I'm the Man: The Story of That Guy from Anthrax

by Scott Ian

  “Get out! Get out now!” she shouted and threw me out of the house. I packed a bag, walked to the pay phone at the Exxon station across from where we lived, and called my dad at his place in Merrick, Long Island. I said, “Well, I told her.”

  “How did it go?” he replied.

  “She threw me out. Can I come stay with you?”

  “Yeah, of course. She threw you out?” he said, stunned, even though he knew more than anyone how irrational and emotional she could be.

  “I’ve got a bag packed. I’m coming there now.”

  I had a shitty old car, so I drove to his house, and I lived there for about four months. I’d take the Long Island Railroad in to work with him every morning and hang out in the city at night before returning to his house. After a few months, my dad talked to my mom and told her I wanted to be in Queens with my friends and she should take me back. At first, my mom was not into it, but she finally relented though she still didn’t support my rock and roll dreams.

  The main problem with Anthrax at the time was we had all the wrong players for a lasting band. John was a great guy, but he couldn’t sing. He had a fierce screaming voice but couldn’t carry a melody, and we knew we wanted to be a big, powerful band like Judas Priest or Iron Maiden that had a singer who could belt it out. We tried to get John to sing, but it didn’t work so we asked him to leave. That was the beginning of Anthrax’s vocalist woes.

  We tried out a guy named Jimmy Kennedy, but he wasn’t right, either, so my brother Jason joined the band. He was fourteen, so he still had a high voice, and he could actually carry a tune. He played a few shows with us, including a club in Long Island called My Father’s Place, which booked a lot of big bands, but we wanted to tour and Jason was still in high school. My mom would have had an aneurysm if he dropped out, and as much as she busted my balls I still loved my mom, so there was no way that was gonna work.

  There were other lineup problems. We had to get rid of Paul Kahn ’cause he couldn’t play the new, heavier stuff we were writing. Kenny Kushner replaced him for a short while. He was another guy we went to school with and knew from the neighborhood. He was a good bassist, but he wanted to play guitar and sing in more of a hard rock band, so he also left.

  That’s when Danny moved over to bass, and we went through a couple of guitarists. Greg Walls joined, which worked out pretty well for a couple years. He had a great personality and was quick witted. He reminds me of Satchel from Steel Panther; he was a lot of fun to hang out with, which was one reason I was bummed when he left a couple years later to pursue a more stable line of work. Bob Berry replaced him for a short period. He could play pretty well, but knew nothing about metal.

  But without question our biggest problem was that we still couldn’t find the right singer. The upshot was we had a place to write songs and practice until we found one. We were renting a room in Bay Terrace at a place called the Brewery, which was right across from my mom’s house, but our friend Paul Orofino (who owned the place) closed up shop to open a bigger and better version of the Brewery Studios up in Millbrook, New York, and turned it into a successful business.

  I found another place in 1982 after I picked up a weekly New York music paper and saw an ad for rehearsal rooms for $150 a month, which was way cheaper than the hourly rate we were paying at the Brewery. A guy named Andrew Friedman was managing the building. He had previously been the conga player for Kid Creole and the Coconuts, so he knew the music business and helped us out for a while. We checked out the place, which everyone called the Music Building, and it was a hellhole in the worst part of South Jamaica, Queens, but bands could practice there around the clock. All the rooms used to be offices, but the businessmen were all scared off, probably at gunpoint. So the owners started renting these spaces to bands. You could put a lock on the door and tape posters and flyers on the walls. You could insulate the place, bring in a rug, whatever you wanted. And there was a guard at the front door all night long so as long as you were in there no one would get shot. When you exited the building, however, your life was in your own hands.

