Jimmy Kay from Canada’s The Metal Voice recently sat down with Dan Lilker (Anthrax)  founder of thrash pioneers Nuclear Assault at Heavy Montreal Festival in Montreal, Quebec. Lilker talked about his song writing credits in Anthrax, his memories of helping out Metallica in the early days and about the bands new EP Pounder

On his song writing contributions on Fistful Of Metal:

Lilker: “I would say I wrote about 75% of the music on that record, the records after that I am not really on, that sound a bit different, I guess.  But it’s hard for me to comment because I was very involved in it, but yeah I wrote a bunch of that shit, put it that way.”

On his recollections of when Anthrax took care of Metallica in Rochester, New York when Metallica was working on Kill ’Em All.

Lilker: “They were a long way from home, they were living in adverse conditions so they could record Kill em All and do some  shows. I brought Dave Mustaine over to my house so he could take a shower, we looked out for him.”

On whether he thought Dave Mustaine at the time came across to him like a raging alcoholic.

Lilker: “Not really all those guys drank a bunch, maybe he just smoked more weed then the rest of them.”

On whether Metallica was justified in throwing Dave Mustaine out for drug and alcohol problems.

Lilker: “They bought a bus ticket and dropped him off on Jamaica Avenue. It’s hard for me to say I don’t know the internal dynamics of the band. I wasn’t going to pry they had their reasons which they thought were justified we were kind of surprised and then they brought in this kid Kirk Hammett and he looked pretty nervous but he pulled it off, he was constantly looking over at James making sure he was playing all the parts right might have been a little nerve racking for him.”

On his thoughts of Metallica’s Load and Reload.

Lilker: “They are doing what they want to do and what they want to do isn’t as heavy as it used to be, then that is their personal and artistic decision.”

On why Nuclear Assault decided on doing an EP instead of a full length album

Lilker: “We all don’t live in the same cities and we don’t get to jam every few days like other bands that live around the corner from each other. So we decided four songs is more realistic it’s quality control. We are booked in the studio right up to Christmas to do another 4 song EP because it’s the same logic, it’s easier to do 4 songs at a time if you are not living near each other.”