by Scott Ian
I finally got hold of Kirk, and he said, “Yeah, Jason is a great dude. He’s ripping it up. He fits in really well and we’re getting along great. I think we’re going to go back to Europe and try to make up some of the shows, and hopefully you guys can come with us.”
I hoped that would work out and it did. When Metallica made up the shows that were canceled when Cliff died, we went back out with them, and they were absolutely triumphant. It felt like snatching victory out of the jaws of defeat.
Chapter 14
Mublanikcufecin
The last song we wrote for Among the Living was “A.D.I. / Horror of It All,” which is about Cliff’s death: “Say goodbye, it’s such a horror / My memories, there’s nothing harder / Anger and hatred fill the page, so smash the walls, it’s time to rage.”
Cliff was the first person I really cared about who died. I had only lost two grandparents at that point—my dad’s father, who I barely knew, and my mother’s mom, who I did know and loved, but I was still very young (eleven) when she passed away. So Cliff’s death hit me hard, and if nothing else, it filled me with fury and determination. Knowing a good friend could die in such a crazy way emphasized how frail, precious, and sometimes unfair life is. If anything, it made me more dedicated to do things our way because if we didn’t, we might not get another chance.
We knew we wanted Eddie Kramer to produce Among the Living because he’s a legend. We couldn’t believe it when Island said they’d ask him and he said yes. He had worked with Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, David Bowie, the Rolling Stones. But the real reason we wanted him was because he produced some of the best KISS albums in the 1970s, Alive! and Rock and Roll Over. We loved the live feel he got from the bands he worked with. When you played a record he worked on, it sounded like the band was right there in your room. That’s what we wanted with Among the Living. We didn’t think Fistful of Metal or Spreading the Disease captured the power of our live show. We always felt like when we were at our best onstage and rehearsing, there was something transcendent and indescribable about our sound. We told Eddie that, and he was cool with it because that’s how he had worked with some of his biggest bands, recording them in a live environment to capture them at their best.
It seemed like we were on the same page and we were psyched. There was a major buzz about our band, and we were working on what we felt were the best songs of our career with one of the best producers in the world. It was pretty much Anthrax in a live room with everything miked then Eddie hit record. Everyone had their parts down, and Joey had figured out how to best blend his muscular melodic vocals with our crushing riffs and trampling rhythms. While we were tracking, there was as much energy in the studio as in a sports arena during a critical playoff game.
I felt like we had the world by the throat and we were about to unleash this total monster that would flip the thrash metal scene upside down. After we finished recording at Quadradical Studio in Miami, we flew to Nassau, Bahamas, to mix the record at Chris Blackwell’s Compass Point Studios, where Iron Maiden had worked. We thought, “We’re finally doing what Maiden does.” We knew we weren’t nearly as big as Maiden, but we felt good that everyone was behind us. The label was happy because Spreading the Disease was successful, and they had huge hopes for Among. Back then labels still believed in building bands. They signed groups for five- to seven-record deals because they figured that’s what it would take for a band to break. We were right on track, and we felt like we were in control of our own destiny. The new music we had was undeniable and would hit people like a brick across the face. From experience, I knew metalheads love that feeling.
But if we had let Eddie Kramer have his way, listening to Among the Living would have felt like being hit with a wet sponge. When it came to recording the album, Anthrax and Eddie were peas in a pod, but our philosophies couldn’t have been more different when it came to mixing. At that point in time, the biggest album in the world was Def Leppard’s Hysteria, which featured Mutt Lange’s game-changing production. It sounded huge, and everything was layered and bathed in reverb. But that had nothing to do with Anthrax, and everyone knew it—or so we thought. We started mixing in the Bahamas, and toward the end of the first day Eddie said, “Come in around dinner time. I should have a rough for you guys to listen to.”
