ANTHRAX Guitarist Writes In From The Road

October 22, 2002

The following is a re-posting of the latest installment of ANTHRAX guitarist Scott Ian's regular online column, dubbed "Alpha Mail", as it appears on the group's official web site at www.anthrax.com:

"I'm on the bus heading to Glasgow. Tonight was the first show in Manchester. I'm currently basking in the after glow of tonight's metal mania. Before I get to that, let me start from the beginning. We rehearsed in NY last week and put the set together. It's basically the same show as the PRIEST tour set except we added 'I Am The Law' and 'N.F.L.' We're covering a lot of years in 50 minutes. Things came together quickly because we're just that good. Ha. We left for London Friday night. It was pissing down rain in NYC and it took two and a half hours to get from the city to Newark airport. That was as fun as punching myself in the face until I die. The flight was boring and uneventful. [ANTHRAX vocalist] John [Bush] and I watched a great Japanese movie called 'Battle Royale'. Go get this DVD. It's brutal. It's 'Lord Of The Flies' meets 'Columbine'. Somehow I left my book of DVDs on the plane. Someone is either very happy with their new DVD collection, or it's in lost and found and I'll get them back. We'll see. What a great start for my trip.

"Anyway, we got into London and had to go pick up our gear at the shipping place. I'll make an endlessly long day short for you. We got our gear, realized it wouldn't fit in our trailer, packed a bunch of stuff in the luggage bay, put the luggage in the bunks, picked up our other guitar tech and headed to Manchester. I ate some killer Italian food, had a beer and crashed hard. I was lucky enough to sleep nine hours straight through. I think all my kick boxing of late has defeated jet lag.

"Show day. The usual clusterfuck. Our crew pulled it off though. Even without my cabinets (which never showed up) my tone was killer and the show went great. The place was packed and was mostly really young kids. 16, 17 years old. It was really cool to see. It seemed like they knew the newer stuff like 'Inside Out' and even 'Superhero' (which they haven't heard yet) better than the older stuff like 'I Am The Law'. We were a bit creaky but it was still a great show. First time back in Manchester in seven years. Thank you for the response. We'll be back sooner this time. Nick from DIMMU [BORGIR] came to the show and he played us some new demos. It was killer. He also played us the new OLD MAN'S CHILD record. That was also good. Rob played some of the new CRADLE OF FILTH that he is mixing and it sounded great. Nick was impressed and said, 'It was the best CRADLE he ever heard.' MOTÖRHEAD was LOUD. Loud and good. All the hits. They've got the Bomber out with them. It's surreal to be on tour with Lemmy. He's been such an inspiration to me for the last 22 years. The guy is a living legend. I can't wait for Glasgow tomorrow night. More tomorrow.

"I miss my girlfriend. Scott"

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