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

  Some girls would come on the bus and have sex, and then they’d say, “I have to go. My boyfriend is waiting outside.” That never happened to me, but I’ve seen that go down so many times, usually with guys from the crew. It didn’t matter to them. They’d just say, “Alright, tell him you’ll be out in twenty minutes.” Guys in bands might get laid sometimes, but the dudes in the crew get most of the action. They’re the ones who ended up in threesomes and orgies and have all these stories to tell later.

  Artie Ring, the tech I wrote “Caught in a Mosh” about, heard that some bands kept photo books of naked groupies, so he got a Polaroid camera and started making an album. He’d get girls on the bus, ask them to take off their clothes, and have them make these weird faces or poses. The albums got pretty good. They weren’t erotic, but they were really funny. There’s a part of me that wishes I would have taken more advantage of the decadence back then, but most of the time I couldn’t be bothered. The whole thing seemed so stupid. I was like, “Really? This chick just bent over and stuck a cigarette up her ass for a fucking Polaroid, and now she wants to have sex with me? No thanks.”

  After a while Artie got bored of taking regular nude photos so he got creative. He painted faces on girls’ butts and threw deli meat at their privates and took photos long before Howard Stern or Marilyn Manson ever did it. I’m sure he didn’t do anything Led Zeppelin didn’t do first. And we never got a girl to get it on with a red snapper or a mud shark. We wouldn’t have known where to get them even if we had wanted to.

  Once, Artie got a bunch of girls to pose in shapes that formed the letters of the alphabet, and they’d all have carrots, celery, Sharpies, bananas, you name it, sticking out of every orifice. That was definitely good for a laugh. They were all legal age and nobody got hurt, and it kept the crew happy.

  The first show on the Among the Living tour was May 26, 1987, with Metal Church opening at the Penny Arcade, a five-hundred-seat club in Rochester, New York. During the spring and summer, we played midsized venues, then we went to Europe from September to October and did a big headlining tour. In no time, we went from playing five-hundred-seaters to places three times as large.

  On August 22, 1987, we played the Castle Donington Monsters of Rock show in England (now called Download Festival). It was the biggest show in our history at that point. There were 80,000 people there, and we were on a bill with Bon Jovi, Dio, Metallica, W.A.S.P., and Cinderella. I’m sure it chewed away at Blackie’s fucking balls knowing that we were higher up on the bill than he was. At some point during the day, we found out that Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley were in London doing promotion and were coming to the show to see Bon Jovi. When Blackie found out, he took off because he was talking shit about KISS, and Paul Stanley found out.

  People in W.A.S.P.’s camp told us that Blackie was afraid to face Gene and Paul. I was thinking, “Like those guys would even fucking bother to confront you. You’re not even a piece of dog shit on Gene’s boot.”

  Kirk and I were equally excited that we might get to meet Gene and Paul since we were both big KISS fans. Later that night Bon Jovi were onstage, and there was a tent set up backstage with a monitor to watch the show. We were both pretty buzzed, so we decided to watch Bon Jovi for the hell of it. We went into the tent and saw Gene and Paul standing there in front of the monitor. We hid behind a pillar at first because we were freaked out. Then we thought, “Fuck it. How many times do you get the chance to see Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley in person?” It was so lame. We walked over to where they were standing watching the TV and sidled up into their sight line until they looked at us.

  I said, “Hey, Gene, Paul. We just wanted to say hi. We’re huge fans.” And before I could finish my sentence Gene pointed at me and said, “You are Scott Ian from Anthrax.” Then he pointed at Kirk. “And you’re Kirk Hammett from Metallica, and I hear you both had fabulous shows today.”

  “Peeeeeeee” went my wiener in my pants. Kirk and I were both speechless. Finally I sputtered, “How do you know? . . .”

  “You guys are doing wonderful,” said Gene like a beloved uncle. “We see you in the magazines. It’s great. You’re kicking ass. It’s awesome.”

  He knew damn well what big KISS fans we were because we talked about them in interviews. So he said, “I know you guys are KISS fans and I thank you for that. Of course without us you wouldn’t exist.”

