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

by Scott Ian

  Pearl and I got Paul a gig playing with Meat Loaf, and he’s way better off now financially than he was in Anthrax. Then we asked Rob Caggiano if he would audition for us. We knew Rob from a New York band called Boiler Room. He came to Yonkers and learned a bunch of songs. He knew most of them already, since he was ten years younger than the rest of us and was an Anthrax fan growing up. Boiler Room wasn’t doing anything, and he was happy to have a new gig. He blew us away at his audition. He played great, looked great, and was easy to get along with. At the time, Rob had a production team with Eddie Wohl called Scrap 60, and they produced We’ve Come for You All, which meant we didn’t have to work with someone we barely knew.

  We wrote We’ve Come for You All in a more copacetic environment than we had been in for a while. I think everyone was psyched to be back together and just be a band again with what seemed like little or no pressure on us because, fuck, what did we have to lose? There was nowhere to go but up. As we wrote, we could tell it wasn’t going to be a thrash album, just a great metal record with equal amounts of grit and melody. Plus, we experimented with some styles we had never tried.

  There’s a lot of groove in songs like “Cadillac Rock Box” and “Superhero.” “Taking the Music Back” is midpaced and heavy, but the guitars are jagged and off-kilter. “Think About an End” has these tribal drums and cool vocal harmonies, and “Safe Home” is one of our best songs ever, my first love song, written for Pearl, telling the story of what she meant to my life. Then there’s “Black Dahlia,” which has some of the fastest drumming Charlie’s ever done, and “What Doesn’t Die,” which could have been on Among the Living. Rob Caggiano played great on all of the songs, and we got Dimebag to play leads on “Strap It On” and “Cadillac Rock Box.” The biggest surprise on the album, though, is that we got Roger Daltrey to do guest vocals on “Taking the Music Back.”

  While we were writing that song, the chorus reminded us of something by the Who. When I mentioned that to Pearl, she said that her mom knew Roger and his wife, so she arranged a dinner for the four of us. There I was with the lead singer of the band whose guitarist inspired me to pick up my first guitar, drinking bottles of wine and laughing. We were there for about four hours, and Roger told us amazing stories about the Who. Then we started talking about Anthrax, and he volunteered to do guest vocals. I didn’t even have to ask him.

  He came into the studio with me, but when he heard the song we wanted him to sing on, he was a little confused. He said, “This is heavy, heavy stuff,” over and over. I was like, “Man, this is like a pop song for us,” but I understood that he was coming from a different place. The Who’s songs are heavy, but they don’t have that kind of distortion and propulsion. But he kept listening, and after about forty minutes he was able to separate the parts and come up with a vocal for the chorus.

  John did most of the vocals, but for the chorus Roger came in with that trademark scream and just killed it. He did a take, and then he asked me if I thought it was good. That was completely surreal, sitting there critiquing the vocals of one of the greatest singers in rock. I felt like I was in Pete Townshend’s chair, thinking, “How the fuck did I get here?” So of course I answered Roger with, “Yeah, that was alright, but why don’t you do it again with a little more energy?” Not.

  When Pantera broke up, Walter retired, so we needed to find new management. Rob was friends with Larry Mazur, so he told Larry we were looking for a new manager. We talked and Larry took over and started shopping for a deal. None of the majors were interested, but at that point we didn’t care. The industry had completely changed, and the majors were all trying to figure out how to stay in business. Their answer, it seemed, was to look for more pop and hip-hop. Artist Direct, which was funded by this billionaire, Ted Field, called Larry and offered us an unbelievable deal—$250,000 for the album, and we would get to keep our own masters (which in the old days was unheard of). We’d also make a large percentage of cash for every record sold and have a healthy marketing budget. We negotiated the contract and signed the deal.

