Scott Ian | The Magnificent Others with Billy Corgan

Anthrax co-founder Scott Ian joins Billy Corgan to trace thrash metal from a burned-out Queens rehearsal building to arenas around the world. Ian takes Billy inside the scene’s earliest days, including his first encounters with Metallica, the historic lineup change he witnessed firsthand, and the tour he believes changed metal forever. He also recalls unforgettable moments with Ronnie James Dio and Lemmy—and an emotional Black Sabbath farewell he still struggles to talk about. The conversation turns to Anthrax’s unexpected connection with Public Enemy and the warning Ian once gave Pantera at the height of their success. With Anthrax’s first album in a decade, Cursum Perficio, Ian reflects on surviving the years when metal fell out of favor, learning the power of saying no, and watching the next generation forge its own path. Listen to the Show on all Podcast Apps "The Magnificent Others with Billy Corgan" https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-magnificent-others-with-billy-corgan/id1793783665?i=1000689358669 Subscribe to the YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@BillyCorganTMO?sub_confirmation=1 Support our Sponsors: Try QUO for free PLUS get 20% off your first 6 months when you go to Quo.com/MAGNIFICENT. Follow Billy: https://www.facebook.com/BillyCorgan https://x.com/Billy https://www.instagram.com/billycorgan Follow The SmashingPumpkins https://x.com/smashingpumpkin See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

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• 1:29Speaker 03

  With Anthrax, we created an environment where we are able to do what we love and do what we want to do and have fun doing still after all this stuff.

• 1:40Billy Corgan?

  You ended up in one of the great bands and you pioneered something that is now a global phenomenon.

• 1:47Speaker 03

  I always looked at it as it's just about music that moves me.

• 1:51Billy Corgan?

  My first impression of you as a person personally was how open minded you were.

• 1:57Speaker 03

  What I'm doing is great and everybody should like it.

• 2:01Billy Corgan?

  Scott Ian, nice to see you today. Thank you for coming in.

• 2:06Billy Corgan?

  New album out. Tell me the title because I'm going to mess it up. So I'm.

• 2:10Speaker 03

  You know, we found out there's no way to mess it up.

• 2:12Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 2:14Speaker 03

  It's Curse Perficio.

• 2:16Billy Corgan?

  You're asking a lot of metal fans here.

• 2:18Speaker 03

  Well, yeah, and I kind of like that. It's Latin for your journey is complete, your journey is over. And a friend of ours who knows the head of the Latin department at Columbia in New York.

• 2:31Billy Corgan?

  Yes.

• 2:32Speaker 03

  Asked, what is the proper pronunciation? And very long story short, as nobody knows, he said, perficio would be the more ancient version of it. Perficio would be a more modern version of it. He goes, so basically you could say however you want.

• 2:49Billy Corgan?

  And you know, in New Jersey, it's going to turn into perfecto.

• 2:52Speaker 03

  Yeah. Oh, perfique. Curse perfique.

• 2:56Billy Corgan?

  First album in 10 years. I was surprised by that. Cause you guys have been working pretty regularly.

• 3:02Speaker 03

  That's kind of why, because the last album came out in 16 and we toured it. I'm really good with this kind of, I have like a steel trap for dates when it comes to the band.

• 3:14Billy Corgan?

  This helps, yeah.

• 3:15Speaker 03

  We finished touring that record in November of 19. And with the intent of taking off for the holidays and then getting back together early 20 to start working on the demos and stuff and riffs and ideas for the next record. Of course, COVID hit. And so we spent a year and a half, just like everybody else, wondering, do we ever get to be a band again?

• 3:40Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 3:40Speaker 03

  But sending demos all, you know, working on stuff individually, but that's not how it really works for us. And so finally it was either late 21 or early 22, we were able to get in a room together and start arranging songs, Charlie and Frankie and.

• 3:56Billy Corgan?

  But even then, that's still a long process to.

• 3:58Speaker 03

  Yeah. So it was, but from that point, it took us, let's say from, it was January 1, 22. I had the finished mastered record in my hand in November of 25.

• 4:09Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 4:10Speaker 03

  So.

• 4:11Billy Corgan?

  Yeah. You sent me some stuff today and I wrote you back and I said, you guys never sounded better.

• 4:15Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 4:16Billy Corgan?

  And I say that with some authority because I had you guys from the first album on. So I was listening all the way back then. I can't believe it's 83.

• 4:26Speaker 03

  Yeah, January 84, Festival came out.

• 4:29Billy Corgan?

  Okay. So I had that then.

• 4:30Speaker 03

  Right.

• 4:31Billy Corgan?

