ANTHRAX Guitarist Scott Ian About The Future Of The Band - "We Don't Know Who's Singing"
2005-10-18 18:27:04
BW&BK caught up with Anthrax guitarist Scott Ian minutes before the metal thrashing axeman hit the stage at the Bell Center in Montreal, Quebec, as part of the band's current reunion tour opening for JUDAS PRIEST. The entire chat is as follows:
BW&BK: How's the reunion tour going?
Scott Ian: "Good. It's like any other tour I've done with this band. Long boring days followed by 60 to 90 minutes on stage."
BW&BK: Nostalgia tour or the future of the band?
Ian: "It's just a reunion tour."
BW&BK: What about (singer) John Bush. He seems to think he's out of the band...
Ian: "Nothing has ever been said. No one's been fired and no one's quit. There's no answer to this and anything you've read online is the same answer you'll get now. We just don't know what we're doing after this. We don't know who's singing. We don't know what's going to happen. We've committed to a reunion tour for a year and tour the world once with this line-up. Then a magic light will shine on us and we'll know what's going to happen next."
BW&BK: What about the rumours that Sharon...
Ian: "It was Sharon Osbourne, Donald Trump and Bill Gates put up a billion dollars each and that's why we're doing this reunion tour opening for Judas Priest."
BW&BK: How is it to be on stage with Priest coming on after you?
Ian: "It's great. As a fan and a guy in a band, it's the perfect situation. We love Judas Priest, we get to go on tour with them, we get to go to a lot of great places that we would never have played, Priest plays every night and I get to hear 'Beyond The Realms Of Death'."
BW&BK: How is it rediscovering your old songs like 'Belly Of The Beast'?
Ian: "It's great. I never thought I'd play 'Medusa' again in my life and 'Time' which I'm hoping we'll play more when we do some headline dates next year. I would love to bring back 'Skeleton In The Closet'"
BW&BK: Are they inspiring you or are you thinking 'Ugh, the old songs again'?
Ian: "We haven't played these songs other than 'Caught In A Mosh', 'Indians', and 'I Am The Law' and I don't get tired of those plus we're playing the full arrangements again."
BW&BK: Will this affect the next Anthrax record? Will you start at We've Come For You All and take a step from there or look back and say 'that was cool' we should...
Ian: "We never think about it in those terms. We just start writing and it's never been a case of looking at what we did. Once we're into it, of course, we want things to be better, but that's such a weird thing to say. It's hard to judge stuff like that. When an album is done and I've had a chance to live with it, the consistency of it... The true test is how many songs end up in the live set and how long we end up leaving them in the set. We still play five songs from Among The Living which I can't say about any other record. When we start playing material from We've Come For You All again; I'm sure there will be four or five songs off that record that will always be in the set."
BW&BK: Do you think you'll start playing those with Joey (Belladonna)?
Ian: "No, not on the reunion tour."
BW&BK: But maybe if you go past the reunion tour?
Ian: "We don't even know who's going to be in the band past the reunion tour. It might be like KISS and we'll just build robots to go out as Anthrax."
BW&BK: You've also got four releases that have just come out (Anthology - No Hit Wonders on CD and DVD plus Alive II on CD & DVD)...
Ian: "We didn't want four releases. We wanted two releases - the live DVD documenting the reunion tour with a bonus CD and No Hit Wonders as a CD with a bonus DVD, but both labels said 'no, we can't release them with bonuses because it'll cost too much.' We told them that we thought it was ridiculous to release four pieces of product. If you expect people to buy both, they're going to spend the same amount of money if not more to buy four pieces. The way I look at it is buy the live DVD and the remastered CD. I know I'm shooting myself in the foot by saying that, but we look at things like fans. Give them a thing with a bonus even if it costs a couple bucks more. Fans will appreciate that more rather than thinking 'why the fuck do they have four pieces of product
out?'"
BW&BK: Let's talk about the three guys that have come back. It seemed like a nastier split with Frankie (Bello).