  The record was already done and ready to come out, so we figured we were all set and that it was time to plan the tour. Then out of nowhere, Will Pendarvis, who runs Sirius in LA now, called Larry and told him Ted Field had pulled all funding, and the Artist Direct label was done. The head of the company hadn’t signed the deal yet, so he was tearing it up. We had nothing. At least they didn’t own the album, so we were free to find a new home. A day later, Larry called us and said he had talked to Sanctuary Records, which was offering us the same money and would put the record out on schedule. We didn’t have the same distro deal, so we wouldn’t own the masters, but our backs were against the wall, so we agreed to the terms.

  The Sanctuary deal was only for the US, since we were already on Nuclear Blast in Europe. They did a good job with Bigger Than the Devil over there, so I figured they’d have that part of the world covered with the new Anthrax album. We’ve Come for You All came out in March of 2003, and the press said it was the album fans had been waiting for. The fans agreed, and it seemed like we were back on track again. We toured the US with Lamb of God and Lacuna Coil opening, and the shows sold well. We played all the big European festivals and destroyed. We supported Judas Priest, Mötorhead, and Dio, and everyone said, “Anthrax are back!” Then Sanctuary folded.

  Universal swallowed up the label, so the record was still available, but there was no label to support it and no money to keep us on the road. Once again, it was almost like someone had reached down from the sky, grabbed the masters, and threw them in the garbage. The music industry had fucked us in the ass for the third straight time, and while we didn’t have a strict three-strikes-and-you’re-out rule, tensions in the band were escalating. It felt like something was about to blow.

  Chapter 29

  Total Schism

  We stayed on tour as long as we could because we didn’t want to face the reality of what Anthrax should do next. We had no idea. After a sold-out show at Irving Plaza in New York, we turned to Larry Mazur in our dressing room and said, “Okay, where do we go from here? What’s the plan?”

  He looked at us, shrugged, and said, “I have no fucking idea.”

  “You’re our fucking manager!” I said. “You better help us figure out what to do.”

  Nothing. Days went by. Nothing. Finally, we fired Larry. It was a bummer to be changing managers again. We didn’t want to and we all liked Larry a lot. The reality is, at the time we needed more than a manager—we needed a miracle worker.

  We brought in our buddy Tim Dralle because he loved the band and he’d do anything to help us out. Instead of writing a full new album, which we weren’t ready to do after the Sanctuary debacle, we decided to rerecord a bunch of songs we’d written before John joined the band and have John sing them. We asked fans to vote for the songs on our website and used their selections for the track list. We called it The Greater of Two Evils, and started working on it at Avatar Studios in New York.

  We played a whole set live in front of an audience in the studio. Little did we know it was going to be the last thing we recorded with John Bush. After one of the sessions, we had a meeting with management in the studio’s big live room. Charlie, who had decided to move to Chicago, told us he was building a studio there and thought we should move our gear from Yonkers to his place and make Chicago our home base. Frankie didn’t like that idea. He had already called Charlie’s hood “the Poughkeepsie of Chicago.” But I thought it was worth thinking about. I had all the facts and figures from our business manager about how much we’d be saving on a monthly basis by not having to store our gear and pay rent on the studio space in New York. Plus, it would be cheaper to all be in Chicago than it was for me and Bush to fly to New York and stay in Manhattan. It was going to save us thousands of dollars over a year’s time, which was pretty appealing since we basically had no label or band income. That’s when Frankie lost it.

 
“Fuck that shit! I’m not going. I will never set foot there. If you want to work there, do it without me!”

  He started screaming and yelling because that’s how he gets when he’s worked up. He can’t hear or see anything. He’s a self-proclaimed “hothead.” I can’t remember his exact words, but it was something to the effect of “I don’t need to come out to Chicago and be involved in your fucking scene.”

  Charlie, who is the opposite of Frankie in temperament and had been calm the entire time, said, “Oh yeah? What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Whatever the fuck you think it means!” Frankie snapped.

  “Yeah? Fuck you!”

  “Well, fuck you!”

  They had been on opposite sides of this big room, and they charged each other like two rams about to butt heads.