  You know what I mean? Cause I was into, well, we'll get there, but I mean, I dove into that scene early. I was lucky because I was around people who were early and on Metallica.

• 4:40Speaker 03

  Right.

• 4:41Billy Corgan?

  So, you know, as soon as you find a band like Metallica, Kill Em All, you start going, wait, what is this? Something's happening. You start reaching for anything connected.

• 4:51Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 4:52Billy Corgan?

  And thankfully people were like, we'll check them out too.

• 4:55Speaker 03

  Were you at their first Metro shows at one?

• 4:57Billy Corgan?

  No, I wasn't. I was in a weird spot in my life when I was a teen because I didn't really have any money and I wasn't living in the city.

• 5:06Speaker 03

  Got it.

• 5:07Billy Corgan?

  So occasionally I would go in to see shows. So I saw him, I saw him sort of right when Ride the Lightning was coming out. And I saw Slayer on Rain and Blood. Yeah, I was sort of, that was the, but just before that, I missed all that.

• 5:22Speaker 03

  Uh huh. Got it.

• 5:23Billy Corgan?

  So I see those videos on YouTube and I'm like, ugh.

• 5:25Speaker 03

  Yeah. It's the famous one where Kirk kind of puts his guitar over.

• 5:28Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, something.

• 5:29Speaker 03

  And then they take it.

• 5:30Billy Corgan?

  Yeah. That's the great nightmare of all time. But like, you know, I kicked myself because I missed Merciful Fate, like, you know, he's like, like, there's a legendary show I missed, like Merciful Fate, the Aragon Ballroom on Halloween. You're just like, oh my God, like, of all things.

• 5:45Speaker 03

  I got the chills when you just said that.

• 5:46Billy Corgan?

  Me too.

• 5:47Speaker 03

  I can imagine.

• 5:48Billy Corgan?

  I remember, I remember being at the Metallica show, the Ride the Lightning show.

• 5:54Billy Corgan?

  Talking, you know, you're just metal fan. You end up talking to a guy, some guy next to you. And he was like, oh, I just saw Merciful Fate here, like for Halloween. You're like crying. I still remember opening the newspaper at my aunt's house and it was Blizzard of Oz tour. And going, and I was in love with the record, right? And looking and going, no one will take me. You know, just being in that place in my life.

• 6:18Speaker 03

  Right.

• 6:18Billy Corgan?

  Cause I, we live far enough outside the city. It wasn't like I could walk to a show.

• 6:21Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 6:22Billy Corgan?

  You had to have a buddy or, you know, so.

• 6:26Speaker 03

  Dude, you mentioned the Aragon. I mean, did you guys, did you realize when you were going to shows there? Well, I mean, maybe not because you weren't going to shows in other cities at that time. But Chicago was like, that was the craziest place for us anyway. Like the Chicago shows were the craziest shows back then in the country. We played the Aragon the first time in 87. And that was still to this day, one of the greatest crowds we ever played.

• 6:54Billy Corgan?

  Yeah. So it lends some understanding because a lot of people, especially when we came out to LA, which, you know, the band, my band's always had great popularity in LA. A lot of people were sort of confused by the band's metal side. But growing up in Chicago in that scene and seeing Ingve and, you know, Michael Shanker Group and Judas Priest, I mean, Rush, bands that are legendary in my home community.

• 7:21Speaker 03

  Right.

• 7:22Billy Corgan?

  The translation, much like I think for you to metal into alternative is like, in my mind, it was all kind of the same.

• 7:29Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 7:29Billy Corgan?

  And then suddenly you go, you meet some snob in New York or LA and they're like, you can't like Black Sabbath. And it was kind of like, I was like, huh? What do you mean I can't like, I literally grew up with people who worshiped these bands. It wasn't trendy to like Black Sabbath. Black Sabbath was like a religion for the people I grew up around.

• 7:46Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 7:46Billy Corgan?

  And then you had your Yes fans, but they were stoners and you know, you understand because you grew up in the same. I kind of want to start here. You know, because it's an interesting conversation, I think, that gets into the bigger thing that I'm after. But so indulge me here, but I think the first place to start is the Back to the Beginning show, which we were both blessed to be at.

• 8:10Billy Corgan?

  And

• 8:12Billy Corgan?

  for someone like you who saw Sabbath back in the day, I think you saw them 78 was the first time.

• 8:17Speaker 03

  I saw them, yeah, with Van Halen.

• 8:19Billy Corgan?

  Van Halen, I'll get there in a second, but, but, but, I mean, did you, like me, have that surreal moment of like, and I knew you toured with Ozzy. I'm not saying it was your first time to stand there, but there we both are, Sabbath's last show in their hometown, a mile from where they grew up. And there we're invited.