We couldn’t wait to hear it. We had played so well, with so much anger and energy, we were sure Eddie was going to make the album sound like a ferocious live show. We ran into the studio like children waiting for the ice cream truck. Then Eddie hit play, and everything we had done was completely drowned in reverb. It sounded washed, echoey, and artificial.
I said, “Eddie, it kinda sounds like there’s too much reverb.” I was really careful about what I said because it was Eddie Kramer and we had a great experience working and recording with him up to that point. I had nothing but respect for this man. But the mix sounded nothing like Anthrax. I said, “I’m not sure what’s happening. What am I hearing?”
He said, “Well yeah, I have some reverb on this and I boosted the delay. I envision this as a very modern-sounding record.”
I said, “Well, I don’t know how that makes it sound modern, it just sounds like a big wash of sound. I can’t distinguish anything. I can’t make anything out. We’re playing very fast and this kind of production doesn’t work with music being played at this speed. It needs to be live, tight, and very dry.”
He said, “Scott, that’s already been done. You need to do something different!”
He was excited but I was getting mad.
“Eddie, this is different, but it’s not right for Anthrax. It doesn’t make sense. This doesn’t work at all. You can’t understand the song. Everything is washed out.”
“The most successful album in the world right now is Def Leppard,” replied Eddie. I could tell he was getting irritated. “Listen to that production. It’s so modern.”
“We’re not Def Leppard. You can’t just put that kind of production on Anthrax. It doesn’t work.”
He was being as stubborn about his position as I was about mine. There was no way in a million years I was going to let our album sound like this. It would have been the end of us. So I said, “Eddie, you need to take all that reverb and delay off.”
“Don’t tell me how to mix a record,” he snapped. “I’ve been producing since before you were born.”
I put my foot down. “Look, man, you’re a great producer. I love your stuff. But this is our album. This is Anthrax’s record. You’re going to go on and make five hundred more records with five hundred different bands, but this is our album. We’ll live or die by this. Maybe we don’t get another chance after this record, who knows? It’s gotta be the way we want it.”
I thought that would do it, but he kept at it. “That’s not the fucking record I’m making.”
“Then we have a big problem here,” I said. I couldn’t believe I was being so stubborn and forceful with Eddie Kramer, but our career was on the line. “We need to hear this without all the reverb. Will you take all the fucking reverb off and dry it up and make it sound like something you did in the seventies?”
He slammed a fist on the control board. “Do you think your fucking opinion is God? Who made you God?”
“My opinion is not God, Eddie, but about Anthrax, it is.” At that point, I didn’t care if one of my heroes thought I was a whiny asshole. “Either pull the fucking reverb or don’t mix the record and we’ll call the label and get someone else to do it.”
“Fine, fine! Come back in two hours.”
He tried to make the record sound bad by yanking every bit of reverb and delay off everything. Bands usually have some reverb on the vocals at least. But he pulled it all to be a dick. Maybe he thought we wouldn’t like it and we’d see things his way. That wasn’t the case. It sounded fucking great, like we were getting pummeled in the chest. We were ecstatic and totally effusive about how great we thoug
ht it was. This was the sound we had in our heads that our other two records failed to capture. I think our enthusiasm won him over. He saw how excited we were about how our music was sounding, and he dropped his attitude. We had crossed the line in the sand and everything changed for the better. From that point on, we got along amazingly. He put a little something on a snare or vocal to give it extra punch, and we were fine with that. We were working together. I only wish I had a copy of what Eddie originally envisioned so I could play it for people and say, “This is the record Eddie wanted to make.” Mutt Lange definitely changed the fuckin’ game with Hysteria, but we didn’t want to be any part of it.
We finally recorded the studio version of “I’m The Man” during the Among the Living session. When we listened back to it, we thought it was cool, funny, and original, but we wondered where we were going to put the Beastie Boys. All the lines were taken. Either someone had to give up their part, or we had to go without having the Beasties on it. None of us felt like we should cut out anything we did because it sounded really good.
