There’s no Anthrax without Scott Ian leading the charge.
Despite his rapid-fire riffs though, there is one song in the band’s catalog that doesn’t feature him at all.
When the band was cutting their teeth making their debut Fistful of Metal, their label had suggested cashing in with a cover song and picked Alice Cooper’s ‘I’m Eighteen.’ While Scott had a love for Alice, he wasn’t a fan of doing the song saying,
“I love that song, but I never wanted to cover it. It’s the only Anthrax song that I’m not playing rhythm guitar on. Quiet Riot had gone to No.1 with Cum On Feel The Noize, so everyone was like, ‘Let’s do a cover song, maybe we’ll get on the radio!’ I was totally against it but I got outvoted, so I didn’t play guitar on it.”
Anthrax is no stranger to covers nowadays, having some of the most eclectic cover songs in the thrash scene from versions of Radiohead to their iconic version of ‘Bring the Noise’ with Public Enemy.
Granted, Scott has said that he probably would have been all for the cover idea on Fistful of Metal if it had been a different song saying,
“We did have some alternatives put forward, none of which I can now recall, but in the end ‘I’m Eighteen’ won out. I suppose we could have considered doing a Motörhead or Maiden song, but they were still too fresh in the mind, really.”
Scott has seemed to embrace all types of cover songs since then though, posting jam sessions on Instagram with his son where they go through classics from Heart to Foo Fighters.
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The ‘I’m Eighteen’ might seem out of place on Anthrax’s debut record, but we can only use our imaginations for what their version of Motorhead’s ‘Overkill’ might have sounded like.
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