  Rob and I ran in to try to stop them, but we were too late. They collided and started throwing punches. We grabbed Frankie, dragged him into the vocal booth, shut the door, and locked him in. We told him we wouldn’t let him out until he cooled down and promised he wasn’t going to start up again.

  Charlie was across the room sitting on a road case. “You’re fucking dead, motherfucker!” he screamed.

  “No, you’re dead!” shouted Frankie from behind the locked door.

  I started laughing. I couldn’t help it. It was like a scene out of Goodfellas. It was real greaseball shit.

  Finally we let Frankie out and we had a band vote. Everyone else voted to move our base to Chicago. Frankie refused. We never fired him, and he never actually quit, but he sure didn’t come to Chicago. There was this weird, gray area when Frankie was out of the band and joined Helmet. He was gone for about eighteen months. Even though he was playing with another band, he wouldn’t quit Anthrax. Because of the legalities involved, he told us we would have to fire him if we wanted him out. If you fire someone, they can make all kinds of legal claims against you, whereas if you quit, you get nothing. We didn’t want Frankie out of the band, that wasn’t the case at all, so we just let it float, and we got Armored Saint bassist Joey Vera to fill in for us all through 2004. Tim convinced Sanctuary to put out The Greater of Two Evils. Although the label had stopped signing new bands, they held on to the catalog and put out select releases, so at least we had something to tour behind.

  John was not psyched about doing those shows because he had gotten married and he and his wife were about to have their first baby. She was due while we were supposed to be out on tour. He didn’t want to miss the baby’s birth. We had to really push him and force him to go out with us. We were playing packed rooms, making some money, and we felt like we needed to keep the momentum going. Finally he relented because he knew it would be best for the band and it was keeping us active. We felt like as long as we were out there working, we didn’t have anything to worry about. If we were out there being a band, we had a purpose. But if we stopped and came home, we didn’t know what the hell we would do next.

  The last tour we did for The Greater of Two Evils was opening for Dio in the fall of 2004. The guys that managed Mudvayne, Zen Media—Jonathan Cohen and Izzy Zivkovic—came to see us at the Beacon Theater, and they loved us. Our agent, Mike Monterulo, had played them “Safe Home,” and they couldn’t believe it wasn’t a radio hit. They wanted to be onboard, so we started working with Zen Media, and they suggested we do a reunion tour with Joey Belladonna and Dan Spitz.

  “That could get you out of every deal you’ve gotten into,” Jonathan said. He told us he had gone over all of our contracts with a fine-toothed comb, and we still owed Sanctuary a record even though they weren’t a label. If we did a reunion tour, we’d be in the clear. “This reunion tour is an asset that you have held back all these years, and with that asset I could clean house and get things moving forward again.”

  It made sense. We could do a reunion tour DVD and CD and give it to Sanctuary, take the nooses off our necks, and walk away. We didn’t want to do the tour, but from a business perspective it was a good idea. Charlie and I talked about it, and we asked Jonathan and Izzy if we could do a tour where both John and Joey came out with us and Anthrax would play songs from both of their catalogs. We were dead set against doing a reunion tour that left John hanging out to dry.

  Jonathan and Izzy agreed that would work, so we went to John and explained the financial and business position we were in and how this would be a way for us to move forward. At that point, we couldn’t make another studio record and just see it disappear up Sanctuary’s ass again. That would have killed us.

  “I know it seems like a step backward, but people will love seeing you and Joey together,” I told John. “And then after it’s over we can make another Anthrax record the way we want to.”

  John understood what I was saying, but he didn’t want to do it. He was a veteran singer. He wouldn’t share the stage with another vocalist. “I understand if you have to do it,” he said. “But I can’t be a part of it.”