Ian: "Seemed is a bad word to use. Nothing was ever said, so why did it seem nasty? Unless you hear something from our mouths or read something on OUR website. Nobody ever said any reason why Frankie left or what really happened and no one will ever know. The most frustrating thing I find about the internet and websites is that they're double-edged swords. They're great for metal bands or any new band that doesn't get the support of the bigger media, but everybody expects instant gratification now and it just doesn't work that way. When something is going on in our camp be it the reunion tour, a member change or whatever; we can't control it. If we could keep that information locked between us then have it come out... If I could find out how to keep things secret that would be great, but we can't. People talk and then there's rumour all over the internet and people bitch at us 'why didn't you tell us first?' Because you'll find out when we fucking tell you. I don't go to bands' websites forty fucking times a day to find out if he took a shit that morning. Have some mystery to what's going on or go outside and ride your bicycle."
BW&BK: That's one of the main differences between music now and back then. There was a mystique to LED ZEPPELIN, a mystique to KISS...
Ian: "Yeah. There was only a couple of magazines. No MTV, no internet, no anything. You'd find out when they'd announce a concert if you were lucky enough to have the radio on when they announced it or by hearing it from a friend at school. It was a word of mouth thing and it made for a much tighter knit cooler rock community. Less backstabbing and fighting... band message boards
are just there for people to yell at each other and fight."
BW&BK: Message boards are useless. It's like so and so sucks dick...
Ian: "Exactly! Music is opinion, so why argue over it?"
BW&BK: Some 'news' sites even have 'reader's rants' with the news story. It's like Tommy Lee gets hit by fireworks and the rants will all be 'Tommy Lee sucks dick.' Why is that necessary?
Ian: "It's moronic. It goes with the dumbing down of our culture in general. In America it's all about reality TV, tabloid press... it all goes hand in hand."
BW&BK: So no Anthrax reality show?
Ian: "I wish. We should have been filming this from the start back in December last year when we first started talking. Even if it wasn't a reality show, we'd have a better movie than METALLICA. We have as much drama, but different and we can't afford the psycho-therapist."
BW&BK: Some final quotes - Frankie playing bass feels good to you?
Ian: "Great, yeah."
BW&BK: Joey?
Ian: "Joey is doing amazing. I think Joey has really stepped up. It's weird because a lot of people asked what's it like and I'm like 'you know a lot of my memories of those times in the '80s come from pictures'. It's like you think you have memories as a kid, but most come from a picture you look at in a family photo album. A lot of my memories from the '80s are from photos or videos, but the actual emotion of what it was like to be on stage in 1988 in Casper, Wyoming; I don't have a fucking clue. I don't != I just can't remember. So getting to do this again != this second chance is a great feeling and it does feel great. It's filling up a space because things happened so fast for us back then; '84 to '91 happened like 'bam'. So, getting to do this now and reconnect with these guys is a great thing. Even if nothing else comes from this. Just knowing that I can go the rest of my life being friends with Joey Belladonna and friends with Dan Spitz because we spent a long time apart. If we had never done this reunion, I may not have ever seen or spoken to those guys again for the rest of my life. This reconnection is only positive and if you're a fan or not, at least, respect it from a human level. I understand people don't like it. I love John Bush too and I miss the fucking hell out of John Bush and I love John Bush's voice. That was the reason we got him in the band. He's a fucking great singer. Joey's a fucking great singer. We're in a really weird place and time right now."
BW&BK: and musically...
Ian: "Look, I've said it before and I'll say it again Rob Caggiano is the best guitar player I've ever played with. The difference with Danny on stage is that Danny (Spitz) plays the solos exactly as they were recorded. Rob played the key parts of the solos, but would do his own thing as well (which none of us had a problem with). Danny plays them as he wrote them so it sounds like the record. It's an Anthrax set that I hadn't heard in a long long time and it sounds great. It sounds like Anthrax and those records. I don't even remember what it sounded like back then. I don't listen to Spreading The Disease in my off time. It just feels really good hearing the band now."