Months later we bumped into the Beasties at a show in New York, and Ad-Rock asked, “Hey, whatever happened to that song?” Licensed to Ill was out but hadn’t blown up yet. I don’t know if that would have made a difference, but I said to them, “Oh, we did it ourselves and it turned out really good. I can’t wait for you guys to hear it.” They didn’t care. It’s not like they were sitting around waiting for the phone to ring to come do “I’m The Man” with Anthrax. Of course, it might have been really cool to have them on it, but it did great on its own even though we never expected anything to come from it.
We couldn’t put it on Among the Living because it would have been totally out of place with the other songs. That was a really dark, angry record, and we didn’t want to interrupt the flow. Plus, we certainly didn’t think that anyone who liked our band was going to like that song. Our UK label put out a twelve-inch single for “I Am the Law,” and I asked them, “What if we throw ‘I’m The Man’ on there as a B-side? If people hate it, it will go away quick. It’s a B-side. It’s a joke. Who cares? Ha, ha, it was funny, we’ll never do it again.”
They did it and to everyone’s surprise it became the biggest thing we’d ever done. Within months it went from the B-side of “I Am the Law” to being its own EP, featuring two studio versions (one was censored for radio), a live version, live recordings of “I Am the Law” and “Caught in a Mosh,” and a cover of Black Sabbath’s “Sabbath Bloody Sabbath.”
We played “I’m The Man” in 1987 at the Castle Donington Monsters of Rock festival in front of 80,000 people, and they sang along with every single word. It made no sense, yet at the same time it made perfect sense because it reiterated that we were not just one thing. We were a thrash band, but we could fuck around with rap, insert “Hava Nagila” in the middle of a song, and cover Black Sabbath all in the same breath. Still, I wondered, “Don’t people realize this is a fucking joke that my friend John and I wrote in my bedroom? I’m playing ‘Hava Nagila,’ which is fucking Bar Mitzvah music that a DJ plays when everyone gets in a circle and dances the hora, and the family of the kid getting the Bar Mitzvah puts him on a chair and lifts him into the air. Does anyone have any idea what’s going on here?”
It didn’t matter. People ate it up, couldn’t get enough of it, and to this day it’s probably our most requested song. We still bust it out every once in a while. We’ll do two verses and two choruses and then go into another song while the crowd loses its shit. One thing I’ve always loved about Anthrax is that we have few parameters. When Slayer play, they have a certain image. There’s no smiling in Slayer. It’s all rage and ferocity. Even Metallica and Megadeth have always looked and acted a certain way onstage. It’s not a façade; it’s more like who they are when they’re all playing together. Anthrax never felt the need to fit into a certain mold, and that has allowed us to experiment. We did “I’m The Man,” and then we came back a few years later with Public Enemy and played a metal cover of “Bring the Noise,” and our fans loved it. I think our attitude comes from the fact that we’re all New Yorkers. We’re not from San Francisco or LA. Ever since Neil Turbin left, our attitude was, “We are who we are and we’re just going to be ourselves.”
Sometimes we’re brutal, sometimes we’re silly. We are our audience. I think we learned that from the Ramones. We’re just a bunch of dudes playing in a band and writing songs and going on tour, and there’s no reason for us to ever have to put on a game face or a band face. If something’s funny, we’re going to laugh. If we’re happy, we’re going to smile. If we’re pissed, we’re going to sound angry. Why only have one emotion in your art? I don’t feel the same way all day long. People’s moods change and so should their music.
That’s why I started wearing shorts in concert. When Neil was in the band, I wore jams all day long until I had to put on my stupid leather pants to be in Anthrax, and I was like, “Fuck, now I can’t move around.” I had to wear a metal belt and leather pants. It was fucking idiotic, like asking a basketball player to wear boots and tight Levis.
