TED NUGENT, SCOTT IAN Talk About VH1's 'SuperGroup'

Nikki M. Mascali of Northeastern Pennsylvania's TimesLeader.com recently spoke to Ted Nugent and ANTHRAX guitarist Scott Ian about their upcoming "SuperGroup" show, which is scheduled to premiere on Sunday, May 21 at 10:00 p.m. on VH1. Filming for the program commenced on February 22, with the premise being to lock several musicians in a house for 10 days and get them to write and record some new original music. In addition to the five musicians (Nugent, Ian, former SKID ROW frontman Sebastian Bach, ex-BIOHAZARD bassist/vocalist Evan Seinfeld and former UFO/current FOREIGNER drummer Jason Bonham),star manager Doc McGhee (KISS) was in charge for the duration of filming/recording. The all-star band — dubbed DAMNOCRACY — also performed a headlining set at the Empire Ballroom in Las Vegas on March 5. A few excerpts from the interview follow:

Nugent: "If it doesn't cause people to shit blood from sheer hysterics at how deliriously funny I am, I have failed myself. We had a riot. Plus, the guys really had surprising and gratifying and relieving musical integrity. I feel like these guys deserve me."

Ian: "Ted Nugent can certainly step forward and be the Alpha male as he is in pretty much all of his life, but he was with guys who have been doing their own music thing a long time so it wasn't just going to be 'The Ted Nugent Band'."

On the musicians' inidividual abilities:

Nugent: "I had expected it from Bonham, given the great legacy of his father that he carries on quite demonstrably. Sebastian has unbelievable vocal capabilities — he's like a jazz musician with a voice. Evan is a throttle master on the bass guitar, has great musical ideas and Scott Ian is a torpedo of rhythm and blues and rock and roll."

Ian: "I found myself being like the musical director or the arranger, keeping things on track. Sebastian said last week in an interview that without me, we probably wouldn't have gotten as much practice as we did.

"Everyone had their personalities and I was just myself in that house, as I was there with ANTHRAX. Everyone just took on their roles as they would normally in their own band situations."

On Doc McGhee's role:

Ian: "He has a lot of great stories, but he had it easiest. He didn't stay at the house; he had a suite at the Bellagio. His job was basically to make things happen and be the middleman between us and the producers."

On the show being called a "reality TV' program:

Ian: "We very quickly learned the lesson of what reality television is." Ian said that they would have rehearsed for 8-10 hours a day if given the chance, to become a real band in those two weeks. "We expressed that to [the producers] saying, 'Hey, why not just let us be a band and film the reality of that' and they said it would be boring television."

On the songs the band wrote during their two weeks together:

Nugent: "The music we created — whether we did old classics by me or LED ZEPPELIN, SKID ROW, ANTHRAX, BIOHAZARD or anyone else — it was the real McCoy. The music had a life of its own and it was inspiring and motivating."

"Music is indeed a powerful force in all our lives, not just musicians but in people who love music, which happens to be everybody...unless you're an asshole. We really bonded on a musical level even though we come from diverse lifestyles and ideologies. The music is king. And that is going to fascinate people."

On Evan Seinfeld being involved in porn with his wife, adult film star Tera Patrick:

"I deplore porno, I think it is abusive to women and I think it is a sin. Evan's life happens to be porno and yet, he turned out to be a great, really smart man who was dedicated to the music that we were there to make.'

On Sebastian's struggle with alcoholism:

Nugent: "I don't know how much they are going to use…he is so gifted and talented and such a maniacal force of rock and roll and I saw this destroying all those attributes. I scolded him and threatened him."

Read the entire article at TimesLeader.com.