ANTHRAX Guitarist Discusses 'Speaking Words' Tour With 'Heavy Metal Artwork' (Video)

July 30, 2013

Heavy Metal Artwork conducted an interview with ANTHRAX guitarist Scott Ian about his recently completed "Speaking Words" U.K. spoken-word tour. You can now watch the chat below.

Asked whose idea it was for him to embark on a "Speaking Words" tour of the U.K., Ian told Geeks Of Doom: "The tour was my idea. The initial one show that I did last November was my agent's idea. He booked three shows: one with me, one with Chris Jericho, and one with Duff McKagan. They were all about two weeks apart and each did a talking show and it was his idea to do that series of shows and it went really well for all three of us and I was the one who said after my show, I want to do more, can we do more dates, can we book a tour? And here I am."

Regarding how he decided which stories to tell during the show, Ian said: "I just felt like going into the stories about drugs [hilarious stories about tripping on mushrooms and bad experiences with smoking pot] made sense after the opening and I knew I wanted to do the Lemmy story because I just got the illustrations back yesterday and I just wanted to see how that played. So I wanted to do that and then I wasn't sure if I was going to do [Dimebag] Darrell. I thought I was going to tell the Cliff Burton [late METALLICA bassist] story and then I ended up telling a shortened version of that in the [question-and-answer session]. I don't know why I went into the Darrell story, because I really wasn't sure where I was going to go after Lemmy and I just decided on the fly that I would tell that Dime story right then and there."

Ian also spoke about his expectations for the tour. He said: "I don't have any expectation that I'm going to come out and sell out 400 people a night. It's the first time I've ever done it. I'm not that big enough of a guy in a band. I feel those ticket sales are just based on curiosity. If I was Dave Grohl, I'm sure I could get 500 people to show up to watch me read a book for two hours! But that's Dave, he's in a much bigger band than I am, so I think it's definitely a growing process. I can only hope that people had fun tonight; it seems like they did. If I come back through Oxford another time, word of mouth will have spread and maybe 150 people will show up."

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