Ex-Anthrax guitarist Dan Spitz has said he’s too busy “fucking around with crazy-ass expensive watches” to want a reunion with the band.
Spitz performed lead guitar for the New York thrash icons from 1983 to 1995. During that time, he appeared on six of their studio albums, including classics Spreading The Disease (1985), Among The Living (1987), Persistence Of Time (1990) and Sound Of White Noise (1993). He left to pursue a career as a watchmaker, but rejoined from 2005 to 2007.
In a new interview with The Delz Show, Spitz says that his watchmaking keeps him from thinking too hard about rejoining Anthrax, though he doesn’t rule the idea out entirely.
“So right now I have my new [watch repair and watch dealer] facility here in Delray Beach [Florida],” he explains (via Blabbermouth). “Everybody knows probably I’m this crazy master watchmaker dude, so I’m fucking around with crazy-ass expensive watches, enjoying myself. So you never know what happens in the future.”
Spitz also argues that Anthrax are the only band in thrash’s Big Four – also composed of Metallica, Megadeth and Slayer – where every member that made their “greatest music” is still alive.
“And a fun fact that no one has talked about is we are the only band of the Big Four that everyone is still alive that made the greatest music,” he states. “Everyone else had somebody that’s passed away.”
Metallica lost their first bassist, Cliff Burton, in a bus accident in 1986. Megadeth’s mid-80s drummer, Gar Samuelson, died of liver failure in 1999 and founding Slayer guitarist Jeff hanneman died in 2013, also of liver failure.
Anthrax are currently hard at work on album number 12, their first since For All Kings in 2016. The band reveal in the new issue of Metal Hammer that they have “13 or 14 songs” written for the release.
Anthrax Dan Spitz 2024 Interview,Days w/ Metallica,Dave Mustaine,Sneakers,Recording Among The Living – YouTube