Mailintervju - Joey Vera, Anthrax / Armored Saint / Fates Warning / Seven Witches Anthrax förlorade ju Basisten Frank Bello för ett tag sedan och istället har Joey Vera (Armored Saint, Seven Witches, Fates Warning) hoppat in och turnerat med bandet. Vi läste hans dagbok från Europaturnén och tänkte att det kunde vara lite kul att skicka några frågor till den här "doldisen" och se vad han sysslar med just nu.  So, what ´s going on in the world of Joey Vera?
There's always something going on. Touring Japan, Australia and Europe with Anthrax must ´ve been a blast! Tell us some fun stories that you haven ´t already shared on your website! Yes, Japan and Australia were great. Double great for me as I've never been to either place. We were in Japan for 10 days and Australia for 6. To be honest, I've never had to travel so much to do shows and it made for some very exhausting days. In Japan we either took trains or planes to each city and in Australia we had 5 shows in a row and flew to all. On our way to Australia from Japan, everyone got sick from being in close contact with traveling people all of the time plus we were run down. Then our gear was on a different flight and because of bad weather was sent to Fiji or something. We had to play our first show in Australia with gear borrowed from a local music store. It was terrible but the crowd made up for it. All of the shows were just crazy and they made up for all of the discomforts of traveling. How would you describe John, Scott, Charlie and Rob? John happens to be my best friend. We grew up together and have known eachother since we were in the 3rd grade. I could tell you a lot about him but some things are sacred! Scott is very smart and loves good food and good wine. Charlie is the force behind the band and a very creative thinker. He also has a dry sense of humor which I like. Rob is the party animal and the youngest one so he's a nut. He's a great player and loves Black Metal. We all live vicariously through him. You really seem to enjoy producing and directing. Do you have your own studio and is there anything in the works? Yes I have my own Pro Tools studio. At the moment I'm finishing up engineering the vocal tracks for the upcoming Anthrax record "Metallum Maximum". When did you pick up the bass and what bands and bass players influenced you back then? And why bass and not the guitar? First I began with guitar when I was about 14 years old (I still play) but switched to bass when I was 16. Kiss is the reason, like so many others, that I picked up the guitar. I was also into Sabbath too. My favorite bands and players were Kiss, Sabbath, Queen, Thin Lizzy. Geezer Butler, John Paul Jones and a little later Jaco Pastorious for bass players. Since we didn ´t get to see the Queensryche, Dream Theater and Fates Warning package in Europe, please tell us what that tour was like and did you play any pranks on each other? It was a dream tour for the fans. It did really well and Fates went over great every night. It wasn't a pranks kind of tour really although we all got along great. Every night Mike Portnoy would come out and we'd play an OSI song. That was cool. And I became good friends with Queensryche bassist Eddie Jackson. He'd always let me play the first note of Best I Can on side stage. Half of the time I'd be drunk and fuck it up! Tell us some memorable moments when it comes to: Anthrax, Armored Saint, Fates Warning and Seven Witches! Anthrax Most recently we played the biggest festival in Europe held in Budapest, Hungary. It was one of the biggest crowds I've ever played to, about 40,000. It was a great city and a great gig. Saint Getting back together in 2000 and touring again was fun. We were doing it for the sheer fun of it and there was no pressure to be "working", we just had a lot of laughs and good times. Fates Last years summer tour with Dream Theater and Queensryche was memorable. It was cool being around high caliber musicians and really cool people, from the entire crew to the band members. Just a great tour. Witches We had a good time touring with Annihilator in 2002. We had some really good shows like in Paris, France. Jeff Waters is a really talented guy and a super fun guy to be around. He's a nut. He had a great band then too, all great guys.  Do you remember the first band you played in? Name, songs, places...?
Well I think it was in Jr. High school in 1977 and I was about 15. I played guitar then and my goal back then was to be a rhythm guitar player! Like Paul Stanley or Malcom Young. I had a white strat copy. John Bush was the singer. John's next door neighbor was a guy named David Avila and he was the best guitar player in the school, needless to say he was the lead guitarist in the band. (He was quite a big influence on us all back then). We had a bass player (whom I'm still friends with) and a drummer and keyboard player (kind of). We were totally into Queen and Angel so we'd dress up in all white. We played (our first gig ever) at lunch break and sold tickets for .50 cents. All of the chicks were screaming for us. That was it, I was going to be in band for the rest of my life. We played "Feels Like the First Time" (Foreigner), "Smoke on the Water" (of course!) And we had an original called "Heavy Artillery". We were called Rhapsody. What can you tell us about ""Metallum Maximum Aeterum"" and will you be playing bass on it. What songs are we talking about here? The band recorded this record a few months before I got involved. Frank plays and sings on it. It's a record that consists of 18 songs that the fans picked, of the pre-John Bush era. They re-recorded the songs and had John sing on them. As I said before, I recorded all the vocal tracks at my studio with John and Scott. I think they plan on releasing it sometime this fall. The songs range from "Death Rider" to "Madhouse" to "NFL". John did a great job on them. What does the average Joey Vera day look like? Get up, make a fruit salad for breakfast. Check, write and read email, maybe do some online shopping (that's my new thing), answer questions from interviews, ride my bike, have lunch, practice (not everyday), work (record vocals etc. etc), make dinner for my wife, chill, go to sleep. Reading your recap of the European tour, I got the feeling you ´re into geography. Is that something that interests you and if so, of all the places you ´ve been through the years, what has been the most beautiful, ugliest and what place would you never go back to? I'm interested in it slightly but not like a science. I like to know where I'm at in relation to what it was like years ago. I like history and places of significance. (Funny, I hated it in school!) The most beautiful is hard to say, places are beautiful for different reasons. Budapest is one of the most beautiful cities I've ever been to. So is Florence, Italy. Then the Italian Alps are killer as is the Redwood Forest in Northern California. Ugly. I've been to many ugly places. Hard to say the ugliest. Been to many 3rd world places but I can't really say that it's ugly. It is what it is. And I'd go back. What does the near future hold for Joey Vera? Dunno, let's gaze into the crystal ball! Any messages for all the Anthrax, Armored Saint, Fates Warning, Seven Witches fans in Sweden? As always I thank you for continuing to be interested in what I'm doing. Thanks for all of the support, it's what keeps me going. And I hope to be back to Sweden as I've only been there once! Keep in touch! Metal! Joey Vera - Official website Anthrax - Official website
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