Director’s Note: The Quarantine Trio. “In the spring of 2020, while the world was at a standstill, I sat down with three legends of thrash and groove: Charlie Benante (Anthrax/Pantera), Alex Skolnick (Testament), and Ra Diaz (Suicidal Tendencies/Korn). This wasn’t just a talk about gear; it was a document of three masters finding a way to fight back against the ‘news-cycle depression’ of the lockdown by forming a virtual trio to celebrate the music of Rush.
As I finish Brother Verses Brother, I’m struck by the resilience in this session. The ‘physics’ of an ensemble finding their rhythm while miles apart is exactly the energy I’m bringing to the CinemaVerses hub. This is about more than metal; it’s about the survival of the artistic spirit.”
From Anthrax to Testament: A Meeting of Thrash Legends
The conversation kicks off with Charlie Benante (Anthrax) explaining how the loss of Neil Peart and the onset of the pandemic created a creative void that could only be filled by playing. He reached out to Alex Skolnick (Testament) and Ra Diaz (Suicidal Tendencies) to bridge the distance through a series of remote “Quarantine Jams” that captivated the metal world.
The Suicidal Tendencies & Korn Groove
Ra Diaz—who has since taken his powerhouse bass playing to Korn—discusses the technical hurdles of syncing his funk-metal roots with the high-precision thrash of Anthrax and Testament. The trio breaks down the mechanics of recording “YYZ” and other Rush classics from their respective bunkers, proving that a band’s “chemical reaction” can survive isolation.
Riot Fest Dreams and the Future of the Trio
Beyond the technical talk, the group explores the raw hope of the “after.” They brainstorm taking this remote experiment to the stage—specifically a dream of playing a full Rush tribute set at Riot Fest. It’s a masterclass in how Charlie Benante, Alex Skolnick, and Ra Diaz used their craft to maintain their identity when the world went dark.
Watch video version here:
RAW TRANSCRIPT (Pardon the old-school glitches):
Ari Gold: Hello everybody my name is Ari Gold, the director of Adventures of Power the air drum movie, I’m also in the Guinness Book of World Records for air drumming. But more importantly, I am here to introduce the most amazing trio of wannabe air musicians who actually play real instruments of all time. Charlie Benante, from anthrax, and many other things, one of the geniuses of thrash and more Hi, Charlie, Alex, guitarist of many different genres, from metal to jazz, who has the distinction of turning me onto metal when I was 13, when he was when his band was called Legacy, and Ra Diaz, bassist extraordinaire of suicidal tendencies. I feel like this is America coming together we have metal, Southern California thrash punk metal, and New York, thrash metal finally together. And so America is America is going to be whole again, thanks to this trio. So thank you all for being here.
Charlie Benante: Thank you glad to be here.
Alex Skolnick: Yeah, Ari Gold in the house.
Ari Gold: So you know, we’re gonna be getting questions from the audience. And, but I would love to know how the three of you met because it’s such an amazing pairing. We also know the movie having Neil Peart in it and a Rush connection. And you guys playing Rush together as a trio? How did this happen? How did you guys come together in need and? And make rock together?
Charlie Benante: Wow. Well, I mean, I’ve known Alex since the 80s. A lot a long time. Our first one of our first tour is in Europe. Testament were accompanying us on that tour. But did we meet before that in San Francisco or somewhere? Or was that the first time on that tour?
Alex Skolnick: We testaments first show outside of the Bay Area was supporting Anthrax. And it was like in southern like outside of LA not LA proper. Corona.
Ari Gold: Metal allowed. Metal wasn’t allowed into the center of city back then. Right.
Alex Skolnick: At that time, that’s
Charlie Benante: just outside the city.
Alex Skolnick: Yeah, not but we I started with that show. Yeah. We ended up on Megaforce. And they they had a big connection with Megaforce. Right. Johnny Z. Was
Charlie Benante: this Yeah, give us our manager. And he had a manager and, and he
Alex Skolnick: was our label guy. So yeah, we ended up Yeah, so we ended up doing two tour dates together. And then yeah, that was that was how we first met but we never played together until quite reasonably
Charlie Benante: well. Legacy played with us state. They were supporting the show in San Francisco one time before they before they would Testament. And I don’t know if you were there, though, Alex. At that time. This was like 85 maybe 86
Alex Skolnick: Yeah, I might not have been there. Oh, wait, I came right around that time. Yeah. Already a band before?
