Project Description
Interview with
SCOTT IAN
from
ANTHRAX
1/08/18
Interviewer: JARROD HENRY
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Co-founding guitarist of heavy metal titans Anthrax, author, pop culture geek, horror movie buff, Scott Ian is one of the most iconic musicians of the genre ever to grace the stages of the world. Now Scott is heading down under for the first time since 2013 to bring his One Man Riot Spoken Word Tour to Australian audiences, and clearly he’s looking forward it.
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So it’s been a little while since you’ve toured Australia, are you looking forward to coming back?
Yeah for sure, I’m really excited.
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The one man show is obviously a very different beast from the kind of other tours you do, when you first started doing it was it weird to be getting up there without a guitar?
You know not really. It kind of felt normal and I kind of just took to it from the first time I did it. And believe me the first time I ever did one of these shows, which was in London about five or six years ago I didn’t know what the hell I was doing. And even still it just felt normal to me being up there. And I’ve done enough talking to crowds over the years, obviously only for thirty seconds at a time when I’ve talked to audiences at Anthrax shows, but still I have no problem with public speaking and I knew I had stuff to say and I’m not scared of being up on stage and talking to people so it all just kind of worked out.
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Let’s face it, there’s a hell of a lot of rock biographies and autobiographies out there right now, was there anything in particular that inspired you to want to write about your life?
Just that I had an interesting story to tell I guess. I felt like my story was different to most other rock books, it’s just a different path. There’s no drugs, there’s no huge things like I never went to rehab or overdosed four times, it’s not that kind of tale, and it’s not a rags to riches to rags kind of story. Mine is a different path to most other guys in bands and even though it din’t have all the debauchery that you see in most of these types of books I still thought it was a very interesting story and a very RELATABLE story too. Just a very human story that I thought that anyone would be able to relate to in that way.
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I’ve read your first book, I take it your second one differs a bit from that doesn’t it?
No I just kind of wrote a second autobiography that’s completely different to the first [laughs]. I’ll leave it up to the audiences to decide which one’s the real one. So I had a lot of stories that aren’t in the autobiography because just with the flow of that book, it being a very linear story starting with “I was born..” and ending with Yankee Stadium and the Big Four. And so there were a lot of these stories that just didn’t fit into the flow really and I actually had a few of these stories in the first book, and when I was reading it during the editorial stage I just felt like they were taking me away from the flow of the main story. And I felt like it got a little bit too tangential. So when the first book was done I still had these leftover pieces that I thought were great, but they just didn’t work in that book. So it wasn’t long after the first book came out that I said to my editor “what would you think if I just did a book of stories?. You know, standalone stories, it doesn’t have to be in any chronological order, just 23 tales.” And he thought it was a great idea so I was able to get a green light to go and do that and I just had a great time doing it, it was much easier to write in some ways because you’re not dealing with this one giant fifty years worth of stuff to talk about, these are all just little moments in time..
More like amusing anecdotes from down the years?
Yeah that’s it. Stuff that’s just stayed in my brain or just things that I thought were interesting for one reason or another. And most of them are pretty funny! And most of them I’ve been telling in my talking shows for a while so I finally decided to write them. And it’s actually really hard to write them for a book. I have this story about when I meant Lemmy for the first time, back in ’85 or something, and long story short I tried to have drinks with him. And that didn’t go so well because I didn’t drink and Lemmy did, and I tried to keep up and that ended very badly for me! And it’s a story that I love to tell, especially when I’m in front of an audience because I have all the physicality of my body and the power of my voice, and all those dynamics that take a great story and make it even better. And so it took me a little while to figure out how to make it just as funny and interesting just by writing it, so that was a lot of fun and a great challenge for me as well. So the story in the book and the story live – same story but completely different depending upon whether you’re reading it or you’re hearing me tell it.
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And it would instil a different reaction in people too, depending on whether they’re reading your words in a book or seeing you perform it live it would give you a different experience.
And that’s exactly it. Performing the story, with me in your face telling it, it’s completely different.
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Without giving too much away, what’s the format of the show going to be? Are you using music and visuals to accompany you or are you going straight in Henry Rollins style and just talking?
I do have some visuals, and at some point I did add music to the show where I have a guitar and I have a musical portion to the show, although I’m not going to give up what that means! I will say this, I’m not up to singing Anthrax songs let’s just put it that way. But yes there is a part of the show with music because after doing quite a few of them I often got asked why I didn’t have music in the show and so finally I said “alright I know how I can do this” and I haven’t done it all that much because it’s something I added in towards then end of the last tour I did a couple of years ago. So yeah all of the above. Music, visuals, I do a Q&A with the fans, I just try and make it as interactive and as welcoming as possible and I find I don’t really need the visuals too much but it does help get the point across with some of the stories sometimes, and it’s fun for me.