  It was total Gene, but I had no problem with that. I told him, “Damn right I wouldn’t exist! It was 1977, I saw you at the Garden, and that’s the only reason I’m standing here right now!”

  We shook hands with both Gene and Paul, and then Kirk and I ran out of there like two eleven-year-olds flipping out. We were so psyched. “Can you believe he knew who we were?!?” I said.

  “I know!” Kirk said. “Dammit, we didn’t get a picture. Fuck!”

  Before we knew it, Anthrax went from playing 1,500-seaters to performing for 7,000 people a night. The bigger we got, the more ridiculous we became. There wasn’t a hotel that was safe from our shenanigans and practical jokes. We didn’t stay in hotels when we were touring for Spreading the Disease. But things changed when Among the Living took off. When you’re twenty-three or twenty-four and you’re riding around in a luxury bus goofing around all the time, it’s easy to lose perspective. Your food is cooked for you, you’ve got guys to set up and move your gear, and you’re treated like a celebrity. Everyone wants to hang out and party or sit on your bus and listen to tunes. It’s an amazing feeling, but if you don’t keep yourself in check, life can quickly spin out of control. A lot of it is just youthful stupidity.

  One of our favorite hotels was the Biltmore in Providence, Rhode Island. It’s a classy, beautiful old place that has a huge lobby with chandeliers and long creepy hallways that reminded me of the Overlook Hotel from The Shining. The stairs were lined with patterned rugs, and the rooms had big, fluffy mattresses and more pillows than you could possibly prop under any part of your body. It seemed way too nice for us. We were used to Motel 6s, and this was the kind of place corporate CEOs stay. Somehow Jonny knew someone and was able to get us a special rate.

  Even though we loved the hotel, once we were in our rooms, we were degenerates—completely disrespectful and destructive. Whenever we played Providence we had a lot of our East Coast friends with us from Rhode Island, New York, Boston, and Philly. A lot of people would take the train to see us because they knew we would have a massively insane party at the hotel after the show. Before long, we were launching what we called pirate attacks. One or two people would fill a garbage can with water, bust into someone else’s room, and dump the trashcan over the other guy or all over the floor and the bed. Then people would take sides and these battles would go on for hours with water flying and everyone slipping all over the floor. This didn’t just happen at the Biltmore—we pulled this shit wherever we stayed. And we never got caught. We destroyed these rooms, soaked everything, ruined beautiful carpets and bedspreads.

  One of my favorite moves was the “band meeting,” which only worked until people caught on. You’d call someone in the crew and tell him we were having a band meeting in a certain room in five minutes and he had to come. As soon as he left his room to attend this “meeting,” every other door in the hallway would open and ten guys would run out and deluge him with buckets of water.

  If your room got trashed, you had to call downstairs and somehow figure out a way to change rooms. We’d say, “Oh, the toilet’s not working,” or “The heat’s not on. Can I come down and get the key for another room?” You had to make sure no one would come up because if someone did, he’d see the place was trashed and we’d get thrown out. We usually had six rooms, and by the time we were done it looked like the place had been in flames and firemen doused the rooms and hallways with a hose.

  We always wondered, “What happens when the maids come in the next morning and nothing’s dry?” It’s amazing these places let us come b
ack. It’s just as amazing none of us ever got arrested. The more we got away with, the more we pushed the envelope. One time, I thought I was going to be the victim of a pirate attack and I really didn’t want my room trashed, so I filled up liter-sized water bottles with piss. Every time I had to pee I’d use these bottles. So then when someone came at me with water I’d say, “Don’t fuckin’ do it! See this. It’s piss.” They’d throw the water anyway, so I’d let fly with these urine bombs. It was disgusting but fucking hilarious. And once you elevated the battle to flying piss projectiles, where is there to go? Poop!

  We were flinging around shit like monkeys in a zoo. It wasn’t always so crass. Sometimes we’d be slightly more clever. One trick was to get someone’s key when they were out and sneak into their room and shit in their garbage can. Then you’d fill the trash with hot water and turn the heater on full blast. Whoever your target was—and we were all victims at one point or another—would come back to their room six or seven hours later and open the door to a hot, nauseating wave of human excrement. The smell would get into your clothes and your belongings. It never went away. You pretty much had to throw away your stuff after you’d been targeted. It was so wrong and we were so vile. We’d never do that today, but back then we didn’t think about what minimum-wage-earning, hardworking maid or custodian was going to have to clean up our mess. We just didn’t care.