Charlie Benante: Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So they, um, so we’ve known each other since that that time and then Ra was
Ari Gold: like what this big at that time so you guys rub tip rubs along the bass strings and that’s how we got so tough. Right.
Alex Skolnick: That’s what I heard.
Ari Gold: I mean, right the first time
Charlie Benante: we met Ra on the on the cruise, that’s the first time and
Ra Diaz: and before that there’s been like, you know, like, random festivals that like our bands have played at the same festival but with I don’t know if we didn’t, I don’t remember. Like actually like me. I remember watching you guys play, but I don’t really remember like meeting you guys there. So I think I would say it was probably a cruise that we all did together. And that was like the first time that I guess we all like interacted with each other I guess.
Charlie Benante: Yeah, exactly. And the rest is history.
Ari Gold: Did you guys talk about doing rush? Like playing rush songs to like, quickly? Or how did that develop?
Alex Skolnick: The first, first, honestly, the first I heard about it was during the shutdown. When we were all at home and their quarantine videos were not a thing yet. Right? Right. We can give ourselves credit for being
Ari Gold: like, you get the most you invented a technology that allowed for like action by playing well,
Ra Diaz: I do remember that. At some point, like very, very early in like the whole quarantine thing. Me and Charlie did one. Like I count like on your birthday or something like that. You send me like a like just it wasn’t a song or anything you send me like a beat. Yeah. And I just like improvise something. And then I at some point, you asked me say Hey, we should I get a guitar or whatever. And but I think that was you that came up with the rush thing.
Charlie Benante: What happened was to just to take it from where I was talking about. I was watching the news 24/7. And I was getting depressed, day by day, day by day. And then my girlfriend said to me, you got to stop watching this stuff. Because you’re, you’re just so bummed out and depressed. Go Go be creative, go do something. And I think it was around that time where I talked to Ra, Alex and I said, We should do a jam. We should do like a quarantine jam. because it reminded me of like, when I was younger, I would come home from school and I’d go to my room just play. And it just kind of had that same vibe. And I think the the Neil that at the meal was still on my mind. And that’s i That’s why I think we chose to do a rush song. And plus, we all love rush so much. And then that’s how it started. It just evolved from there. And these guys could take it from there.
Alex Skolnick: I mean, it was a short time after
Ari Gold: me. It really is because the rush I mean, if I made the movie because of Rush, they’ve obviously been a massive, massive influence across. I mean, so many people have been touched by that music and they they spoke to something that took a while for people to I think there was a kind of resistance a cultural resistance for a long time. And throughout the while it’s not cool or something. Obviously it is cool, but I have some questions that I’m seeing someone’s asking this one’s that. Alex, do you have the Mad Ball guitar strap still? That’s from David cash.
Alex Skolnick: No, it’s kind of disintegrated. Okay, those mad balls. I had it in store it mad balls for those who weren’t around. Oh, yeah. I don’t know if that’s a Mad Ball. Oh, yeah, that’s what they
Ari Gold: liked. It migrated. And are you still buying boda amps or Kemper.
Alex Skolnick: But ya know, they were these great little toys. They were like, little nerf balls with phases. And I had them on the guitar strap. And unfortunately, you know, it sat in storage for many years. And one day I go through my storage. Oh, here’s the bad balls and they were they just completely disintegrated. I don’t know what that means.
Charlie Benante: They were foam rubber.
Alex Skolnick: Yeah. Yeah. And I think over the years Yeah, we did a couple tours, a couple of years of touring and all the sweat. I guess. There was some chemical reactions so they completely happens to me no more. Yeah.
Ari Gold: Do you guys see the possibility of the three of you going on tour together when when things change when we know that?
Charlie Benante: I want to I’m up. I’m up for two I wanted my manager to to talk to the Riot Fest people here in Chicago and have us do a whole set of rush.
Ari Gold: Well, whoa. Listen, here’s an idea from the Phantom three the three testament anthrax and suicide all together and the three of you as your own act. So it’s four acts you guys are the maybe you’re the headline.
Charlie Benante: All right, yeah, that’d be great. We but we need Brandon to Brandon.
