Anthrax bassist Frank Bello said the band was planning to start work on its next album in January, after having delayed work on the follow-up to 2016’s For All Kings in order to join Slayer’s farewell tour.

He added that, despite their colleagues’ decision to retire, they had no plans to do the same.

“There’s been, like, this rebirth of people noticing the band … and it makes you hungrier,” Bello told The Salt Lake Tribune in a new interview. “This is a very, very hungry band, Anthrax. Maybe it’s our New York mentality; I don’t know what it is, but there’s a very fierce energy going on within the band. We can’t wait to see what’s next. So, if anything, we’re just getting started, I think. There’s a whole new generation of kids and fans coming out. I think our fan base is growing big time.”

They’d intended to have album work underway by now, he reported. “But this Slayer tour came up, and you can’t say no to this, because of the obvious reasons," he explained. “We’re gonna go heavy – heavier than ever, I think. That’s just the vibe. There’s an inner anger, which I think is great for songwriting.”

However, he noted, “I [still] wanna hear melody with my music. … Anthrax has always been a melodic metal band.”

Bello said he had a book’s worth of anecdotes about his band’s life on the road with Slayer, but one of the most memorable for him was when he discovered they had a frozen Jagermeister machine on their tour bus in Europe.

“That night, I puked everywhere – from their tour bus, there was a trail to my tour bus, and continuing in my bathroom in my tour bus,” he recalled. “I remember waking up, and I was hugging the bowl, and it was 7AM, I think, and I was still puking. It was one of those really horrible hangovers. And it was a show day, by the way. I didn’t realize we had a show that day, and I paid for it dearly, with a great hangover. The Jagermeister on the tour bus — very dangerous!”

Anthrax remain on the road until Dec. 8.

More From 94.5 KATS