  We even pulled stunts that no one benefited from, like upper-­deckers. That’s where you shit in the top of a toilet tank and replace the lid. Or we’d shit between the mattress and the box spring of a bed and then put the mattress back. Who would do that? It’s horrible. We never had the satisfaction of seeing someone’s reaction to our handiwork. We could only imagine the aftermath. On top of that, we smashed lamps, bashed holes in walls, broke windows. Why? Because we could.

  I can’t even say I was drunk when I did that stuff because I didn’t party much back then. I’d drink heavily on rare occasions, but I always stuck to beer so I was never too wasted. I was so focused on what we were doing with the band. Every day, even if we did one little thing, it was one tiny step forward. And if I was hungover that wasn’t going to happen. Charlie and Frankie didn’t party much, either. But Joey raged pretty hard. And he was a bad drunk. He would get a few beers in him and suddenly turn mean and nasty; he’d want to fight everybody.

  In addition to dealing with Joey’s beer muscles, I started getting more flak from the new NYHC community, which was still convinced I tried to corrupt their scene by trademarking the NYHC logo. I started getting threatening mail and phone calls and ugly messages waiting for me at venues. I ended up sitting down with metal old-timer Michael Schnapp, who since the eighties has worked for metal bands in every capacity across the country, and explained what was going on. He was good friends with Jimmy Gestapo from Murphy’s Law. I had known Jimmy since the first CBs show I went to, which was Murphy’s Law and Agnostic Front. I said to Schnapp, “Dude, I need to bury this shit. I’m tired of having to look over my shoulder and worry that if I’m at a show somewhere, someone’s gonna stab me.”

  Schnapp organized a sit-down with Jimmy Gestapo. It was like something out of a fuckin’ mob movie except we weren’t drinking espresso and anisette. We were already friends; it’s not like we had a problem. Jimmy knew I didn’t do anything and that all the accusations were bullshit. But he was a respected elder statesman of the hardcore community.

  He looked at me like the Godfather and said, “We’re playing in a couple of weeks. You’re going to come to that show. I’m going to bring you onstage. I’m going to say some shit to the crowd. We’ll play ‘Crucial Bar-B-Q together, and that’s it. It’ll be buried. Anyone who has a fucking problem with you will know they have a problem with me.”

  So that’s what we did. I went to the show. Jimmy said, “You see that guy right over there? Don’t believe all the bullshit. He was part of this scene years ago and he’s cool. He’s always been cool.” I got up onstage, and we played their song “Crucial Bar-B-Q,” and nobody ever bothered me again. Thanks Jimmy!

  Aside from Castle Donington, we had done all headline shows for Among the Living until we got a phone call in early 1988. KISS wanted us to open up for their Crazy Nights tour. Even though I wasn’t a fan of the record—or any eighties KISS—it was mind blowing that they were interested in touring with us. We went over well but the best memories weren’t onstage. I’d sit with Gene in catering for hours every day, and he told me everything I ever wanted to know about KISS from 1975 to 1978. He would eat his dinner or sip his coffee and let me ask anything a superfan would want to know. I reminded him that I went to all three shows at the Garden in 1977. He said, “Where did you live in Queens?”

  “I lived in Bayside, Bay Terrace.”

  “Where were you going to school at the time?” he asked.

  “IS 25,” I answered, not sure where he was going with this. Maybe he was going to take credit for building my junior high school.

  “Interesting,” Gene continued. “What bus did you take to school?”

  “I’d take the 28.”

  “Okay, of course you wouldn’t have known this then, but each night at the Garden, as soon as the show was over, I got right into a car and had the driver take me to my mother’s house because I wanted to get away from the chaos.” He told me his mother’s address, and it was practically across the street from Bayside High School. He said, “On those days, when you were on your way to school, I was probably sitting in my mom’s kitchen, reading the paper and drinking coffee, and you passed right by me three days in a row on your bus on the way to school. I might have even seen your bus go by.”