Alex Skolnick: Robot robot. Robot robot.
Ari Gold: But the how does that does that mess with the Trio The Trio one yeah. It’s a good measure. You guys are all good when it comes in
Alex Skolnick: on the vocal songs. Yeah, okay. Yeah. Okay.
Charlie Benante: We’ll start off with instrumentals like, bam, bam, bam and then bring them come in. Nice.
Ra Diaz: Yeah, I’m not gonna sing
Alex Skolnick: nobody has a Geddy voice.
Ari Gold: I know Ra and I know this before your time was suicidal but I did get a report from my sister last night and I mentioned this to her skinhead boyfriend went to a suicidal show in San Francisco in the 80s when you were a small child, and he had this shit kicked out of him by suicide. Oh, cuz he was a white power skinhead. And I want to say that your bandmates did good.
Ra Diaz: I approve that. She was I mean, you said he was like, 85. Right.
Ari Gold: You could have been as it could have been as late as 89. That would be the talent. I don’t know what year it was. But I do know that he ended up completely completely blooded but but not by the audience by the band.
Ra Diaz: I’m sure that happened. Probably more than were in those. Yeah. Yeah. In that era.
Ari Gold: Okay, there’s a lot of people saying how much they love the rush covers during the lockdowns and they really really meant a lot you guys have such a cool Christopher molar chemistry together, even remotely? Would you consider writing original material together?
Ra Diaz: Me personally, I would love that. Um, I’m down anything so?
Alex Skolnick: Yeah, we’re up for anything. I think
Charlie Benante: I would love to do that.
Ari Gold: You guys switch instruments ever where you know like get Alex on the drums and Charlie on the guitar and raw like singing opera.
Alex Skolnick: Absolutely good to do any instrument. I would. You wouldn’t put me on.
Ra Diaz: Charlie plays everything.
Alex Skolnick: Yeah, I could make a little keyboards, but I can
Ari Gold: do some, some foot keyboards so you can get the Geddy .
Charlie Benante: Actually yeah, we could get the Taurus pedals and we could do that. But you know the thing about singing, especially singing a rush song, man, that takes confidence. Because more keyboards bass
Ari Gold: and singing, Geddy.
Ra Diaz: It’s it’s not just that he is singing the way Geddy sings and playing the way that he plays. You know, it’s not like he’s not just writing a note and singing. He’s doing crazy stuff. And so he has like,
Alex Skolnick: multiple people. Okay, yeah,
Charlie Benante: yeah, he is.
Ari Gold: And his hair. He has two hairs one. Yeah, so look,
Ra Diaz: I am done.
Charlie Benante: I you know, the thing about Geddy to is, um, I don’t know if it was because he had to do it. They didn’t want to get another member but he had to do it that way. Same with Alex Alex plays, tours too during sort of songs. But you know, just seeing those two come together with the double neck like when they do Xanadu and stuff is just like man, three guys creating all that stuff. And you know, it’s pretty amazing.
Ari Gold: Yeah. Alex, you covered Tommy Bolton. big influence on you. Someone’s asking. Tommy Bolin, Bolin, Bolin. Sorry. I misread.
Alex Skolnick: Yeah, Tommy. Tommy Bolin was the late. He’s the late, great guitarist. He was in deep purple for a time with Glenn Hughes. And he was in a band With Billy Cobham great, great drummer. Yeah. Billy Cobhams album,
Ari Gold: orchestra.
Alex Skolnick: Yeah, and he was most known for my visit. When he did his own thing. It was his first, I believe it was his first solo record. It was called spectrum. And it’s like a landmark jazz rock album. And Tommy Bolin is the guitarist. So the most well known song from that album is a song called chameleon. And I recently did a jam along with that on my Instagram Live and just shared that online.
Ari Gold: Nice. A lot of yeah, a lot of
Alex Skolnick: folks don’t know that. So it’s surprising. I mean, those of us who are fans of that genre, and especially young musicians who grew up jamming on to that are familiar with it, but it seems like it was reaching a lot...
Ari Gold: So it’s the trio’s has always been very open just did an air drone video with Modern Drummer just posted my air drum video with a period and that a few hours later, Stewart Copeland posted an air drone video I don’t know if it’s a coincidence. But it was right after Modern Drummer posted me and Neil I think steward wants in on the action.
