THE MASTER WATCHMAKER
DAN SPITZ
Dan Spitz joined Anthrax in 1983 and served as their lead guitarist until 1995. He left to train as a watchmaker. He returned to the band briefly in the mid-00s, but today horology is his main focus.
“It comes from being in my grandfather’s jewellery and watch store growing up. It was less than a mile from the original Woodstock site, so I had timepieces on one side and Jimi Hendrix waking me up playing The Star-Spangled Banner on the other. I really didn’t have a choice in life!
“Back in 94/95, Anthrax were at the peak of our career, playing arenas, but I was the only one who was married with two kids at that point. My wife had travelled with us from the beginning, but it became impossible after our second child. When I left the stage I didn’t know what real life was. It’s very difficult to adjust, so I threw myself into something that was a challenge. I enrolled in a school in New York and graduated in a year and a half, before going to a prestigious school in Switzerland. They take six people from around the world every four years and I was chosen.
“There’s a lot of similarities in what I do now and what I did with Anthrax. Watchmaking has evolved into micro-mechanical art because we don’t need to have a watch on our wrists to tell the time like our grandparents. There’s a movement of independent watchmaking, which means that we don’t have the equivalent of