I believed strongly in having integrity and showing people who I was, at least in Anthrax. When it came to my home life, that was a different story. The whole time I was fucking around, Marge had no idea our relationship was a sham and I was living a lie. When she graduated from college, she left Boston and came back to New York. We moved in together because that’s what was expected from Jewish kids who grew up in Queens. We were supposed to get married and have babies and raise our kids with all the other Jewish people in the neighborhood. Marge graduated with a fancy degree from Northeastern and got a job at IBM that came with a good salary. So it didn’t matter that I was broke. She supported me.
The whole time I ran around like a maniac, touring and making records, there was this part ingrained in me to get married and do what was expected. It almost seemed like part of the programming in my DNA. So, against my better judgment, Marge and I got engaged and started making wedding plans. I knew it was a huge fucking mistake, but I figured everything would somehow work out. I had cheated on her from time to time, and I didn’t know if that was going to change. There are lots of guys who are unfaithful to their wives. Maybe I was just one of them. At that point, living a lie seemed easier than breaking up. There was too much baggage that would come along with that. It was terrifying just to think about.
It’s not like I hated her. We got along fine, but I wasn’t attracted to her anymore and more importantly I wasn’t in love with her. It wasn’t like I was out there looking to cheat on her, but when I was on tour and doing stuff, if the situation arose, I would go for it. I was twenty-two years old and I was having fun. I didn’t stop myself. So on November 27 we got married. We had a big fucking Jewish wedding at a temple. My whole band were there, James and Kirk were there and they were all wearing suits. Her parents were more religious than mine, so it was important to them to have a long religious ceremony. There was a cantor who sang and a rabbi. At one point I looked out during the service, and James was sleeping because the rabbi was droning on and on. I stood there the whole time thinking, “What are you doing?” It was such a façade, such an act. At least it was a great party and everyone got drunk.
Anthrax went on tour right after we got married, so we didn’t have a honeymoon until later, when we went to Disney World. Romantic, huh? That kind of foreshadowed what a dream come true this marriage was going to be. Anyway, I made a promise to myself that I would try to stay mostly faithful, and that lasted about a year. Then, of course, I started fucking around again. It’s not like I was sleeping with Marge. I know a lot of people get married and suddenly they’re not having sex anymore. Usually it’s because the wife isn’t as interested as she used to be. In this case, it was me. I made every excuse I could think of.
She’d make a move and I’d say, “I can’t. I have to have enough energy to play later.” Once I even told her I had a headache. I actual
ly said that. The sad fact was I wasn’t attracted to her anymore. She had put on a lot of weight and was turning into her mom. Her mom was a large woman and her dad was big as well and I couldn’t tell her she was fat and needed to lose weight. I was an asshole, but I wasn’t that much of an asshole. Maybe I was, but I was just a little more subtle.
I got her a gym membership as a birthday present one year. My genius idea was that it would be a hint that she needed to lose weight and maybe she’d go on a diet even if she didn’t actually go to the gym. When I gave it to her, I wasn’t trying to hurt her. But, understandably, she started crying. It sucked because she never did anything to me. She was always sweet, kind, and loving, and I was twenty-two and I wasn’t in love with her. I should have broken up with her when she went away to college, but I was too much of a pussy.
Fortunately, so much was happening with Anthrax, I wasn’t often at home. We started with a short headline tour in Japan. I didn’t hook up with anyone there, but Danny Spitz sure did. Once I came out of my hotel room to go down to the lobby, and there were four girls standing in the hallway in a line. His door opened and a girl came out and he was standing there in a towel. He smiled at me and said, “Next,” and the first girl in line walked in. I was like, “Damn, I didn’t know Spitz had such game!”
Chapter 15
Debauchery &
Destruction
Even though I was married and I had hooked up with chicks on the road, I still had no game. A few times on tour, I’d look for a girl at an aftershow party, and it was easy enough to find one I was attracted to. Everyone knew I was the guitarist of Anthrax: “Hey, uh, you want to come see the bus?” But if they said yes, it seemed so lame to me that I’d just take a picture with them and go read a book in my bunk.