  There’s no question that the place was gross, cold in the winter and boiling in the summer. And it was filthy, infested with mice, roaches, and god knows what else. But the rehearsal rooms were much larger than what we were used to. We could easily fit all our stuff in there, plug in, turn up the volume, and pretend we were Judas Priest. I liked having a big place because I felt like I needed all my shit with me at all times. Hey, I had twelve Marshall cabinets and I was going to use them, Goddamm it! We actually splurged for the extra-large $300-a-month room. Considering we were rehearsing in there five nights a week, it was a great deal. The place became our clubhouse. We’d hang there all the time. I was still living in a tiny room in my mom’s apartment in Queens. So our jam room at the Music Building was really more like my own apartment. As soon as I’d get off work, I’d go straight there, stay late, go home, and sleep. Then I’d get up, go to work, and do the same thing again. And on the weekends I’d go straight to the Music Building and dick around with my gear and jam.

  Chapter 5

  Replacing Old Parts

  One day I was sitting in one of the offices of the Music Building and I found out Guy Speranza had left Riot. I fucking loved Riot and I thought Guy had a great voice. I figured maybe we could get him to sing for Anthrax. I got his number through Andrew Friedman, who was still well connected and was sort of managing us. I called, he answered. I said, “Guy?”

  “Uh huh, who’s this?”

  “Um, my name’s Scott, I have a band called Anthrax.”

  We weren’t anybody at the time. So he said, “How did you get my number?”

  I lied, “Oh, from the label.”

  “Oh, Okay . . .”

  “I’m just calling because we’re a band, a new band, up and coming, and we’ve got a lot of shit going on. Andrew Friedman who was in Kid Creole and the Coconuts manages us and . . . ”

  I spewed a bunch of bullshit at him. I’ve always had a gift for that. I said, “We’ve got all this shit going on and we need a singer and you would just be so perfect. You’d put us over the top.”

  Guy (who sadly died in 2003 of pancreatic cancer) was actually super cool, considering I was cold-calling him out of the blue. He thanked me for thinking of him then explained that he quit Riot because he was fed up with the music business.

  “I’m done. I will never, ever play in a band again,” he said.

  “Really, why?”

  “If you stay in it long enough, you’ll understand. I hated it. I’m working as an exterminator now in Brooklyn and I’m way happier.”

  I thanked him for talking to me and hung up. Then I thought about what he had said. What could be so bad that would make Guy quit a great rock band to become an exterminator?

  Since Guy Speranza wasn’t going to join Anthrax, I decided to call Neil Turbin, who I knew from Bayside High. We had met in TV studio class, where we got to make our own films. The teacher was Arnold Friedman, who years later was arrested and convicted of child sexual abuse. Director Andrew Jarecki shot a documentary called Capturing the Friedmans about the investigation. It’s funny that the teacher of a film class wound up the subject of a critically acclaimed movie. Somehow, I don’t think Friedman appreciated the irony. The rest of the world might have known Arnold as a pervert, but I just remembered him as a cool teacher. Neil and I used to hang out in the school film studio and play music. We’d bring guitars, jam, and film ourselves. Neil was really into UFOs and knew everything there was to know about them. He also loved Judas Priest. We liked a lot of the same bands. And Neil hung out in the city. He used to go to CBGBs and Great Gildersleeves, and he had connections at clubs.

  He was singing in some other band at the time, which is why I didn’t approach him sooner. When I heard he was free, I called and asked him if he wanted to sing for Anthrax. By that point, we had enough going on to p
ique his interest, but he wanted to hear our songs. We showed him what we had been working on, and he said, “I’m not singing these words. I’m writing my own words.”

  We were fine with that, so he wrote his own lyrics and some of them were pretty silly. One song, “Soldiers of Metal,” had a verse that went, “Blasting the cannons, shaking the ground / Hacking and killing, we’re not fooling around.” But whatever. We felt like we finally had a real singer, a real front man. What we actually had was a real problem.

  Neil viewed himself as the front man, and he was not going to listen to a fucking word that anyone else had to say about anything. That didn’t sit well with the rest of us. Anthrax was a democracy. I tolerated Neil’s ego to a point. I thought, “Okay, I get it. We need you. You’re a singer. But you’re not the boss here, motherfucker.”

