In the two-minute video clip below, members of ANTHRAX talk about working with their latest addition, lead guitarist Jonathan Donais (SHADOWS FALL), who joined the band in 2013 as the replacement for Rob Caggiano (now in VOLBEAT).
Donais makes his recording debut with ANTHRAX on the band’s long-awaited new album, “For All Kings”, which will be released on February 26 via Nuclear Blast in Europe and Megaforce in the U.S.
“I think Jon has brought a great energy to the band,” said ANTHRAX bassist Frank Bello. “He stepped up and then some on this record.” The band’s rhythm guitarist, Scott Ian, added: “Jon’s approach towards lead guitar playing, he’s more of a guy who’s looking to construct something that makes sense and helps a song rather than the 45 seconds for him to be showing off how many notes he can play in X amount of measures.”
Speaking to Distorted Sound Magazine, Donais stated about “For All Kings”: “I really think it’s going to bring the band to the next level. I can say that as a fan because I just wrote the leads and not any of the songs, so I can still look at it as a fan and not someone in the band, because you know when you write something and you get attached to it — I don’t have that attachment like the other guys. Yeah, I think it’s a great album and I think it should do pretty well.”
On the topic of the “For All Kings” recording process, Donais said: “It was real easy. It was my first time working with Jay Ruston, the guy who produced it, and the way we did it was he would give me the demos of the songs and then I would start writing the leads and then send them to Charlie [Benante, drums]. Charlie would then tell me what direction the leads should go in, there were a few times where it would take a couple of attempts to get him happy.”
He added: “I didn’t know how they worked or necessarily know what they were looking for. So I just did what I did, and if Charlie wasn’t happy, we just got on the phone and discussed the direction that he wanted to go in, and most of the stuff didn’t take more than three demos to get right.”
Pre-order “For All Kings” here.
Source: Blabbermouth
