Anthrax guitarist Scott Ian praises Tony Iommi and Iron Maiden

Anthrax guitarist Scott Ian talked about his favourite metal band of all time and shared his thoughts about rap music.

Experienced guitarist Scott Ian shared his thoughts about the best metal band of all time. In the same appearance, he talked about his opinion about hip-hop in 2021. Ian also mentioned how Tony Iommi influenced him alongside all the metal bands after Black Sabbath. Furthermore, he talked about how the band was relieved to see people react to their first records nicely. Here’s what Scott Ian had to say during his appearance on The Pit program.

Scott Ian on his favorite metal band ever:

“You can’t just say Bruce Dickinson has just been a guy who was just in a metal band the whole time. He is a renaissance man – whether is writing books, or fencing, or flying a fucking plane…

I should have said that immediately but when I start talking about Maiden, I get excited because, to me, they are the best metal band of all time. I forgot for a second that Bruce has probably done more in a week than I have done in 15 years.”

Anthrax guitarist Scott Ian on Tony Iommi’s influence on the metal bands:

“If you really dig down deep, you could really say every rock or guitar riff of the last 50 years was basically done by Tony Iommi. He played all the riffs, everything we’ve been doing since is just a different take of something he had already done. A bit faster, a bit slower, in a different key…

But Tony did it, he had done all of it on the first six Sabbath albums. When we first started out, we fucking loved Motorhead and Iron Maiden, and hundred other bands. And all of that comes into what you’re doing as a musician, and hopefully comes out in your songwriting, and you’re not just a clone of something that came in before you.”

He mentioned people’s reaction to Anthrax’s records:

“When we started putting out records in ’84, our records sounded like something different, people were like, ‘This is a new thing.’ And they called this thrash metal. Cool, great, awesome!

We were just happy that people didn’t just say, ‘Oh, they are a fucking Motorhead clone. Why should I listen to them? I could just put a Motorhead record on.’ Nobody said that about us.

You just strive to do something that is yours, that’s your own, that you have your own sound, and the biggest compliment you can pay any musician is that you are doing something original. It’s fresh, it’s new.”

Scott Ian on hip-hop music in 2021:

“I don’t listen to any new rap music, nor have I in a long time. I hear things, I don’t live in that much of a bubble, and I have friends who do stay current and listen to new things. Sometimes they’ll be brave enough to say, ‘You should check this out, I think you’ll like it.’

In that situation, I’m grandpa hip-hop. I’ll be like, ”80s rap is way better than this!’ For me, it was a long time ago, it was actually in the mid-’90s where I just got lost when it came to new stuff. I don’t know what changed in the sound – maybe nothing, maybe I changed, I don’t know.”

After mentioning his type of hip-hop, Ian went on to share his feelings as to why his love for rap music vanished.

“But there was something missing for me as a fan as compared to anything I’ve been listening to up until the mid-’90s. Most of the new stuff that was coming out didn’t move me, the types of rap that were becoming huge, whether it was the west coast kind of vibe or really thuggish stuff…”

Ian compared metal to rap while also mentioning a rapper he liked:

“There were some Biggy songs that I thought were great, and his skill as a rapper was amazing. But it was too far in between. I’ve definitely liked more metal in the last 20 years than I do rap, that’s for sure. I feel like there has been a lot of great metal bands, certainly since 1990, for me.”

I love rap music but I wasn’t hardcore. I like all kinds of music, and metal and hard rock were always a bigger percentage of what I was listening to in any year, even when ‘Nation of Millions’ came out, the Public Enemy record, which is still one of my Top 10 records of all time. I was still listening to more metal at that time.”

You can listen to Anthrax – Who Cares Wins below!