the Millennium Falcon‘s asteroid belt evasion, Marlin and Dory find themselves in a seemingly perilous Moby-Dick-like situation inside a whale, and in what has to be a reference to the field of poppies in The Wizard of Oz, they’re also bombarded by jellyfish when they make a wrong turn, and Dory comes out worse for wear after receiving a few jellyfish stings. But these are the types of tragedies that have always led to big Disney triumphs, and through determination and the learning of life lessons, Marlin and Nemo simply have to find each other in the end.

As visually and thematically glorious as Finding Nemo must have been the first time around, the added 3-D effects make it all the more immersive. But that’s not the only new addition to this release, as it is preceded by a new Toy Story short called Partysaurus Rex. After Woody (Tom Hanks) and the rest of the gang reject Rex (Wallace Shawn), he finds a new group of friends in the bathtub who want to party for more than their allotted 15 minutes each day. Because he has arms, Rex is able to turn the water on to help create a rave-like bubble bath scored by BT. So from the bathtub to the ocean, there are plenty of aquatic adventures to be had with this Finding Nemo rerelease.

Finding Nemo 3D. Directed by Andrew Stanton. Starring Alexander Gould, Albert Brooks and Ellen DeGeneres. Rated G. www.disney.go.com/finding-nemo/home/

Anthrax’s thrash metal spreads to Mars, Canada and other new realms

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Always the purveyors of pummeling metal mayhem, Anthrax continues to shred musical boundaries more than 30 years into its career. After last year’s release of Worship Music, the band’s first album with front man Joey Belladonna since 1990’s Persistence of Time and first original album since 2003’s We’ve Come for You All, Anthrax has been on the road almost nonstop including its recent stint on the summer Mayhem Festival. As one of the originators of thrash metal in the ’80s, Anthrax has continued to be on the edge of musical breakthroughs, collaborating with Public Enemy to help usher in rap rock. Last month, Martians were introduced to Anthrax when the band’s “Got the Time” became the first heavy metal song to ever be played on Mars, thanks to NASA rover Curiosity. Back here on terra firma, the band prepares for another first as it makes its Canadian debut when the third leg of the Anthrax/Testament co-headlining tour begins on the West Coast before heading north for the autumn. With all these firsts, the timing couldn’t be better for Anthrax to make its Wrestling with Pop Culture debut. And here it is, a conversation with Belladona.

This year’s Mayhem Festival has been called one of the most successful in the tour’s history. That success has to be attributed, at least somewhat, to a solid lineup including veterans such as Motörhead, Slipknot, Slayer and Anthrax. How do you feel about Anthrax’s contribution to this year’s Mayhem Fest?

Joey Belladonna (back right) and Anthrax are still as innovative as ever (photo by Matthew Rodgers)

Any tour that’s got a great package, good people that are working together every day – we woke up every day and were always busy doing chores to get that thing going all day – and great music, it’s going to be successful. We’re just here to play good music and we’re happy that everybody likes that. Whether it was successful or not, we’re still going to be able to bring a good day of music by our standards.

Anthrax has quite an extensive history with some of the other bands you toured with on Mayhem, particularly Slayer, who you toured with in 201o on the American Carnage Tour and back in 1991 on the Clash of the Titans Tour. How did atmosphere on those tours compare to Mayhem, where you were also touring with a bunch of other bands from various generations?

We’ve done a lot of festivals like this. There are tons of these things in Europe where there’s three days worth of a mixture of bands, and you’ve got all kinds of different styles going on in one day. The big thing about Mayhem is you’ve got a lot more buses, a lot more trucks, a lot more people and it’s the same people coming out each day and it’s very busy. But we got it down. One day the stage would be a little further, some days it would be a little closer. But it’s basically the same in one way or another. You tour and you have to kind of schedule your day around everything. We were going on earlier, which was different. We don’t usually go on so early on a rolling festival. But that was probably the biggest difference, other than the amount of people and trucks that were rolling together at the same time.

From what I understand, you guys chose to headline the side stage rather than play the main stage, right?

That’s what I hear. I actually didn’t chime in on that one. But it was really cool because there’s something about going on first on the main stage. I would have been fine with it either way, but it was a lot of fun. It was a smaller stage, but we weren’t thinking like that and it really wasn’t all that different. It was still a concert to us.

I know Anthrax, and Scott Ian in particular, have worked with WWE in the past, but I don’t think you were in the band then. Do you know if we might hear Anthrax in WWE again anytime soon?

From Mars to Canada to Europe, Joey Belladonna (left) and Anthrax are thrashing throughout the galaxy (photo by Matthew Rodgers)

No, I wasn’t around when they did that. But it would be nice to do some music for them. I don’t know if I’ll be getting in the ring, but I think just being part of that whole scene is cool and having some music involved with it would be really cool. I know a lot of people dig that stuff and [Chris] Jericho comes out to our shows all the time. And Triple H has used Motörhead’s music for a long time, and we have the same management. So, who knows?

Worship Music came out a year ago and it was your first album with the band since 1990’s Persistence of Time. Do you foresee yourself recording and touring with Anthrax again in the near future? Are you guys working on any new music yet?

Right now, we’re rolling and touring a lot. We don’t stop until December. We’re going to bring Testament and Death Angel out again for a third time in Canada in September and October. In November and December it will be us and Motörhead in Europe. But we’ve got some B-sides we’ve been rolling on, some more classic stuff. So we’re thinking of maybe doing an EP of B-sides. It’s still a tad bit early to be digging into any new stuff yet, and we’ve been so busy we need a little bit of downtime just to recharge. But I’m very excited to do something new once we have some time to sit with it. I’m sure there are some riffs in people’s package of ideas, but nothing collective yet.

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