Anthrax guitarist Scott Ian recently sat down for an interview with Hardcore Humanism with Dr. Mike. Ian was pretty frank about his feelings regarding post-COVID touring, saying he doesn't expect to be out on the road until 2022. Though in his downtime throughout 2020, he's really been enjoying spending time with his family.
"In my mind, I'm not going back to work, probably, till, I'm thinking, '22," said Ian. "Realistically, that's when things will maybe start to get somewhere back to normal, for my world, as a touring musician. So now it's become a case of, how do I keep things running for the next two years — with the luxury of being home. Because if it was up to me, I'd just hang around and jam with my son all day long. But now I have to be able to have the balance of I get to just be home and I get to go to the beach and hang out. And it becomes very easy to do nothing. And when I say nothing, I don't mean nothing in a lazy way. I mean, not have anything to do with my band and literally be on vacation from my work. So it's almost like a retraining. Even doing interviews, I kind of, at one point, said, 'I'm not doing anything.' You know what? I have a chance now to literally take a break. And I did. We kind of did. And then we started doing these 'Instajam' collaboration things online and whatnot and slowly but surely getting our feet back in the game, and I'm sure that'll pick up over the months.
"But I'll tell you what: I love being home. I love not traveling. I love not getting on a plane. I was looking at our schedule, 'cause it was all on my calendar. I was supposed to be in Europe for the last two weeks playing festivals. I was, like, 'Oh my God. I am so glad I am not in the Ukraine right now.' Imagine there was no pandemic. I'm literally, like, I'm home right now, and I'm sitting in my living room hanging out. Just the idea of that, it's never happened. We've never canceled shows. It was out my hands. And it was nice to have no power. For kind of the first time, it's all out of my hands. It's, like, 'Hey, there's nothing I can do. [I'm] just gonna hang out here with my family. You tell me when it's okay to come back to work.'"
As for Anthrax overall, they're working on a new album over FaceTime and Zoom. The band is also about to release the 30th anniversary edition of their 1990 album Persistence of Time, which you can check out here.
