ANTHRAX guitarist Scott Ian says that he blames the Internet for the comments that were attributed to the band's lead singer, Joey Belladonna, in which the vocalist said he never "really found [his] place with" ANTHRAX and lamented the fact that he had very little friendship the other guys in the band. During a December 2013 interview with Sweden Rock Magazine, Belladonna stated about how his role in ANTHRAX has evolved since he first joined the band in late 1984: "You're joining four guys that are friends from New York City, and
it's like coming into a new neighborhood and trying to get new friends
No matter what you do, it's gonna be hard. "They were open to me, but they weren't doing anything either way to make me feel like it was gonna be the best thing in the world; it was more business-like. 'You wanna join with us, man? It'd be great.' Of course, [ANTHRAX's manager at the time] Jonny Z, was very, very encouraging, 'cause he knew more about what it would be like to have somebody in there that would help make the band right versus a bunch of guys that weren't sitting in the band very well." He continued: "I don't think I've ever really found my place with this band. I mean, as much as we do what we do, it's so corporate in its own way. But, yeah, it doesn't get much better than it is now, but it could be a whole lot better, too, at the same time. [I'm] only allowed so much friendship. "I don't even talk with [the other guys in the band] right now. I mean, there'll be a few e-mails, but they're so short. It's not like I sit on the horn [telephone] and talk with Charlie [Benante, ANTHRAX drummer] all day. He don't have time for me. I do, but they just don't, you know?! It's only out of necessity [that they keep in contact with me]. So even back then, I don't think it was anything really that cool. Part of me might not have joined it because it wasn't as open as when I jammed with friends at home and they'd always come over my house all day and play for hours. And we'd go out together and we'd hang out together. ANTHRAX wasn't like that, you know?!" Asked by Canadian rock journalist Mitch Lafon of the "One On One With Mitch Lafon" podcast (Facebook page) why Belladonna still feels that way three decades after first joining ANTHRAX, Ian said: "I don't know, because I texted him after my mother told me on the phone she just saw something online that 'Joey Belladonna says you guys aren't friends.' And I said, 'That's kind of weird, because I'm texting with him right now.' And I wrote [to Joey], 'Hey, what's going on? We're not friends?' And he was, like, 'What are you talking about?' So I don't have any answer to that question. I'll just blame it on the Internet." In an April 2014 interview with Sweden's Rocksverige.se, Belladonna was asked if he ever heard from the other members of ANTHRAX about the comments he made in regards to the lack of friendship between him and the rest of the band. He said: "Yeah, Scott asked me, 'We're trying to keep things positive, right?' But what I say is what I feel. I don't necessarily say that we're not getting along, it's just that it's a different band." He continued: "When I grew up playing with people in my hometown, we'd go out together, hang together and do things together and we (ANTHRAX) just don't, but that doesn't mean that we're not doing what we need to do. "My intentions were not to be not positive and make things sound like we're just a mess. It wasn't that." "When we're (ANTHRAX) on the road together, we don't hang out together even then. Everybody goes to their separate room with their computer to Skype or they just don't want to be bothered or they need to rest. It's not intentional. Some of it might be I don't know and you'll never know that. That's why I'm always picking at people and trying to get them to open up and maybe talk. It's just great to be able to be more conversational with other people. A lot of people don't wanna do it, and that's fine, but I'm not that kinda guy. Sometimes you don't even know what you're dealing with until you talk with people. If you wanna find out what people are thinking, you're just never gonna know, and sometimes it's good to know. Maybe you can get something off your chest and maybe something can actually be resolved by it." Belladonna, whose most recent return to ANTHRAX was officially announced in May 2010, was originally the lead singer of ANTHRAX from 1984 to 1992, and was considered part of the band's classic lineup (alongside Dan Spitz, Scott Ian, Frank Bello and Charlie Benante), which reunited and toured during 2005 and 2006. His voice was featured on over 10 albums, which reportedly sold eight million copies worldwide. In a 2010 interview with Classic Rock magazine, ANTHRAX guitarist Scott Ian stated about the circumstances that led to Belladonna's return to the band: "We had a meeting with John [Bush, the ARMORED SAINT frontman who has been singing with ANTHRAX], at which he was honest enough to tell us that he really couldn't make the commitment to the band that he knew we needed. It was all very friendly, but ended with us feeling we had to find someone else. "Nobody wanted to go down the route of finding an unknown. So, it left one option: calling Joey. He was really into the idea of coming back. "The five of us [Ian, Belladonna, guitarist Rob Caggiano, bassist Frank Bello and drummer Charlie Benante] met in New York, when I did a show with Pearl [Aday, Ian's wife], and we got along really well, and that sealed the deal. It was that easy."
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