Great Story. So Where’s Charlie?
This one is kind of wild. Mike Heller got a phone call around 2 PM on Tuesday, and by 6:30 he was playing drums for Anthrax in front of over 50,000 people in San Antonio. Two days later, nobody has said why Charlie Benante wasn’t behind the kit. I had just seen Benante play with Anthrax over the weekend in Los Angeles, opening for Megadeth and Iron Maiden, and he played great. So the silence has me a little concerned.
Here’s what happened. Benante sat out the September 29 stop at the Alamodome on Iron Maiden’s Run For Your Lives tour. Megadeth’s Dirk Verbeuren called Heller on Anthrax’s behalf. Heller played in Fear Factory and drums for Raven now, but he didn’t know a single Anthrax song on the drums. By his own account on Facebook, he charted two songs, raced to the Alamodome, sat in traffic, got sent to the wrong place to park, then sat down with the band for less than an hour charting the rest while they walked him through how the live versions differ from the records. Then he went on stage “in front of 56,000 people or whatever, and did my best.”
I can’t imagine being in Mike Heller’s shoes. Over 50,000 people, a band he has never played for, and a set he learned in the time it takes to eat dinner. Credit to Dirk too. I got to meet him earlier this year at his drum clinic in Hollywood, and this tracks. Good guy. His tourmates were stuck, so he called up his buddy.
But the underlying story here is: where’s Charlie Benante? He’s a pretty busy guy. Full-time drums in Anthrax, full-time drums in Pantera, plus side projects. Busy doesn’t usually mean missing a stadium show mid-tour with four hours’ warning, though. And absolutely no word from the band two days later is strange.
So here’s to hoping he’s okay. And here’s to Mike Heller, who just had the most drummer week of anyone alive.
Source: Mike Heller on Facebook
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