Anthrax has announced that Jon Donais of Shadows Fall will be filling in as lead guitarist for the departing Rob Caggiano on the band’s upcoming tour dates, including the Metal Alliance Tour in North America this Spring. Anthrax is headlining the tour, with supporting acts Exodus, Municipal Waste, High On Fire, and Holy Grail, and will perform their classic, much-loved 1987 album Among the Living in its entirety.

In early 2010, former lead singer Joey Belladonna returned to the New York-based trash metal band and in 2011 the reunited line-up released the album Worship Music, their first together since 1990’s Persistence Of Time. Worship Music received critical acclaim and one of its songs, “I’m Alive,” is up for a Grammy in the Best Rock/Metal Performance category. This nomination, which was announced in December 2012, marks the fourth time the band has received a Grammy nod.

Before I can sit down Anthrax guitarist and producer Rob Caggiano points at me. “That’s a cool shirt!” The last time Rob and I spoke (you can read the interview HERE) Anthrax was gearing up for the release of the much anticipated new album Worship Music. Fast forward ten months and I’m sitting here with Rob on the Anthrax tour bus as the guitarist nods his approval at my Van Halen t-shirt.

One of the giants of thrash metal has pulled into Oxford for the first of only three UK shows before heading off to Russia and Indonesia over the course of March. “I love the UK!” Caggiano smiles. England was a place that he “didn’t really dig” at first, but that soon changed when he spent extended periods of time here working with notorious English extreme metal band Cradle Of Filth: “I started working with Cradle and ended up staying in the UK for months at a time. I think the longest stretch was like eight months [or] seven and a half months and I just fell in love with it. I just completely love England. I love the countryside, I love London. I just love it all,” he says, including my hometown: “Oxford’s cool. Last night we stayed in a really cool hotel which was actually an old prison, it’s like a castle!”

For thirty years, metal band Anthrax has been revered as one of the leaders of its genre. Part of the Big Four with Metallica, Megadeth, and Slayer, they are the instigators and pioneers of thrash metal. For over a year now, the Big Four tour and festival appearances have been the greatest live music draw for rock and metal fans.

It has been ten years since Anthrax lead guitarist Rob Caggiano first joined the metal superiors. Currently he has a lot on his plate: the Big Four, a new Anthrax album, and his other band, The Damned Things; but Rob was kind enough to stop for a chat. I encountered a funny, humble guy during the most fruitful period of his music career.

Geeks of Doom: Hi Rob, how are you?

Rob Caggiano: I’m good, man. Just been crazy, crazy busy doing the Big Four stuff and The Damned Things. There’s a lot going on! [laughs] We’re also trying to finish the Anthrax record too. It’s been fucking hectic.