Dan Spitz

Former Anthrax riff-master Dan Spitz has been reborn. 

After 15 years of touring on a bus with Anthrax, Dan needed a break. So he went from loud, thrashing music to quiet, methodical and intricate detail of making insanely expensive Swiss watches. After 10 years away from the band, Dan rejoined Anthrax in 2005 for the two-year reunion with the original members, then left the band again for family reasons. 

Dan became a born-again Christian several years ago and was recently ordered by fellow born-again friend and metal legend Dave Mustaine to start playing again. So he put down his watch tools, picked up his guitar, retooled himself and formed DeuxMonkey with an all-star cast of heavy-metal stalwarts: vocalist Wade Black (Crimson Glory, Seven Witches, Disasterpeace), bassist Peter Baltes (Accept) and drummer Patrick Johansson (Yngwie Malmsteen).

Calling from his home in Florida, Dan spoke about DeuxMonkey, his desire to thrash again and the difficulty of raising identical twins diagnosed with autism. 

Metal Mayhem: Welcome back to the metal community.
Dan Spitz: Thank you very much. It's a good feeling. It's a wonderful feeling. It's the feeling that I've always had, in my being, that every fibre that is me, is metal. There was a time I needed a break, but that same feeling I had that first day my guitar met Scott Ian's guitar in our studio in Jamaica, Queens, the same place where Metallica slept on our floor, is the same feeling I have now. 

MM: It was big news when you announced you were creating new music. What made you decide to start thrashing again? 
DS: We're kind of keeping it quiet. We have a small Web site. We are recording the new album in a special way to get that same anger and that same raw context that we did in the late '80s and early '90s with Anthrax. With two tracks of guitars, no studio polishing or piling of tracks, and we're keeping all the live, in-the-studio mistakes for the vibe. So the takes have that "Demo Tape" feel for me and Patrick. Just raw energy in your face thrash riffs. I told Patrick at inception that when I'm done writing all the riffs, we're going to start, go fast, pound through it and then that's it ... done. It's that same feeling from the "Fistful of Metal" era, clawing your way through the metal with attitude and instrument perfection. And it's taken quite a considerable amount of ingenuity, time and getting the right people to guide the ship and get it going. It's incredible, it's just so me, it's perfect, it's thrash metal. It's what everyone has grown to expect to hear when they listen. It's sick; it's the sickest riffs I've ever written. 

MM: DeuxMonkey boasts an all-star line-up. How did you get all of these awesome musicians in one band? 
DS: Peter and I ran into each other when Anthrax was doing a European festival. We hooked up and from that day forward we became extremely close friends, musically and non-musically. He's just one of the most wonderful people I know. And that just kind of sparked everything. So we experimented with a few things to have some fun, and it worked out wonderfully. One of my really good friends, Dave Mustaine, said, "It's time. You need to play again." To keep it moving forward in thrash metal. But the problem was creating something that didn't sound like anything else. This is always the challenge when you're writing. The sounds of the guitar, the identity of DeuxMonkey and its riffs ... raising my skill level as a lead guitarist for creation purposes. I wanted my fans to be comfortable listening to "Among the Living" and then putting on DeuxMonkey and say, "Wow ... freakin' next level Thrash, but with the same feeling. How does he get THAT tone"? We have to keep moving forward in thrash metal you know. So away we went. 

As far as finding the right drummer, everyone that's into thrash metal knows that guitars and drums pretty much rule the earth! That's just the way it is. So I had to find my companion after so many years with Charlie. Patrick has been the longest standing member in Yngwie Malmsteen's band, besides Yngwie of course. I saw him at this festival we played during the Anthrax reunion cycle. He was playing drums and he was sitting on an old paint can, like what you paint your house with, and I just thought that was so metal and we just got to talking. Basically he was what I had to find. 

To make this band, it took people who not only played what I do, but eat, breathe and sleep metal. It's something you can't get rid of, and that's true metal. And that's what Patrick is, and we just connected musically. When I play my fast picking-type riffs, he can mimic it with his feet no matter what I do or how fast I play, and it's pretty fast, his feet can play ... it's something I've never seen before, it's pretty incredible. So I wrote all the riffs and brought them to Patrick, and he has a place connected to his house that is literally a Kiss museum, he's a Kiss freak. He has millions of pieces of memorabilia literally from ceiling to floor. I just walked in and thought this is the perfect place to write the DeuxMonkey album. So we immediately went to work. The music just flowed and we created DeuxMonkey. I needed that same old-school thrash vibe that I had way back when while writing all the good riffs I had like on "Among the Living." And it was perfect; we just need to keep moving on now. 

