ANTHRAX's SCOTT IAN Says He Is Doing 'Quite A Bit' Of The Writing Himself For His Upcoming Memoir

Scott Ian, co-founder of the iconic thrash metal band ANTHRAX, last year inked a deal with Da Capo Press, a member of the Perseus Books Group, for the release of his book entitled "I'm The Man". Da Capo executive editor Ben Schafer made the deal with Jim Fitzgerald at the James Fitzgerald Agency.

In this fast-paced, humorous, and revealing memoir from the leader of a band that proved to the masses that brutality and fun didn't have to be mutually exclusive, Ian will tell his life story, starting with his upbringing as a nerdy Jewish boy in Queens, New York, and evolving through his first musical epiphany when he saw THE WHO on television and decided he wanted to play guitar. Not long after, Ian saw KISS at Madison Square Garden and realized what he wanted to do with his life. The book will chronicle his adolescence in a dysfunctional home, his escapism through the turbulent world of heavy metal, and the complete history of ANTHRAX, starting with the band's formation through the present day reinvigoration with the return of vocalist Joey Belladonna, the release of "Worship Music", and their triumphant performance at Yankee Stadium with the Big Four of thrash: METALLICA, SLAYER, and MEGADETH. The book will also feature eye-popping full-color autobiographical comic book inserts.

For "I'm The Man", Ian will be working with Jon Wiederhorn, co-author of the books "Louder Than Hell: The Definitive Oral History Of Metal" and "Ministry: The Lost Gospels According To Al Jourgensen". Wiederhorn is a senior writer at Revolver and a regular contributor to Guitar World, Noisey.com, eMusic.com, and Yahoo Music! He has also worked on staff at Rolling Stone, Guitar, Guitar.com, and MusicPlayer.com.

Speaking to ChicagoNow.com, Ian stated about "I'm The Man": "I am working with Jon Wiederhorn. But I am doing quite a bit of the actual writing. That's kind of one of the reasons why I haven't done one yet. For years I would get asked about doing a book but I couldn't commit because I couldn't say 'yes' and then take seven years to write it. But I know Jon so well and he's written things based on interviews that I've done with him — he's literally written things that are my voice. He could write in my written voice. So I just knew that it would work really well together with him and obviously that takes a lot of the load off of me. So we've kind of broken it up into who's gonna do what."

Ian recently told Lithium Magazine about his his memoir is going to be different form other rock and roll autobiographies out there: "What makes mine different is that it doesn't take the usual story arc that most of these rock/metal biographies and autobiographies do. That arc is usually the rise to fame, the fame, the crash and burn and then some sort of redemption. I don't have that story arc. I don't know what you would call my story genre, but it's more about coming from nothing and being able to do all that I have done. I think it's about being able to show anybody that no matter where you come from, whether you're a scrawny kid from Queens [New York], you do have the opportunity to make something of yourself. I am the living proof of that. And you don't have to take the normal road that's portrayed in these books. You don't have to take the MÖTLEY CRÜE road."