MTV.com has issued the following report from Chris Harris and Jon Wiederhorn:

It's pretty hard to surprise ANTHRAX guitarist/mouthpiece Scott Ian. The man has seen it all: ugly record-label disputes, money-draining management conflicts, debilitating label contracts. In the past year alone, Anthrax lost two singers and were denied guest vocals from a third, Slipknot's Corey Taylor. Adding to the misery is the fact that the band is currently without a U.S. label (Anthrax are signed to Nuclear Blast overseas).

So, while he wasn't exactly shocked, Ian was a bit bemused when he found out about the late-August release of Rise of the Infidels, a raw, partially live short album by his old metal-spoof side project, S.O.D. "I only knew about it when I saw it online — I had no idea this was coming out, and I actually had to e-mail the record company and ask, 'What is Rise of the Infidels?' " Ian said. "Apparently, I had been a part of a conversation months ago where it was discussed — which is quite possible — but I had completely forgotten about it."

The disc was recorded in 1999, when S.O.D. (Ian, Anthrax drummer Charlie Benante, singer Billy Milano and Nuclear Assault bassist Dan Lilker) launched a tour in Seattle between Anthrax albums. Most of the songs are from S.O.D.'s classic 1985 crossover disc, Speak English or Die, and there are four previously unreleased studio tracks. Despite the imperfect sound quality, Ian is pleased with the results.

"I'm happy with anything concerning S.O.D. ... There is stuff sitting around that was never released that we obviously felt good enough about at the time to record and deem worthy of S.O.D.," he said. "I love it because it's probably something we're never going to do again, as far as a studio record goes. So, for the real fans out there who have to have everything, I think it's great."

Of far more concern to Ian at the moment is the future of his main baby, Anthrax. He, Benante and bassist Frank Bello have spent the last eight months writing and fine-tuning a batch of new songs, which Ian said are along the lines of the band's unsung 2003 album, We've Come for You All. At the moment, however, Anthrax are still without a singer, making it difficult to move forward. It's a strange situation, since, toward the end of the band's 2005-'06 reunion tour with '80s singer Joey Belladonna, Anthrax seemed all set to record a new studio album with Belladonna.

"We tried," Ian insisted. "Halfway through the tour, everything had totally gelled, and we started talking about doing a new record. [Guitarist] Danny [Spitz] was gung-ho about it and Joey seemed to be as well. I thought that nothing would have made him happier. But when the tour ended, we started having conversations about making a record and moving forward, and we spent three or four months where we just couldn't get an answer from Joey to the simple question, 'Do you want to make a record, yes or no?' Not that he wouldn't call back, but he wouldn't answer the question. Our question was always answered with a million other questions. For some reason, Joey thought things were weird on the reunion tour financially. He had his own guy look at the books. Everything was good. But after three or four months of asking this guy and feeling like we were starting to become a doormat, we gave him an ultimatum, and we still didn't get an answer. So we concluded we're not making a record. It's impossible because there's no communication."

With Belladonna out of the picture, Anthrax decided to work with the We've Come for You All lineup, which featured Rob Caggiano on lead guitar (which meant bidding farewell again to Spitz). Problem was, singer John Bush wouldn't commit either.

"That was obviously broached, and it's just not able to happen in this time and place," Ian said. "But if John would have been able to commit to this right now, he would be back in less than a second. From the discussions that we've had, he's just not ready to step back into it and be able to commit to it, and we all completely respect that. We went away and did the reunion thing for 18 months, and his life completely changed in that time. His priorities are in a completely different place right now."

After the band did some contemplating, Slipknot and Stone Sour singer Corey Taylor came forward and said he'd like to sing for them. At first, Anthrax were skeptical, since Taylor was already overextending himself with Slipknot and Stone Sour. But Taylor was determined. "He said, 'No, dude, you have no idea what this means to me and what an honor it would be, so let me figure this out.' "

At the time, it looked like there would be a large enough window between the end of the Stone Sour cycle and the beginning of Slipknot's sessions for Taylor to record the album and launch at least one full tour with Anthrax.

"We were all stoked and sent him all the music we had, and he had already started writing to it," Ian recalled. "Then, the powers that be made an executive decision and basically just didn't let it happen. It physically couldn't happen because our window kept getting smaller and smaller. They moved the Slipknot thing up and pushed the Stone Sour thing this way, and they just made it impossible for all of us. We might have still been able to make a record, but then we wouldn't have been able to tour, and what would have been the sense of that? We just would have been shooting ourselves in the foot."

Read the full story at MTV.com.