BW&BK: Rob also produced the band != so regardless of who you go with. Does Rob have a shot at producing the band?
Ian: "Absolutely. I don't see why not. If we go ahead and make a reunion line-up album, he'll be the first producer I'd throw in the mix and say that we should call. He does an amazing job and nobody knows the band better."
BW&BK: He did We've Come... as well as The Greater Of Two Evils with John doing Joey's songs. (Jokingly) will you do the Lesser Of Two Evils with Joey doing John's songs?
Ian: "Now, why is that the lesser of two evils (laughs)."
BW&BK: Well, you can't have the Greaterest of two evils...
Ian: "The greatererest of two evils (laughs). No, we're not going to have Joey sing John Bush's stuff. I don't think that's going to happen. We just got to get Neil Turbin in the mix somehow and then everyone will be happy."
BW&BK: ... and Dan Lilker
Ian: "That'll be for our Vegas show (jokingly). Motley Crue is going to Vegas for nine months. So, we could do that Anthrax - This Is Your Life where we all have costumes and wigs to look like '81 and it'll be Anthrax through time. Everyone who's ever been in the band will , at some point, be on stage
playing."
BW&BK: The final word... the future?
Ian: "We're not going to know until Charlie (Benante - drums), Frankie and I get together and start writing some songs. Frankie, Charlie and I are the core of the band and we have to stay together. I truly believe that and we need to get in a room, start writing, get some music together and hope that that will give us some clue of what's going to happen. The bottom line is that there is a logical conclusion to a reunion tour based on what other bands have done. You go and make a record, but we're not every other band. I wanna make a record with John Bush
and I wanna make a record with Joey Belladonna. How do we do that?"
BW&BK: You make a double disc album...
Ian: "I'd love to see the record label sort that out..."
****************************************************
I think that pretty much say everything I have said all along! Scott doesn't know what's coming next and is pretty fucking pissed off with all the net conspiracy theorists!
That last question has really got me hoping! Fingers crossed for a dual vocalled Anthrax! (I know in my heart of hearts it won't happen, but I think Anthrax could really be "Greater with two evils"
)
2005-10-18 18:27:04
BW&BK caught up with Anthrax guitarist Scott Ian minutes before the metal thrashing axeman hit the stage at the Bell Center in Montreal, Quebec, as part of the band's current reunion tour opening for JUDAS PRIEST. The entire chat is as follows:
BW&BK: How's the reunion tour going?
Scott Ian: "Good. It's like any other tour I've done with this band. Long boring days followed by 60 to 90 minutes on stage."
BW&BK: Nostalgia tour or the future of the band?
Ian: "It's just a reunion tour."
BW&BK: What about (singer) John Bush. He seems to think he's out of the band...
Ian: "Nothing has ever been said. No one's been fired and no one's quit. There's no answer to this and anything you've read online is the same answer you'll get now. We just don't know what we're doing after this. We don't know who's singing. We don't know what's going to happen. We've committed to a reunion tour for a year and tour the world once with this line-up. Then a magic light will shine on us and we'll know what's going to happen next."
BW&BK: What about the rumours that Sharon...
Ian: "It was Sharon Osbourne, Donald Trump and Bill Gates put up a billion dollars each and that's why we're doing this reunion tour opening for Judas Priest."
BW&BK: How is it to be on stage with Priest coming on after you?
Ian: "It's great. As a fan and a guy in a band, it's the perfect situation. We love Judas Priest, we get to go on tour with them, we get to go to a lot of great places that we would never have played, Priest plays every night and I get to hear 'Beyond The Realms Of Death'."
BW&BK: How is it rediscovering your old songs like 'Belly Of The Beast'?
Ian: "It's great. I never thought I'd play 'Medusa' again in my life and 'Time' which I'm hoping we'll play more when we do some headline dates next year. I would love to bring back 'Skeleton In The Closet'"
BW&BK: Are they inspiring you or are you thinking 'Ugh, the old songs again'?
Ian: "We haven't played these songs other than 'Caught In A Mosh', 'Indians', and 'I Am The Law' and I don't get tired of those plus we're playing the full arrangements again."