With Wade, I've been looking for a singer for years and years. It's difficult to find the devotion, and Wade is such a well-respected person and singer within the industry who I don't feel ever got that big break. He has so much talent and range that he can morph into just about anybody from a Halford-sounding voice that will just blow out monitors to whatever spectrum you'd like him to go to. And he's another great guy. I'll probably be with these guys for the next 20 years. I found my people, musically and as friends. 

MM: What's the concept and meaning of DeuxMonkey? 
DS: The band name is actually pronounced Do Monkey. Deux is French for "two," and monkey, in its singular form. If it was punctually correct, it would be DeuxMonkees, but it's just DeuxMonkey. There is a cause behind the band and the main reason I did return to play. My wife, Candi, and I have mirror-image twins who were diagnosed with autism. We had our children when the Anthrax reunion cycle was coming to a close, and I needed some time off to take care of them and get them where they needed to be before I came back and did something such as this. So the name kind of stands for the two of them, with a play on words obviously. And for the cause, we can hopefully spread the awareness of autism throughout the world to get intervention and help, and hopefully raise money for people who need the help and have been diagnosed with this terrible disease. 

MM: Do you plan to tour with these members? And do you consider DeuxMonkey a full-time band or just a one-off? 
DS: DeuxMonkey is here for a very long time. It's more important than anything else I've ever done, and it's the first thing I've ever done outside of Anthrax, and Anthrax is my family. It's what I helped to create. In the beginning it was just Scott and I stuck in the studio for endless months alone doing exactly what I'm dong now in DeuxMonkey. I needed a little vacation and hopefully the fans of this generation know that I'm eager to bring forth a new kind of sound, and this is here for a long time. 

Peter is in Accept, Wade is a full-time member, and Yngwie basically doesn't even tour anymore at this point. So if you look at it in that respect, there's a few here-and-there shows where our schedules might conflict with Accept, so we'll have to deal with that when the time comes. But we will be a full-time touring band. Our plan is hopefully to be out by the spring with this and we'll be on the road. We're working for our fans and not for us. Our fans are us, and we are our fans. I just want to get out and play. I really missed being on stage and I missed being with my fans. The most important thing is that we plan to be playing live by springtime. It's going to be my dream come true to launch something like this, and not just for me. Again, it's really not about me, it's for our fans and it's about thrash metal. It's the perfect time, and I think thrash metal is going to keep getting bigger and bigger. 

You have killer bands like Children Of Bodom and Lamb Of God now and it blows my mind to hear the progression of what we all brought to the table years ago. We (Metallica, Slayer, Anthrax and Megadeth) were just writing and playing music for US back then. We didn't even care if anyone liked it. We didn't want "fans," we wanted anyone that came to see us live or buy our music to be "IN THE BAND."  I'm just a fan you know, I just happen to play a piece of wood with thin metal pieces of wire on it. I watch my best friend Mustaine play off the stage and I freak out too! I don't think any guitarist knows how killer of a lead player he really is. It's mind blowing. And that comes from me, a lead player. I'm just a fan.

MM: Being a master watchmaker must take an extreme amount of patience. How did you come about taking up this challenge? Can you tell me a little about it because it seemed strange, but interesting, to learn that a metal guy was making watches.
DS: It's been in my family forever. My grandfather was a watchmaker, and I've been taking wristwatches apart since I was 8 years old. When I did retire from Anthrax and walked off that last stage, I had to decide what to do. And I'm not one to just sit around. I could have, but I just decided to get the proper training and the proper degrees and maybe spend a lot of time in Switzerland. 

I have extreme OCD, you know, most of us musicians do who like that type of challenge where there's an incredible accomplishment at the end. I needed to clear my head. I wasn't in love with my instrument anymore. I was fried out, just being on the road, living on a tour bus. I thought being quiet and being able to rip apart the worlds most craziest, expensive and complicated wristwatches was a great goal. I had to go to school in America first. Switzerland has one English-speaking school, and you can only get in through scholarship because they only accept eight people a year from the entire world. But that's what I wanted to do. So I enrolled in a three-year school in the United States and completed that course extremely fast, and they gave me an award for that. Then another three years of apprenticeship after that and I was accepted into school in Switzerland and spent a lot of time working on watches that were basically $1 million each, and not a diamond on it. It's because the machine inside is basically like a Formula One racecar. It's that crazy, complicated and temperamental, and there are not many people in the world that can do it. 