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Bruce Dickinson from Iron Maiden is heading our way to do a similar show as well, have you read his book?
I haven’t read it yet, but I do want to. I know Bruce and I know he’s a great writer, and I’ve been saying for years and years that the two people who should go out and do talking shows were Lemmy and Bruce. Obviously Lemmy’s not here anymore but could you image if Lemmy had done that? I mean to go into a theatre and Lemmy’s sitting at a table with a drink and a cigarette and just telling stories for two hours? I would have paid anything to see that. But Bruce is a very natural storyteller and an amazing writer and I always thought he’d be so perfect at it, so I’m glad he’s finally started doing this. I gather that both our formats are going to be pretty different, but yeah it’ll still be a guy on stage talking.
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Apart from playing with Anthrax and recording and touring, you keep a pretty busy schedule outside of the band too don’t you? I mean with Bloodworks and writing for DC as well.
I did the one Lobo story for DC but that’s not to say I wouldn’t love to get back into the comic book world. My old editor from DC is still in the business and we’ve got a whole bunch of ideas that as soon as I get off the next leg of this tour we’ll start digging into that a little bit.
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So how did you end up being a Walker on the Walking Dead? That must have been pretty cool getting to work with Andrew Lincoln and Greg Nicotero and the rest.
Greg and I have been friends for a long time, so earlier on in Bloodworks we went to his effects shop and he let me smash up some zombie heads and that. And then at some point I decided I’d just ask him, I mean what’s the worst that could happen right? And he’d always said that if I wanted to come to Atlanta and get made up as a Walker that I was more than welcome. And I thought that was great but what would be even greater would be if I could bring the show up there and film it. So I asked him and he went to the producers and the network but everyone said yes amazingly enough. So we got to take Bloodworks down to Atlanta and film me getting made into a Walker and being in the scene with Rick and Carl – Season 5 Episode 12! – and it was amazing to me that it happened. Sometimes it seems to surreal to me that if I didn’t actaully have an episode of The Walking Dead with me in it I would wonder if I had dreamed it all. But I actually got to do it and it still kind of blows my mind.
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You also filmed an episode of Bloodworks from the Game Of Thrones set, and you’ve been made into a White Walker too. I take it you’re a bit of a fan of the show as well?
Oh absolutely, I love it and I’ve read all the books. I hadn’t read them when I first started watching Season 1 and so when it got to the end and they killed Ned Stark (apologies to anyone out there who HASN’T seen or read it!!) I turned to my wife Pearl and went “what the hell just happened?” and we rewound our DVR to make sure it was real, we thought it must have been a dream sequence or something. I mean you can’t just kill the main character that early in a show!! So the next day I went out and bought the books because I had to know what the hell was going on.
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Getting to go behind the scenes with some of the best make up and special effects people in the business must have been pretty amazing for such a horror movie buff as yourself.
We created a show, me and my director Jack Bennett, and we’re both just super horror nerds. We love effects and so we created a show that would just allow us to go and have a lot of fun. You know, it was like “let’s come up with a show that would be the most fun for us to go and do, and that’s where it came from. We both just have a mutual love for that world and we wanted to champion what these guys do, what these practical effects guys do. Because when we first started Bloodworks I felt like there was this tipping point where bad CGI was just getting bigger and bigger, about five years ago and it just kept getting worse and worse, just really lazy CGI. And when it’s like that it just takes me right out of a movie and it looks so completely unrealistic. And so we were championing these guys on our show, and I’m certainly not taking credit for this but actual practical effects have made a huge comeback in the last five years, and it’s really nice to see that it has. All the best directors have really learned the best way to do it is a mix of both practical and CGI effects and then you don’t really know if you’re looking at something real or computer generated.
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And one of the things that I took away from Bloodworks is that a lot of those efects guys don’t really get the recognition they justly deserve so it was nice to see you honouring those guys too.
And that’s absolutely how we felt too. Those guys are the reason that you want to go and see certain types of genre pictures. They make it exciting and fun and they make it look believable and do such an amazing job. It’s truly an art form and so anything that we could do to promote and celebrate it that’s what we were interested in doing.
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So you’re taking a little break from touring with Slayer to come to Australia, do you really think they’re going to retire when the tour eventually ends?
