After Anthrax finished touring in support of Fistful of Metal, vocalist Neil Turbin was expelled from the band. Matt Fallon replaced him, but was quickly fired because he lacked confidence in the studio. Producer Carl Canedy suggested the group to audition Joey Belladonna, who was not familiar with thrash metal. Though the band members were not pleased with Belladonna's musical background, they hired him and booked few shows with their new frontman. Spreading the Disease was recorded at the Pyramid Sound Studios in Ithaca, New York with Canedy, while Jon Zazula served as executive producer. The album featured the single "Madhouse", for which a music video was produced, but it did not receive much airplay on MTV, because the station believed the content was degrading to the mentally insane. Spreading the Disease was the band's major label debut and was released by Megaforce / Island Records.
This was the last Anthrax album to feature songwriting from Turbin and bassist Dan Lilker. Turbin wrote the lyrics for "Armed and Dangerous" and "Gung-Ho", and Lilker contributed to the music. Zazula was given songwriting credit for "Medusa", his only contribution for Anthrax. Zazula was originally credited as the sole writer of the song, but album reissues credit the rest of the band as well. After recording the album was completed, guitarist Scott Ian, drummer Charlie Benante and Lilker, who had joined Nuclear Assault, founded the Stormtroopers of Death and recorded the album Speak English or Die, a milestone in crossover thrash. In his autobiography, I'm the Man: The Story of That Guy from Anthrax, Scott Ian said the acronym in the song "A.I.R." stands for "Adolescence in Red" and that it was a wordplay of his on George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue.
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