ANTHRAX Guitarist Comments On ROLLING STONE 'Bomber' Controversy, First-Ever Visit To Israel

The Jerusalem Post recently conducted an interview with ANTHRAX guitarist Scott Ian. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

On the controversy surrounding a recent issue of Rolling Stone magazine which features a cover photo of the Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar "Jahar" Tsarnaev:

Ian: "Instead of putting a murderer on their cover to sell copies, why not make a better magazine? I haven't bought a Rolling Stone since the '80s because it sucks, so it's not like I'm saying that I'm canceling my subscription. These terrorists today are looking exactly for that kind of notoriety. But Rolling Stone knew what they were doing: everyone talked about it and went out and bought it. They should have put a picture of a victim on the cover — but you know what, that wouldn't have sold as well."

On his recent spoken-word tour of the United Kingdom:

Ian: "It was really great. If I hadn't liked it it, I would have cancelled the rest of the dates. I didn't really need to do it and I was away from my family. But I really enjoyed it and was hitting my stride with stories from my past and current events. It was using a different part of my brain, and I'll certainly do more."

On his Jewish roots:

Ian: "I didn't really have much of a Jewish upbringing, it didn't play a prominent role in our house. My grandparents were quite Orthodox, but my parents and I weren't. I learned Hebrew phonetically for my bar mitzvah, read my seven minutes and then we had a party. I think I did it more to please my grandfather than anything else."

On shortening his last name in favor of his middle name:

Ian: "Scott Ian Rosenfeld was just too long — it didn't look good on posters when I started playing professionally, and Scott Ian did, so I just used that. It had nothing to do with it sounding too Jewish. I still used Rosenfeld for the songwriting credits, and for years people would come up to me and ask me who that other guy was that writes songs for you."

On how touring has changed over the years:

Ian: "We still pretty much do it the same way as when we started out. We haven't changed very much. We love playing and I think we've gotten quite good at it. And it's still as thrilling as it's always been. That's what keeps up going…. Three of us have young children — and we don't like to be away for long chunks of time, so we don't do [it] any more. There are no [more] two-month tours of Europe — it's much more manageable and we're not gone for long."

On ANTHRAX's first-ever visit to Israel for the first time will be lack of time to sight-see.

Ian: "I've always liked to visit countries I've never been to, and even though I don't have any special feeling for Israel, I've always wanted to visit because I've heard so much about it. I don't know if we're going to have any time to see anything, but I hope to come back by myself again and spend some time there."

Read the entire interview at The Jerusalem Post.