Now I am able to do that whenever I want to and wherever I want to, but for now, obviously I'm stopping it. It cleared my head. That silence is awesome. It's concentration and silence. The funny part of it is, when you do get to school in Switzerland, the first day they give you every Rolex that's made and tell you to take them all apart. Each one can have upward of 700 to 1,300 little pieces and screws. So you take them all apart and you bring them up to the professor, and he looks at you, then looks down at the box, and he throws them up in the air and jumbles them all up and says, "Get back to your seat and put them all back together!" And you're about to punch him in the face because you've lined them up all nice and you know how it all goes back together (laughing). 

MM: Obviously you did miss playing music, but was there one thing that sparked you to start playing and recording after so many years away from it? 
DS: Yeah, Dave Mustaine ordered me to (laughing). He pretty much called me up and said, "You're ordered. You have to play." And if you know my personality, you'll know that's how I needed to be talked to. When you have OCD, it's all or nothing. Open or close. Start to finish, in a very disturbing way. 

There are other things, too. I started going to shows and having a good time, and every time I would want to be up there playing. I'd come home very confused because that's the only life I knew. I was so young, all I did was live on the road and play my guitar. It's all I knew, I didn't know anything else. Yeah, now I know how to rip apart crazy watches for people who have so much money that it's beyond your imagination. So I started to get that love and passion back of getting on stage and creating those riffs that connect me with my fans. It just kind of built up from that. So I thought I'd start something brand-new. 

MM: Why didn’t the Anthrax reunion in 2005 go further? Do you still get along with Scott and Charlie? 
DS: We all had a great time and it lasted way longer than any of us expected, as far as not making any new music. We spent almost two and a half years on and off the road. For me to come back and say yes, it was not like I was just sitting at home drinking a beer with nothing to do. I had to give up an entire career and stop being inside that small world of working with little parts that are invisible to the human eye and go back. So for me, this was a huge decision, a family decision at that, to go back to music. I had to have that love again and just at the time, it was there, it was coming back, not the actual creative process but the love for my instrument was certainly back. It was a very difficult decision but obviously the right decision because I enjoyed every single minute of it. 

Me, Scott and Frankie, and Charlie as well ... we're family and always will be. We spent a third of our lives together on a bus and got to know each other quite well. The reason it didn't continue on ... I don't know if I want to touch on that. We really should have made new music. It would have been great for everybody, but it didn't happen. I talk to Charlie and Scott all the time. In fact, Scott did an incredible thing for my daughter Lianna's Birthday recently that was way above friendship. So I'll have to leave it at that, and ... that's a DeuxMonkey! (laughing) 

MM: I am a father and I know the joys and struggles of raising children. One of my nephews was diagnosed with a form of autism, so I kind of understand what you are going through. Would you care to talk about how you have been coping with all of this? 
DS: I don't even know where to begin about how difficult it is. Just raising identical twins on her own is a huge accomplishment for any mother; you don't even have to count me on that. With autistic children, it's an incredible feat for two people just to try and change a diaper. Our therapists are here almost six hours a day almost every day of the week. It's quite difficult. So that's got to be the main goal of this band is to help bring the metal community together to help bring this awareness to a new level. 

In the United States alone ... well you know. I don't know you, I just met you and you're telling me about autism and it's in your family. So that should tell you right now that, statistically, it’s completely out of control. That's why you hear about it all the time, 20 years ago you didn't hear about it. So we hope to bring that awareness to the metal community, and I'm the guy to do it. We will use the power of music just like we use the power of music for so many things; we will use that power to help these kids and families. 

MM: Any last words for your fans?
DS: I just want everybody to know that we're hard at work and we're working for our fans to create a new sound that DeuxMonkey stands for. We're going to play live and not stop. I don't plan on stopping playing music again. I live to play. There's a whole new generation of fans who don't know who Dan Spitz is. Thrash metal is in my blood, so get ready for DeuxMonkey. It's going to be a lot of fun and one sick long ride of thrashing riffs of killer proportion.

Article by Kelley Simms