BW&BK: Will this affect the next Anthrax record? Will you start at We've Come For You All and take a step from there or look back and say 'that was cool' we should...
Ian: "We never think about it in those terms. We just start writing and it's never been a case of looking at what we did. Once we're into it, of course, we want things to be better, but that's such a weird thing to say. It's hard to judge stuff like that. When an album is done and I've had a chance to live with it, the consistency of it... The true test is how many songs end up in the live set and how long we end up leaving them in the set. We still play five songs from Among The Living which I can't say about any other record. When we start playing material from We've Come For You All again; I'm sure there will be four or five songs off that record that will always be in the set."
BW&BK: Do you think you'll start playing those with Joey (Belladonna)?
Ian: "No, not on the reunion tour."
BW&BK: But maybe if you go past the reunion tour?
Ian: "We don't even know who's going to be in the band past the reunion tour. It might be like KISS and we'll just build robots to go out as Anthrax."
BW&BK: You've also got four releases that have just come out (Anthology - No Hit Wonders on CD and DVD plus Alive II on CD & DVD)...
Ian: "We didn't want four releases. We wanted two releases - the live DVD documenting the reunion tour with a bonus CD and No Hit Wonders as a CD with a bonus DVD, but both labels said 'no, we can't release them with bonuses because it'll cost too much.' We told them that we thought it was ridiculous to release four pieces of product. If you expect people to buy both, they're going to spend the same amount of money if not more to buy four pieces. The way I look at it is buy the live DVD and the remastered CD. I know I'm shooting myself in the foot by saying that, but we look at things like fans. Give them a thing with a bonus even if it costs a couple bucks more. Fans will appreciate that more rather than thinking 'why the fuck do they have four pieces of product
out?'"
BW&BK: Let's talk about the three guys that have come back. It seemed like a nastier split with Frankie (Bello).
Ian: "Seemed is a bad word to use. Nothing was ever said, so why did it seem nasty? Unless you hear something from our mouths or read something on OUR website. Nobody ever said any reason why Frankie left or what really happened and no one will ever know. The most frustrating thing I find about the internet and websites is that they're double-edged swords. They're great for metal bands or any new band that doesn't get the support of the bigger media, but everybody expects instant gratification now and it just doesn't work that way. When something is going on in our camp be it the reunion tour, a member change or whatever; we can't control it. If we could keep that information locked between us then have it come out... If I could find out how to keep things secret that would be great, but we can't. People talk and then there's rumour all over the internet and people bitch at us 'why didn't you tell us first?' Because you'll find out when we fucking tell you. I don't go to bands' websites forty fucking times a day to find out if he took a shit that morning. Have some mystery to what's going on or go outside and ride your bicycle."
BW&BK: That's one of the main differences between music now and back then. There was a mystique to LED ZEPPELIN, a mystique to KISS...
Ian: "Yeah. There was only a couple of magazines. No MTV, no internet, no anything. You'd find out when they'd announce a concert if you were lucky enough to have the radio on when they announced it or by hearing it from a friend at school. It was a word of mouth thing and it made for a much tighter knit cooler rock community. Less backstabbing and fighting... band message boards
are just there for people to yell at each other and fight."
BW&BK: Message boards are useless. It's like so and so sucks dick...
Ian: "Exactly! Music is opinion, so why argue over it?"
BW&BK: Some 'news' sites even have 'reader's rants' with the news story. It's like Tommy Lee gets hit by fireworks and the rants will all be 'Tommy Lee sucks dick.' Why is that necessary?
Ian: "It's moronic. It goes with the dumbing down of our culture in general. In America it's all about reality TV, tabloid press... it all goes hand in hand."
BW&BK: So no Anthrax reality show?
Ian: "I wish. We should have been filming this from the start back in December last year when we first started talking. Even if it wasn't a reality show, we'd have a better movie than METALLICA. We have as much drama, but different and we can't afford the psycho-therapist."