Charlie Benante: I want to get it what’s what’s air drumming,
Ari Gold: he actually didn’t even put on music. He had a couple like Christmas toys or like little dolls and he was like here’s here’s for the air drummers or something like that. And then he’d like ship the toys like this.
Charlie Benante: So as far as air drumming goes to me it’s like I’ve always thought of Tom Sawyer being one of those songs I’ve created air drum
Ari Gold: Parts of my movie is that
Charlie Benante: whole Phil I would have to share like you know the Phil Collins in the air tonight.
Ari Gold: Movie to ….God. Recently, Jack and Diane produced by trivia people, do you know who created that sound for that song Jack and Diane? Anyone against David Bowie he created the David Bowie sound.
Charlie Benante: So that was Kenny Aronoff playing that
Ari Gold: Kenny Aronoff played it? But
Alex Skolnick: Brian Eno.
Ari Gold: No, it’s It’s one of my brain is it Sorry. It’s the great greatest guitar one of the greatest guitars of the 70s My brain is like melting. Oh Mick Ronson? Yes, thank you. Mick Ronson produced Jack and Diane. He was the one who came in and said let’s try crazy drum fill here and this big guitar thing. And John Mellencamp has, you know, credits Ronson for creating his like Mega stardom.
Alex Skolnick: Yeah, there’s a great documentary on McRoberts. Yeah, recently, that’s how I found out I didn’t even know that. Yeah.
Charlie Benante: I didn’t know that either. I mean, I thought the Peter Gabriel, Peter Gabriel record that Phil Collins played on include. Peter didn’t want any symbols, no symbols on it. So I think that helped to achieve that drum sound that
Charlie Benante: guys. So yeah. And all of a sudden, Dave Grohl walks in, which was like a total shock is he we have just happened to be there hanging out with Getty. It was a really weird thing. Well, he was I never fanboy.
Ari Gold: I mean, yeah, you know, he ended up
Alex Skolnick: just kind of shadowing Geddy. For. For some projects they were.
Ari Gold: I haven’t met Dave Grohl, but ever. I hear so many people say What a nice guy he is. And I’m suspicious.
Ra Diaz: He’s awesome. Very nice.
Alex Skolnick: Just like he comes across. Yeah, okay,
Ari Gold: good. Let’s just enact it’s not scared. Like, you know,
Alex Skolnick: it was super cool. Um, yeah, I’d love I never I’ve never got to meet Neil. Sadly, I’d love to meet Alex up to meet him at some point, I have a guitar just like is right up there.
Ari Gold: The you know, there’s four hours of talks about Neil, I talk about Neil but you know, a lot of other like, you know, people who you know, other drummers talk about him in the four hour Modern Drummer special about Neil period. So I really hope everyone buys that if you haven’t bought it already. Monitor it’s at Modern Drummer comm slash shop. So please get the special and the the profits for it go to support research into the cancer that that took him away from us. So please, please do check that out. By the way, we have 10 to 15 minutes, and then we’re going to go watch Adventures of power on the stream. Or if anyone wants to watch on amazon prime for like full screen view, they can do it there. All the streams support music cares. So and that doesn’t just mean tonight, I mean, forever. We’re giving money, the earnings to music cares. So check out adventures power, I would love to talk about the fact that I’m now waiting for my coffee beans to come from Charlie Benante. Now become a coffee entrepreneur. And let’s talk about Charlie, you know, as a drummer who has to drum fast, is that how you got into coffee? Because you didn’t want to be into speed?
Charlie Benante: No, no, well, it’s partially kind of like that. But I grew up in like an Italian, you know, family, household, whatever. And coffee was always brewing. So either it was, you know, cappuccino, regular coffee or black coffee, whatever, you know. And I’ve always been addicted to it. And then about 15 years ago, Dave Mustaine hit me up and say I’m thinking about doing the coffee thing. Are you down to do it? And I’m like, absolutely. I know exactly the type I want to do the brew the blend, whatever. And we started doing it, and then kind of lost interest in it. But I kept going so I did it independently on my own. And then this coffee brewer here, dark matter in Chicago. I hooked up with them and then we started doing tree blends and it’s been great. It’s just it’s the blends that i i picked I went down there we did the taste test spitting it out, you know, but uh, I love it. It’s like
Ari Gold: my favorite thing. You spent any time in Italy and the Oh yeah. Yeah. Do you do like walk across
Ari Gold: about your podcast that you got going on? Sure. You want to share with people who might not know about it?