I do. I take them at their word. I mean why not? And I’m not saying that they’re not having fun, but if you’ve been doing it for that long and you’re not enjoying it any more, or it became boring or like groundhog day, then don’t do it anymore. I never want to get to that point personally, so I can totally understand how there are factors that would lead you to that decision. Slayer have been a band for 37 years, that’s longer than most bands and I know because I’ve been in a band for 37 years too! I give it up to those guys and I take them at their word. I know the guys, we’ve been friends a long time and so if they say they’re done then I believe them.
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And so once the spoken word tour and the Slayer tour are done what’s on the cards then? Have you guys got plans to write a new Anthrax album?
The plan is for next to be working on a new record. It was actually the plan for this year but then all the Slayer touring got offered to us so getting in a room and working on new music got pushed aside. I’m sure there will be touring in 2019 as well but the main focus will be on new music.
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Well thanks very much Scott, all the best for the One Man Riot Tour and the rest of the Slayer tour. We’ll see you guys down here again sometime soon hopefully.
You can count on it. Thanks.
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Connect with SCOTT IAN
Website Twitter Facebook Instagram
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AMNPLIFY – DB
[laughs]. I’ll leave it up to the audiences to decide which one’s the real one. So I had a lot of stories that aren’t in the autobiography because just with the flow of that book, it being a very linear story starting with “I was born..” and ending with Yankee Stadium and the Big Four. And so there were a lot of these stories that just didn’t fit into the flow really and I actually had a few of these stories in the first book, and when I was reading it during the editorial stage I just felt like they were taking me away from the flow of the main story. And I felt like it got a little bit too tangential. So when the first book was done I still had these leftover pieces that I thought were great, but they just didn’t work in that book. So it wasn’t long after the first book came out that I said to my editor “what would you think if I just did a book of stories?. You know, standalone stories, it doesn’t have to be in any chronological order, just 23 tales.” And he thought it was a great idea so I was able to get a green light to go and do that and I just had a great time doing it, it was much easier to write in some ways because you’re not dealing with this one giant fifty years worth of stuff to talk about, these are all just little moments in time.Connect with SCOTT IAN
.
More like amusing anecdotes from down the years?
Yeah that’s it. Stuff that’s just stayed in my brain or just things that I thought were interesting for one reason or another. And most of them are pretty funny! And most of them I’ve been telling in my talking shows for a while so I finally decided to write them. And it’s actually really hard to write them for a book. I have this story about when I meant Lemmy for the first time, back in ’85 or something, and long story short I tried to have drinks with him. And that didn’t go so well because I didn’t drink and Lemmy did, and I tried to keep up and that ended very badly for me! And it’s a story that I love to tell, especially when I’m in front of an audience because I have all the physicality of my body and the power of my voice, and all those dynamics that take a great story and make it even better. And so it took me a little while to figure out how to make it just as funny and interesting just by writing it, so that was a lot of fun and a great challenge for me as well. So the story in the book and the story live – same story but completely different depending upon whether you’re reading it or you’re hearing me tell it.
.
And it would instil a different reaction in people too, depending on whether they’re reading your words in a book or seeing you perform it live it would give you a different experience.
And that’s exactly it. Performing the story, with me in your face telling it, it’s completely different.
.
Without giving too much away, what’s the format of the show going to be? Are you using music and visuals to accompany you or are you going straight in Henry Rollins style and just talking?
I do have some visuals, and at some point I did add music to the show where I have a guitar and I have a musical portion to the show, although I’m not going to give up what that means! I will say this, I’m not up to singing Anthrax songs let’s just put it that way. But yes there is a part of the show with music because after doing quite a few of them I often got asked why I didn’t have music in the show and so finally I said “alright I know how I can do this” and I haven’t done it all that much because it’s something I added in towards then end of the last tour I did a couple of years ago. So yeah all of the above. Music, visuals, I do a Q&A with the fans, I just try and make it as interactive and as welcoming as possible and I find I don’t really need the visuals too much but it does help get the point across with some of the stories sometimes, and it’s fun for me.
.
Bruce Dickinson from Iron Maiden is heading our way to do a similar show as well, have you read his book?
I haven’t read it yet, but I do want to. I know Bruce and I know he’s a great writer, and I’ve been saying for years and years that the two people who should go out and do talking shows were Lemmy and Bruce. Obviously Lemmy’s not here anymore but could you image if Lemmy had done that? I mean to go into a theatre and Lemmy’s sitting at a table with a drink and a cigarette and just telling stories for two hours? I would have paid anything to see that. But Bruce is a very natural storyteller and an amazing writer and I always thought he’d be so perfect at it, so I’m glad he’s finally started doing this. I gather that both our formats are going to be pretty different, but yeah it’ll still be a guy on stage talking.
.
