Going With The Devil You Know: Anthrax Ax-Man Rob Caggiano

     In honor of National Metal Day, I decided what better way to celebrate than to sit down with the lead shredder from one of the greatest heavy metal bands of all time? Boom! Enter Rob Caggiano, Anthrax’s lead ax-man. Anthrax just may be music’s comeback story of the year, maybe even the decade. Over the summer,Anthrax hit a series of festivals alongside their thrash metal pioneer peers Megadeth, Slayer, and Metallica as part of  The Big 4 Tour. In September, 8 long years after their last studio release, 2003’s We’ve Come For You All, Anthrax released Worship Music on Megaforce Records. The very next day, they returned to their hometown of New York City to close out The Big 4 Tour with a legendary show at Yankee Stadium.

     Worship Music is also the bands first record with “classic” lead vocalist Joey Belladonna in 20 years (and, he sounds better than ever!). I picked up the album the day it came out (it debuted at #12 on the Billboard Top 200), and I was blown away. It’s arguably my pick for metal album of the year, and I think it may even be Anthrax’s best overall effort. Rob and I talked about what the bands goals were when making this album. We also took a few trips down memory lane, and talked about how f’ing epic it was to crank it up in their hometown with the rest of the Founding Fathers of Thrash. Anthrax is currently on the second leg of their U.S. headlining tour with Testament and Death Angel. Oh, speaking of touring, guess who Rob said he’d still love to open for? Check it out…and CRANK IT UP.