Anthrax bass guitarist Frank Bello talked about the songwriting process of the band and gave some details about their upcoming album during a recent appearance on Metal Pilgrim.

The band released ‘For All Kings’ back in 2016, and they have been quiet about the release of a new album since then. Even though they teased their fans about a possible new album back in 2018, it was never officially announced.

Back in November 2020, guitarist Scott Ian confirmed that Anthrax is going to release a new record this year, the release date of which could be postponed to 2022 due to the Covid-19 outbreak.

In the conversation, Frank Bello shed some light on why it has been so hard for Anthrax to record a new album during the pandemic even though there are lots of bands and musicians that released new records in the past two years.

According to Frank, all of the Anthrax members are usually congregate in one spot to jam prior to recording. However, they are unable to arrange such a thing right now because of the travel restrictions.

This probably means that we will get to see a new album from Anthrax whenever all the travel restrictions are lifted, which is most likely around 2022, and Frank also confirmed in the interview. Moreover, Frank explained why it is almost impossible to jam via Zoom.

As Frank said, there is a latency in Zoom no matter what, which prevents the band members to play together simultaneously. Thankfully, the band will reunite next month in New York and start to work on the album.

Frank Bello about the forthcoming Anthrax album:

“COVID hit and stopped everything. You’ve gotta realize, we can’t get on a plane during COVID, during the whole thing, we couldn’t get on a plane and just travel to go jam. Usually, what happens with an Anthrax record, Charlie, Scott, and I would all congregate in one spot.

Either I would fly out to L.A. or Chicago or they would fly to New York or we go to L.A., Scott’s house, we would all get together and jam and create. That wasn’t happening. I don’t know if you’ve done Zoom, but jamming on Zoom doesn’t really work. It doesn’t work — there’s always a latency there; there’s always a timing thing. It doesn’t work the way we want it to work.

So now that we’re moving on, I know next month we have a writing session, which is great. We’re all gonna get together in New York and we’re gonna get together and jam. I think we have a six-, seven-song thing right now that we’re working and finagling around. So we’re on a good path. There will be another record in ’22. Hopefully, everything works — everybody stays healthy and things are open. We’ll see what happens.”

You can listen to the full interview below.