Apart from playing with Anthrax and recording and touring, you keep a pretty busy schedule outside of the band too don’t you? I mean with Bloodworks and writing for DC as well.
I did the one Lobo story for DC but that’s not to say I wouldn’t love to get back into the comic book world. My old editor from DC is still in the business and we’ve got a whole bunch of ideas that as soon as I get off the next leg of this tour we’ll start digging into that a little bit.
.
So how did you end up being a Walker on the Walking Dead? That must have been pretty cool getting to work with Andrew Lincoln and Greg Nicotero and the rest.
Greg and I have been friends for a long time, so earlier on in Bloodworks we went to his effects shop and he let me smash up some zombie heads and that. And then at some point I decided I’d just ask him, I mean what’s the worst that could happen right? And he’d always said that if I wanted to come to Atlanta and get made up as a Walker that I was more than welcome. And I thought that was great but what would be even greater would be if I could bring the show up there and film it. So I asked him and he went to the producers and the network but everyone said yes amazingly enough. So we got to take Bloodworks down to Atlanta and film me getting made into a Walker and being in the scene with Rick and Carl – Season 5 Episode 12! – and it was amazing to me that it happened. Sometimes it seems to surreal to me that if I didn’t actaully have an episode of The Walking Dead with me in it I would wonder if I had dreamed it all. But I actually got to do it and it still kind of blows my mind.
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.
You also filmed an episode of Bloodworks from the Game Of Thrones set, and you’ve been made into a White Walker too. I take it you’re a bit of a fan of the show as well?
Oh absolutely, I love it and I’ve read all the books. I hadn’t read them when I first started watching Season 1 and so when it got to the end and they killed Ned Stark (apologies to anyone out there who HASN’T seen or read it!!) I turned to my wife Pearl and went “what the hell just happened?” and we rewound our DVR to make sure it was real, we thought it must have been a dream sequence or something. I mean you can’t just kill the main character that early in a show!! So the next day I went out and bought the books because I had to know what the hell was going on.
.
Getting to go behind the scenes with some of the best make up and special effects people in the business must have been pretty amazing for such a horror movie buff as yourself.
We created a show, me and my director Jack Bennett, and we’re both just super horror nerds. We love effects and so we created a show that would just allow us to go and have a lot of fun. You know, it was like “let’s come up with a show that would be the most fun for us to go and do, and that’s where it came from. We both just have a mutual love for that world and we wanted to champion what these guys do, what these practical effects guys do. Because when we first started Bloodworks I felt like there was this tipping point where bad CGI was just getting bigger and bigger, about five years ago and it just kept getting worse and worse, just really lazy CGI. And when it’s like that it just takes me right out of a movie and it looks so completely unrealistic. And so we were championing these guys on our show, and I’m certainly not taking credit for this but actual practical effects have made a huge comeback in the last five years, and it’s really nice to see that it has. All the best directors have really learned the best way to do it is a mix of both practical and CGI effects and then you don’t really know if you’re looking at something real or computer generated.
.
And one of the things that I took away from Bloodworks is that a lot of those efects guys don’t really get the recognition they justly deserve so it was nice to see you honouring those guys too.
And that’s absolutely how we felt too. Those guys are the reason that you want to go and see certain types of genre pictures. They make it exciting and fun and they make it look believable and do such an amazing job. It’s truly an art form and so anything that we could do to promote and celebrate it that’s what we were interested in doing.
.
So you’re taking a little break from touring with Slayer to come to Australia, do you really think they’re going to retire when the tour eventually ends?
I do. I take them at their word. I mean why not? And I’m not saying that they’re not having fun, but if you’ve been doing it for that long and you’re not enjoying it any more, or it became boring or like groundhog day, then don’t do it anymore. I never want to get to that point personally, so I can totally understand how there are factors that would lead you to that decision. Slayer have been a band for 37 years, that’s longer than most bands and I know because I’ve been in a band for 37 years too! I give it up to those guys and I take them at their word. I know the guys, we’ve been friends a long time and so if they say they’re done then I believe them.
.
And so once the spoken word tour and the Slayer tour are done what’s on the cards then? Have you guys got plans to write a new Anthrax album?
The plan is for next to be working on a new record. It was actually the plan for this year but then all the Slayer touring got offered to us so getting in a room and working on new music got pushed aside. I’m sure there will be touring in 2019 as well but the main focus will be on new music.
.
Well thanks very much Scott, all the best for the One Man Riot Tour and the rest of the Slayer tour. We’ll see you guys down here again sometime soon hopefully.
You can count on it. Thanks.
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Connect with SCOTT IAN
Website Twitter Facebook Instagram
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