Anthrax at a New York charity concert?
Don't call the bioterror forces yet; it's just the New York thrash band returning.
The understandably beleaguered band Anthrax will play as part of a "New York Steel" benefit concert at New York's Hammerstein Ballroom Nov. 24 with the Ace Frehley Band, Overkill and Sebastian Bach.
Headlining is a reunion of Twisted Sister with original members Jay Jay French, Eddie Ojeda, Mark Mendoza, AJ Pero and vocalist Dee Snider.
Special guests include New York Mets catcher Mike Piazza. Tickets went on sale Saturday.
Anthrax was to have been on the road this fall with Judas Priest in a tour that has been rescheduled for 2002. Recent forays into bioterrorism has brought the band's name to the fore in unexpected ways.
"In the 20 years we've been known as Anthrax, we never thought the day would come that our name would actually mean what it really means," Scott Ian writes on the band's Web site www.anthrax.com.
"When I learned about anthrax in my senior-year biology class, I thought the name sounded 'metal,' " he says. "Everyone in my neighborhood had a band with an 'er' name, like Ripper or Deceiver or Killers, and I wanted to be different.
"Anthrax sounded cool, aggressive and nobody knew what it was," he says. "Until a few years ago, most people thought we'd made it up. Even our 1985 album, 'Spreading the Disease' was just a play on the name. We were spreading our music to the masses.
"Before the tragedy of Sept. 11, the only thing scary about Anthrax was our bad hair in the '80s and the 'Fistful of Metal' album cover," Ian says. "Most people associated the name Anthrax with the band, not the germ. Now in the wake of those events, our name symbolizes fear, paranoia and death. Suddenly our name is not so cool.
"To be associated with these things we are against is a strange and stressful situation. To us, and to millions of people, it is just a name. We don't want to change the name of the band, not because it would be a pain . . . but because we hope that no further negative events will happen, and it won't be necessary. We hope and pray that this problem goes away quietly, and we all grow old and fat together."