  Maybe it was wishful thinking, but when he said, “I understand if you have to do it,” we figured he was giving us the thumbs-up to tour without him. Maybe that’s not what he meant. We certainly didn’t have his blessings, but it’s easy to talk yourself into doing something that’s advantageous, especially after you’ve been swimming up a river of shit for years. If we didn’t do the reunion tour, we would have broken up. It was that simple. But John clearly realized that if the tour went well, there would be a big demand for us to do another studio album with Joey, and it would be hard for us to say no. That would leave him out in the cold. It was an ethical dilemma, for sure.

  I thought about it for days. I felt like the band had a good run and had accomplished everything we ever set out to do. We had traveled the world, released great records, and lived out our rock and roll fantasies and then some. Finally, I got to the crux of the matter and asked myself, “Okay, am I going to do this reunion tour to keep the band together and be able to move forward, or not do it and break up the band? Am I finished with Anthrax?”

  Fuck no! I wasn’t ready to walk away. I couldn’t. I had spent almost twenty-five years working with the band through thick and thin, and I knew someday the ship really was going to turn around and we’d be back making albums and playing sold-out venues. We’d be on a real label that would support us, and we’d make money doing what we loved. Plus, I still had something to say. If that meant losing John Bush, I was ready to make that sacrifice. My life in Anthrax and my career were bigger for me than losing John as our singer, as great a friend as he always had been.

  It wasn’t an easy decision. It was a horrible, shitty place to be in. Not only would we be leaving John behind; we’d also be touring without Rob since doing a full reunion tour meant getting Dan Spitz back. Rob didn’t find out he was out of a job until we were already making plans for the tour. Literally, a couple weeks after the Dio tour, he was out.

  Aside from the business reasons for the reunion, there was one other factor that contributed to Charlie and my decision to reunite the old lineup. On December 8, 2004, Dimebag Darrell was shot and killed onstage in Columbus, Ohio, while he was playing with his new band, Damageplan. Pearl and I were on our way to visit her grandmother in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, when I found out. We had flown from LA to New York, rented a car, and were driving from JFK airport to Lancaster, which took a few hours. We got to the hotel at about 11 p.m., exhausted from traveling all day. I went to shower before we went to bed, and when I came out of the bathroom Pearl said, “Your phone has been blowing up nonstop.”

  I checked it and saw I had missed calls from Charlie, Adrenaline PR owner Maria Ferrero, who worked with us in the early days of Megaforce, and all these other people. They were all calling at 11:30 p.m. on a weeknight, which was weird. So I called Charlie back and he said, “Did you hear?”

  “Hear what?”

  “Darrell was shot.”

  “What?”

  “Dime, Dime
was shot and killed at Alrosa Villa at a Damageplan show.”

  I couldn’t fathom it. Dime being shot onstage seemed even more unreal than Cliff Burton getting killed in a bus accident. How could someone be shot onstage? That’s never happened, ever. Even in the sometimes volatile and violent world of rap, no one has ever been shot onstage. There was no precedent for this. It just seemed so fucking beyond my imagination.

  I got off the phone and told Pearl, and we sat there in shock. I turned the news on, and within minutes it was on the CNN ticker: “Rocker shot and killed in Columbus, Ohio.” We were completely shocked and stunned and didn’t know what to do. Here we were in this tiny hotel in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and we had to visit Pearl’s grandma the next day. We weren’t going to cancel that, so we spent a couple of hours visiting her, then we got right back in the car, drove back to New York City, and flew to Dallas.

  We stayed there for a couple of days for the funeral and memorial. It was completely surreal. Some of my best friends were all in one place at the same time, and we were all in mourning. There was no joy.

  I kept expecting the whole thing to be some fucking giant Darrell wind-up because he was the king of that shit. I half thought he would pop up and yell, “Gotcha, motherfuckers!” and we’d all laugh. I still can’t fathom what happened to Dime, and every time I think about it I get angry. There was no rhyme or reason to it at all. I already distrusted most of humanity, but that made me really want to close my circle of friends even more. I’m generally an optimist about my life, but to this day I hate people and I don’t trust anybody. After something like that happens to one of your best friends, how can you ever feel safe, anywhere, ever?