  There’s never been a dictator in Anthrax, but in the early days I was certainly the most involved in making the machine run as smoothly as possible. Through the years, a lot of people have wondered why I’m still the focal point of Anthrax. It’s a good question. I’ve never played lead guitar or sung for the band. I might not be the most handsome member, :-)>. I credit my status as Anthrax’s mouthpiece to two words—pushy Jew. If there’s one thing I got from my mom, it’s that. When it came to the band, I was always fucking confident and tenacious, and I had a lot to say. That’s just who I was and who I still am. Even though Danny started the band with me, he didn’t have that personality. He was laid-back and somewhat lackadaisical. Not me. I was a total pit bull.

  I looked at Iron Maiden as role models. Steve Harris was the front man even though he was surrounded by amazing players and vocalists. He wrote the lyrics and a lot of the music, and he called the shots. I fucking lived and breathed Iron Maiden. That’s what I wanted to be from 1980 to 1985. Whatever we did, we looked to Iron Maiden because they did it the best. So, yeah, I was determined, but I was a strong leader. I took everyone else’s opinion into consideration before I made any band decisions.

  Neil wasn’t happy about that. He wanted to call all the shots, which is why we had problems with him from the start. For some reason, he was usually respectful to me. We never really got into bad arguments. Sometimes he’d get pissy and say, “Yeah, why don’t you get your brother back in the band if you don’t like me? Let’s see what Jason can do.” I’d just laugh and say, “Whatever, dude.”

  But he treated everyone else like shit, especially Lilker. But Neil looked cool and had long hair. And Danny and I both agreed he could sing, which was more than we could say for some of our past members. So we put up with his shit. Neil seemed good for the band at first and sounded good on demos, but we weren’t looking at the big picture. All we wanted to do was get signed and tour.

  In September of 1982, Danny and I saw a flyer at Bleeker Bob’s for a show featuring Anvil, Riot, and Raven on October 30. Fuck! Raven were coming in all the way from Newcastle, England, for the concert, which seemed absurd to us. We knew them from our independent ­record hunts. They were a really fast New Wave of British Heavy Metal group that featured the amazing Gallagher brothers on bass and guitar and drummer Rob Hunter, who called himself Wacko. The guy wore a hockey goalie helmet onstage and definitely earned his name, smashing his head into his cymbals, mike stands, walls, and anyone he was having any sort of dispute with. Then there were Anvil, who came from Canada and whose front man, Lips, played guitar solos with a vibrator and was responsible for a lot of really cool pre-thrash stuff. Hell, you probably saw that movie. Finally, we loved Riot, who were from New York and just kicked ass. Their second singer, Rhett Forrester, was still with them at the time. Tragically, Rhett was shot and killed on January 22, 1994, when he was carjacked and refused to give up his vehicle.

  The concert was billed as the Headbanger’s Ball and it was in Staten Island at the St. George Theater. We had never heard of the place but it didn’t matter. We were going. These were bands we fucking loved, and we were wondering who even knew enough about them to book them. I asked around and found out it was a guy named Jonny Z, who sold records at a flea market in New Jersey and apparently also promoted concerts. The day of the show we were in line and there was a guy handing out flyers for other Anvil and Raven gigs. I asked him, “Are you Jonny Z from Rock and Roll Heaven?” and he said, “I’m Jonny Z, who are you?” I said, “I’m Scott Ian, I have a band called Anthrax,” and I handed him a five-song demo tape with “Howling Furies,” “Evil Dreams,” “Satan’s Wheels,” and a couple of our other early songs and a flyer for a show we had coming up in Queens.

  “You have to come to my store and check it out,” Jonny said. “We’re open on the weekends.”

  “What do you mean?” I said.

  “We’re in a flea market and we’re open Saturday and Sunday.” He gave me and Lilker backstage passes for the Headbanger’s Ball show, so we got to go in early and hang out. Lips and Anvil drummer Robb Reiner and Raven vocalist and bassist John Gallagher were just walking around. It felt like we had made it and were suddenly part of the inner circle. In reality, we had a long way to go, but that was the moment when I felt the first real spark that Anthrax would tour the world someday.