  It was hard to fathom—the winged demon of KISS catching a glance at my bus while my friends and I took swigs of Scotch from a Tupperware bowl. During our catering chats Gene and I also talked about Anthrax. He was really complimentary. “You guys have created your own sound, and now that you’ve reached this level, you have gold albums,” he said. “You’ll only ever have gold albums now. You’ve made it.” He was straight up even though he wasn’t exactly correct. But who could have predicted at that point what would happen to the music industry over the next twenty-five years?

  The KISS tour was definitely a blast, but nothing with Anthrax happened without problems. Joey was still drinking and becoming more like Mr. Hyde when he was drunk. On a night off during the KISS dates, he went up and down the halls of a hotel banging on people’s doors, looking for someone to fight. He could barely stand, which didn’t stop him. He wavered back and forth like a slalom skier shouting, “Open your door! Get the fuck out here,” at random rooms. He started kicking the doors, cursing and screaming, so Frankie ran down the hallway and tackled him so we didn’t get kicked out of the hotel. “You’re going to go to your fucking room and shut the fuck up!” shouted Frankie. We had to walk Joey back to his room, and he finally went to sleep.

  By April 1, 1988, the KISS tour was over, and we were running late on writing our next record. Unlike in the past, we hadn’t written any full songs on the road. To add to the pressure, Iron Maiden had asked us to open for them in stadiums that summer, but we had to have the new album done and the single out in time for the dates. That was part of the deal. We worked on finishing State of Euphoria in April and went into overdrive, not because we felt inspired but because we had to meet a deadline. To say State of Euphoria was rushed would be putting it mildly. We were writing, writing, writing, and we really weren’t finished by the time we flew back to Quadradial Studios in Miami to start preproduction with Mark Dodson. We chose to work with him because he had engineered Judas Priest’s Sin After Sin and Defenders of the Faith as well as Metal Church’s The Dark. You can’t get much better than that for a thick, powerful metal sound.

  We had a few songs finished and the Trust cover “Antisocial.” We spent three or four weeks working on another batch of songs that were just not where they should have been yet. They weren’t
done cooking. I still look at State of Euphoria as a half-finished album. We probably needed about four more months to do it justice, but we skimped. We recorded songs that needed more arrangement work and better melodies. We rushed through the vocals. “Be All, End All” is the best track on the album. It’s a lot closer to the songs we wrote for Among the Living than anything on the rest of the record, but as a whole the record is a long way from Anthrax at our finest. It’s the record that could have been but wasn’t because we wanted so badly to tour with Iron Maiden.

  On top of feeling shitty from recording a subpar album, I had a health scare in 1988 that weirded me out. We were in the studio, and we ordered out from some Italian place. I had a big plate of shrimp scampi that tasted fine. The shrimp were tender and cooked through and nothing seemed particularly fishy. After dinner, Artie, who was hanging out with us, lit up a big, fat joint. It smelled really good; I’ve always loved the smell of weed even though I never feel like I’ve gotten high from smoking it. I figured maybe I had some weird immunity to pot. I turned to Artie and asked him for a hit. He passed the burning joint to me. I held it to my lips, took a big hit, and held it in for a few seconds before exhaling a fragrant plume of smoke and coughing my lungs out. I had a drink of water and my throat still felt a little irritated, but I wasn’t in any pain. I wasn’t buzzed at all, so I shrugged and continued the conversation I was having with Frankie.

  About twenty-five minutes later, I started feeling really strange. At first I thought I had finally done it. I was high! But I didn’t feel good. I got nauseated and started feeling like I had the flu: cold sweats, dizziness. Then something crazy started happening inside my skull. The best way to describe it is to remember the scene in Star Wars where Luke, Princess Leia, and Han Solo go down the garbage chute. The walls start closing in, and there’s a monster called the Dianoga who grabs Luke with one of his tentacles. It was like a wall at the back of my skull was slowly moving forward toward my forehead. All that was missing was the Dianoga pulling me under. When the wall almost reached the front of my head, everything went fuzzy and I saw a cloud of purple dots. There was a loud buzzing in my ears—then I was unconscious. When I came to, I was shaking. “What happened?”