Anthrax bassist talks about how Gene Simmons schooled them

Anthrax bassist Frank Bello spoke on how the band reacted to be asked to play with KISS and how KISS treated them.
Virtually everyone likes KISS, that’s a fact. But it must hit different when your “heroes” ask you to open for them in a tour. That is the case of Anthrax, a band whose members are die-hard KISS fans. And it seems opening for their idols was a perfect experience for the band. The bassist Frank Bello spoke about that in a recent interview on KNOTFEST, telling that everyone at KISS treated them well. Here’s what the bassist said about playing with their favorite band in the early days.
Anthrax bassist: Everyone in Anthrax is a diehard KISS fan from the early days
“As you know, everybody knows this, everyone in Anthrax is a diehard KISS fan from the early days. Those guys have become friends since then – they’re great, they’re heroes of ours.”
It seems Gene Simmons wrote a foreword of Frank Bello’s book, so that’s one more thing to thank him for. No wonder Bello is quite appreciative of those guys.
“Gene wrote a foreword of my book. Gene Simmons wrote a foreword of my book, and I’m very honored by that. It’s a heavy one, it’s a different side of Gene that I love, and I thank him for it.
“We’re die-hard KISS fans, so imagine getting a call, being in this van, your heroes want you to tour with them. That face, you could imagine, coming on your face, ‘Yeah!’.”
“And plus, I was friends with Eric Carr at the time, it was wonderful because I’m getting to hang out with him more. Rest his soul, amazing drummer, great dude, I love him.”
Anthrax bassist on getting the call from KISS
“Getting that call was awesome, and I’ll tell you what was great about that tour, not only seeing the KISS songs being played and all that stuff, but it was during the days that people don’t know about on that tour. Like, you know when you come in from wherever the last show was, you come off the bus, you get in, and you’re getting ready for the show that night.”
Bello also explained how KISS treated them and schooled them. It must really feel special, getting educated by people who you look up to in their professions.
“The nice thing is when you come in, in the afternoon, you come and you see Gene Simmons with one of our guitars on, just jamming some songs. And he’d be playing older KISS songs, and he’d be telling us, almost like a little school, he’d tell us where he got these songs from, what they were influenced from, what song he got it from, and what influenced him to write that song. It was an incredible time, just being schooled, as a die-hard KISS fan, that was special, and just being around them every day, just picking their head about different times of their career…”
He also mentioned that they tried to be cool around KISS as they didn’t want to be fanboys. Well, we see that phenomenon in a lot of musicians when they get to hang out with their idols. Quite understandable.
“You try to be cool, you don’t want to be too much of a fanboy, but it was just a really wonderful time, and they were so cool to us, they were great people.”