BW&BK: Some final quotes - Frankie playing bass feels good to you?
Ian: "Great, yeah."
BW&BK: Joey?
Ian: "Joey is doing amazing. I think Joey has really stepped up. It's weird because a lot of people asked what's it like and I'm like 'you know a lot of my memories of those times in the '80s come from pictures'. It's like you think you have memories as a kid, but most come from a picture you look at in a family photo album. A lot of my memories from the '80s are from photos or videos, but the actual emotion of what it was like to be on stage in 1988 in Casper, Wyoming; I don't have a fucking clue. I don't != I just can't remember. So getting to do this again != this second chance is a great feeling and it does feel great. It's filling up a space because things happened so fast for us back then; '84 to '91 happened like 'bam'. So, getting to do this now and reconnect with these guys is a great thing. Even if nothing else comes from this. Just knowing that I can go the rest of my life being friends with Joey Belladonna and friends with Dan Spitz because we spent a long time apart. If we had never done this reunion, I may not have ever seen or spoken to those guys again for the rest of my life. This reconnection is only positive and if you're a fan or not, at least, respect it from a human level. I understand people don't like it. I love John Bush too and I miss the fucking hell out of John Bush and I love John Bush's voice. That was the reason we got him in the band. He's a fucking great singer. Joey's a fucking great singer. We're in a really weird place and time right now."
BW&BK: and musically...
Ian: "Look, I've said it before and I'll say it again Rob Caggiano is the best guitar player I've ever played with. The difference with Danny on stage is that Danny (Spitz) plays the solos exactly as they were recorded. Rob played the key parts of the solos, but would do his own thing as well (which none of us had a problem with). Danny plays them as he wrote them so it sounds like the record. It's an Anthrax set that I hadn't heard in a long long time and it sounds great. It sounds like Anthrax and those records. I don't even remember what it sounded like back then. I don't listen to Spreading The Disease in my off time. It just feels really good hearing the band now."
BW&BK: Rob also produced the band != so regardless of who you go with. Does Rob have a shot at producing the band?
Ian: "Absolutely. I don't see why not. If we go ahead and make a reunion line-up album, he'll be the first producer I'd throw in the mix and say that we should call. He does an amazing job and nobody knows the band better."
BW&BK: He did We've Come... as well as The Greater Of Two Evils with John doing Joey's songs. (Jokingly) will you do the Lesser Of Two Evils with Joey doing John's songs?
Ian: "Now, why is that the lesser of two evils (laughs)."
BW&BK: Well, you can't have the Greaterest of two evils...
Ian: "The greatererest of two evils (laughs). No, we're not going to have Joey sing John Bush's stuff. I don't think that's going to happen. We just got to get Neil Turbin in the mix somehow and then everyone will be happy."
BW&BK: ... and Dan Lilker
Ian: "That'll be for our Vegas show (jokingly). Motley Crue is going to Vegas for nine months. So, we could do that Anthrax - This Is Your Life where we all have costumes and wigs to look like '81 and it'll be Anthrax through time. Everyone who's ever been in the band will , at some point, be on stage
playing."
BW&BK: The final word... the future?
Ian: "We're not going to know until Charlie (Benante - drums), Frankie and I get together and start writing some songs. Frankie, Charlie and I are the core of the band and we have to stay together. I truly believe that and we need to get in a room, start writing, get some music together and hope that that will give us some clue of what's going to happen. The bottom line is that there is a logical conclusion to a reunion tour based on what other bands have done. You go and make a record, but we're not every other band. I wanna make a record with John Bush
and I wanna make a record with Joey Belladonna. How do we do that?"
BW&BK: You make a double disc album...
Ian: "I'd love to see the record label sort that out..."
****************************************************
I think that pretty much say everything I have said all along! Scott doesn't know what's coming next and is pretty fucking pissed off with all the net conspiracy theorists!
That last question has really got me hoping! Fingers crossed for a dual vocalled Anthrax! (I know in my heart of hearts it won't happen, but I think Anthrax could really be "Greater with two evils"
)