Alex Skolnick: Yeah, well, I’ve wanted, I’ve been planning to do one for a long time. I know. Everybody and their petnow has a podcast. But it’s been in the works forever. And one of the shining lights of the whole shutdown. And just not traveling, in addition to cooking up with these guys, and doing our songs has been having the time and energy to get my podcast together. It’s called moods and modes. And every episode is different. The original idea was your one on one sessions with different musicians. So I started it out with great Indian musician who’s a friend of mine persona, great guitar player. Near Felder, who’s a guy, he’s he, he plays for Ben Platt. Right? You know, that’s, he’s kind of known for that. But he’s also a great jazz player sits in with Dave Matthews. You know, great. But now, you know, one on one jam sessions are tough to do. So it sort of evolved into stories. So it’s almost it’s been described as like, This American Life for guitar, or, like an Anthony Bourdain show, but about
Ari Gold: deja vu that way or
Alex Skolnick: ya know, I got some nice reviews, which I was like, Oh, that’s a perfect description. Now that is good. Um, so it got it got picked up by the Osiris media network. Okay, they have about 200 podcast or like real pros and their artists on there.
Ari Gold: Why you have such a good microphone there.
Alex Skolnick: Well, yeah. Yeah, they they
Ari Gold: are like whoa, we’re talking into our laptops.
Ra Diaz: Not even I’m talking to my iPad with like my
Alex Skolnick: Oh, they sent me straight. Do you need a pop filter? You need this software? Yeah. Um, so the first few episodes I mean, people said I did really good for you know amateur that I am but it’s definitely you’ll definitely rocker Yeah, by by like episode six or seven. You’ll definitely notice a difference but no, it’s all types of music. I I do my own little soundtracks music that does not fit any
Ra Diaz: some stuff for like, basically, whoever like hit me up. And we’d suicidal, we recorded some stuff and everything. But with everything that’s going on, I don’t even know when it’s gonna come out. You know. So, at this moment, like, all I’m doing is just basically playing bass at home and recording. Just chilling I guess waiting to see what happens. And I just
Ari Gold: there’s some like girl who’s like a basis star who always pops up on my feed for some reason. She’s like,
Ra Diaz: it’s the tiger. She’s always playing. Well, there’s,
Ari Gold: there’s like a bass duet, you could like create a backup of story. It’s like bass extravaganza.
Ra Diaz: I’ve done like, out of out of nowhere, sometimes, like earlier, like an hour before logging into this. So I was just in my room. And I’m like, Yeah, you know, when I go live and play a couple songs, and but it’s like, whenever I feel Yeah, I actually last week, I played like a couple like Rush songs and stuff. And it’s cool. I like the being spontaneous. I can do that plan thing. Too much. I stress easily. So
Ari Gold: good. And thorough, you got an art show coming up as well as
Charlie Benante: we were looking at, because we postponed it twice already because of the because of the virus. So we’re looking at hopefully doing it in February, maybe around Valentine’s Day. So guys, bring your girls and girls bring your guys and girls bring your guys Yeah. Or guys bring?
Ari Gold: We’re in this world. Guys. Bring your guys girls, bring your girls and then not the three of us. Bring your noncompliance as well. We should
Ra Diaz: play the art show the three of us.
Charlie Benante: Hey, that’s a good idea. Yeah,
Ra Diaz: we can meet up in Chicago and play a couple months. Ah,
Ari Gold: well, you know, any, anything you guys do you tell me I’m going to put you on the adventures of power website because there are no band pages for you guys, that will always be promotional. I will be on on point with what you guys are doing. So I think we’ll roll to the... and now let’s chat with the world’s greatest drummers and more about music and the human heartbeat. Imagine that.
This interview originally appeared on Hotsticks.fm.
See more about Charlie Benante, Ra Diaz, and Alex Skolnick on the official site for Adventures of Power, the world's greatest (and only) Air Drum Movie!
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