BELLADONNA Readies New Album...
By Martin Popoff

Golden years Anthrax singer Joey Belladonna (www.joeybelladonna.com) is holed up in Syracuse, New York with writing and playing partner Matt Zuber preparing tracks for the next Belladonna album. Details are sketchy, but here's what the classic thrash singer had to say...

"The name of the band is still going to be Belladonna; no title yet. I'm still muscling around with that and the cover or any sort of theme, but it won't be self-titled. The style is still straight ahead... I mean, I hate to use the term metal, hard rock, rock. It's hard to categorize. It's going to be heavy but not ultra-heavy or frantic and busy. It's straight up. Vocally, I still have that same vibe. I really haven't tried to change anything. I've never believed in trying to chase something that's in favour."

With respect to keeping his legendary vocal prowess purring, Joey has a simple formula: sing as much as possible. "Sometimes if we're in rehearsals, I'll just sing away with anybody who wants to jam, or if we're writing, I'll just sing away. And sometimes I do producing, and I'll do vocals for other people and add some ideas. Or just singing to records. God, I'll be in a car, many hours sometimes, in and out, and just sing along to anything I can. Because that's how I've always learned. Sing and sing and sing."

"We're just putting the pieces together right now," answers Joey when asked about song titles. "The vocals are just on the edge of coming in with a lyric. I have quite a back catalog of songs, but oftentimes, when you start anew, you put aside that old stuff. A couple old ones we have are Open Your Eyes and You Know better, but they may not make the cut. Musically, it's just me and this fellow Matt Zuber. He's been in and out with me on previous projects of mine, doing guitar, bass, keyboards. We played some shows awhile back and his band backed us up and I liked the way he played, so I asked him if he wanted to get together and start writing, so he's moved and he's located right in my area now so were working on a day-to-day basis. He had a band called Future Driven, which was a little bit different direction, doing vocals and playing guitar."

BELLADONNA Readies New Album... Page 2