John Bush, Anthrax, and the Mic He Refused to Share

John Bush, Anthrax, and the Mic He Refused to Share

In 1992, Anthrax didn’t just look for a new frontman – they went looking for a singer who could write, not just sing. They landed John Bush, a guy who had already turned down a shot at fronting Metallica and only said yes to Anthrax once the songs started coming. He and Scott Ian clicked instantly, the kind of partnership Ian later compared to an old married couple that finishes each other’s sentences.

For more than a decade Bush carried Anthrax through the chaos as metal collapsed around them. Sound of White Noise debuted at number seven, but behind the scenes the ground kept shifting – Elektra paid Anthrax $1.6 million just to walk away, two more labels folded under them, and a 2003 album on Sanctuary was dead on arrival when the label itself was swallowed up within weeks.

Buried in contract obligations with no label willing to spend a dime to promote a new record, the band faced a brutal choice. A proper studio album with Bush – the thing they actually wanted to make – would disappear unpromoted, effectively thrown down a drain. Their managers found a loophole: the deal didn’t demand a new studio album, just an album. A live record would clear the contract.

There was only one live album guaranteed to sell: a reunion of the classic lineup with Joey Belladonna, the very singer Bush had replaced. Reunite the old band, film the tour, hand in the live record, and Anthrax would finally be free. There was just one problem – it meant Bush either stepping aside or sharing the stage and the setlist with the man whose job he’d taken.

Scott Ian and Charlie Benante sat Bush down and laid it out: the money, the debts, how close the whole thing was to falling apart. Ian made the pitch – yes, it looked like a step backwards, but fans would love seeing Bush and Belladonna together, and then they could make the next Anthrax record the way they wanted. Bush didn’t argue. He just drew the line every veteran understands.

“I understand if you have to do it,” he told them. “But I can’t be a part of it.” And he stepped out.

The reunion did what the contract needed: roughly 140 shows, a live album delivered, and the obligation finally gone. Everywhere else it was a mess – by 2006 the classic lineup was at each other’s throats again. When the dust settled, Anthrax came calling for Bush. He returned for select festivals in 2009 and 2010, and the band decided they finally wanted that full studio album with him: Worship Music.

They flew everyone to manager Mark Adelman’s office in Los Angeles with one assumption – Bush was there to say yes. Adelman laid out the plan: eighteen months, about 150 shows to push the record. Bush listened, then cut in. With young kids at home, he wasn’t willing to disappear for a year and a half, and he knew anything less wouldn’t earn enough to make the record worth it – no matter how much everyone insisted they just wanted him back.

So he told them the truth. He’d only do it if they promised to cap it at thirty shows – and if they said that, he’d know they were lying. Bush walked out of the meeting without a record. Not long after, Anthrax brought Belladonna back for good, and Worship Music came out with Joey on the mic – the second time John Bush stepped aside and left the microphone to the singer he was originally hired to replace.

Credit: Killer Guitar Academy