  Danny and I were hanging out in our leather jackets, trying to be cool and not get in the way. I had brought some Anthrax shirts we had printed up, and I was giving them to people. I handed one to Lips, and he actually put it on backstage to help promote us, which was unreal. He didn’t wear it onstage because he performed shirtless with bullet belts, but getting that affirmation from Lips that we were somebody was like Bon Scott floating down from the heavens, giving me that smarmy smile, and saying, “You’re doing alright, kid.”

  The next weekend, Danny and I drove down to Rock and Roll Heaven and saw a treasure trove of metal imports and hard-to-find albums. They had picture discs and fanzines, and it was virtually all metal. From then on we were regulars. We’d come in on Saturdays and sometimes we’d stay overnight. There was a group of metalhead bikers who called themselves the Old Bridge Militia who were always there. They’d have these big parties Saturday nights at this guy Metal Joe’s house. We’d go to the party and crash on the floor and drive home Sunday morning. While we were in Old Bridge, we learned about this place called Club 516, which had metal night every Tuesday. There weren’t any bands, but there was a DJ who would play metal, and they had all these cutout cardboard guitars that people would use to air guitar and headbang to their favorite metal songs. It was so nerdy, but it was a blast. It’s a tradition that came from the Soundhouse club in London, where Iron Maiden, Saxon, and other NWOBHM bands got their start. Jonny’s shop carried the British magazine Kerrang!, which was a metal bible, and they wrote about everything that went on at the Soundhouse.

  During this whole time, I was working full-time for my dad in the day, then Anthrax would get together at night. Every couple of weeks Danny and I would write another song. Then I’d use the money from my day job to pay for studio time, and we’d record it. We always wanted to try new shit, better shit. We redid recordings because we wanted our tapes to represent us at our best. Whenever we made a new demo, I’d give it to Jonny. We were friends at this point because we were at his store all the time. We’d come in and he’d go, “Oh, it’s the Anthrax boys, the boys from Queens!” Danny and I would give him a tape; he’d listen to it and critique us. He’d tell us to keep plugging away. Then we’d come back the next week and give him another tape, and he’d say something like, “You know, I thought this was okay, but I don’t like the lead guitar. The lead guitar’s not good. And the drummer’s gotta go.”

  He hated Greg D’Angelo—thought he was a terrible drummer. I’d say, “No, he’s really good,” and Jonny would counter, “He’s not a metal drummer.” Sometimes we’d make changes in the band based on Jonny’s advice because we thought that if we listened to him maybe he’d book us some shows. He wasn’t signing anyone at that point yet, but we had a feeling that he was going to make t
hings happen for us.

  One Saturday in late 1982, I showed up at Rock and Roll Heaven, and Jonny said, “Scott, don’t give me a tape yet. I can’t wait to play you this demo tape I just got. It’s this band called Metallica from San Francisco. It’s called No Life ’til Leather, and it’s the greatest thing I ever heard in my life.”

  Of course, part of me was already jealous because Jonny went and found some new band he liked and didn’t want to hear our band. He put on the Metallica demo, and I sat there and listened to it. I was eating my heart out because it was so good but, at the same time, loving it undeniably. “This is fucking awesome!” I said afterward. It was like Motörhead with these crunchy guitars mixed with the riffs of Judas Priest and Iron Maiden and all this other cool shit. I thought, “Oh my God! This is what we’re supposed to be doing! How did they do it? How did they get this sound?”

  It was—way better than the crappy demos we were making.

  “This band’s amazing. They’re amazing!” Jonny enthused. “I’m going to bring them to New York and we’re going to make an album!”

  “Really? How? You don’t have a record company.”

  “I’m going to start one, they’ll be on it, and I’ll manage them.”

  It sounded crazy since Metallica were in San Francisco. I said, “But that’s what we want to do and we’re right here!”

  Jonny was always brutally honest: “You guys aren’t ready yet.” That was always his line. “Metallica. These guys are ready!”

  We were pretty deflated. A part of us knew Jonny was right and Metallica were the shit. On the drive back to Queens, Danny and I were sitting in the car, silent. What do we have to do? Everything we were doing sounded great. We thought we had it—then Jonny basically tells us we sound like crappy Iron Maiden. It was so frustrating. And now he had this new band he was fawning over.