• 8:36Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 8:37Billy Corgan?

  Like, that's a different vibe.

• 8:38Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 8:39Billy Corgan?

  If you love those bands like we love those bands. So if you could talk about that a bit.

• 8:43Speaker 03

  It was, it was the greatest day of music I've ever been a part of as a fan or as a guy in a band. It's hard not to talk about it without starting to cry or get choked up. Because just like you said, we were invited to that. I, when, when I got the email as, are we available? You know, July 5th, I was like, you're really asking me this question? Like, um, it was, it was unbelievable on so many levels. First, yeah, I mean, even stupid little things like walking in to the stadium and seeing the dressing room sign with your band's name on it.

• 9:26Speaker 03

  Black, you know, it's Black Sabbath and back to the beginning and then, you know, Anthrax dressing room. Uh, I, you know, I, I, I took a picture of it and I took one, you know what I mean? Like, uh, uh, it was just such a, it was just such an amazing thing to get to be a part of. Yeah. The privilege to get to share the stage with them and everyone else that day. And the other thing, uh, you know, I mean, they, they asked us to be a part of their bow, their, their goodbye there. They felt there was a connection there that we deserved to be a part of that. And I don't know that I'll ever get my head around.

• 10:04Billy Corgan?

  Yeah. So let's go, cause that sets up kind of what I'm out here.

• 10:09Billy Corgan?

  See for me, because like I said, I didn't get to see those bands in their, in their, in their youthful prime.

• 10:15Speaker 03

  Right.

• 10:16Billy Corgan?

  So for me, everything, my conception of Ozzy Sabbath, all these great bands was all in my head. No YouTube, you'd occasionally see him on TV.

• 10:26Speaker 03

  Right.

• 10:27Billy Corgan?

  There was that weird like black and blue movie. Remember it was like Black Sabbath and Blue Oyster Cult, whatever that was, right? Yeah. Okay. But you actually, there you are, is it Madison Square Garden?

• 10:36Speaker 03

  I saw it at the Coliseum, Nassau Coliseum.

• 10:38Billy Corgan?

  Okay, great. So there you are at the Nassau Coliseum, Van Halen, this band, have you heard of them yet?

• 10:43Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 10:43Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 10:43Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 10:44Billy Corgan?

  So you kind of knew what you were walking into a little bit. Okay. And then famously Van Halen at that point was just blowing people off the stage.

• 10:50Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 10:51Billy Corgan?

  Okay. So walk, walk me through that, cause that sets up the today's journey through your life.

• 10:55Speaker 03

  Sabbath was, Sabbath was on their last, literally on their last leg with Ozzy at that point.

• 11:02Billy Corgan?

  Yeah. And this is, is this with Ozzy when, when Tony moved him to the side?

• 11:06Speaker 03

  It was Never Say Die Tour, right?

• 11:07Billy Corgan?

  But isn't Ozzy off to the side? Like, there's that weird thing where Tony was like Tony's band, so Tony's in the middle now and Ozzy's.

• 11:14Speaker 03

  I don't, I can't.

• 11:15Billy Corgan?

  Okay, it's fine.

• 11:16Speaker 03

  But, but, uh, I, I, I will, if I'm being honest, me and my friends who went to that show were very much. We were excited about seeing Sabbath for the first time, but we were more excited about seeing Van Halen. Because at that point they were the ones that, I mean, they were the, they were the, and, uh, so yeah. They were everything we wanted and getting, getting to see Eddie actually live and getting to see what he was doing. And, you know, that was just insanity. And then Sabbath came on and I, I had fun and I enjoyed it.

• 11:54Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 11:55Speaker 03

  But it wasn't, I, I had imagined that they were probably better like five years ago, you know?

• 12:02Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 12:02Speaker 03

  Master of Reality or something and, and, uh, um, and then of course they, Sabbath broke up not too long.

• 12:11Billy Corgan?

  Yeah. You kind of saw them right at the.

• 12:13Speaker 03

  They broke up, well, they didn't break up, but Ozzy was out of the band.

• 12:16Billy Corgan?

  Ousted, yeah.

• 12:16Speaker 03

  Not too long after that. And then I saw them a few times on Heaven and Hell and, and, uh, Mob Rules. But, uh, just getting to see them then was incredible. You're, you know, when you're standing in a room with the people that you, they didn't even seem real to me. The, the idea of these humans, Ozzy and Tony and Geezer and Bill. And then you're standing in this arena and, you know, and there they are, you know, 50 feet away. It just seems, it was otherworldly, you know? They were, whereas Van Halen still felt very real in that moment because they felt very street still.

• 12:54Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 12:55Speaker 03

  They weren't, they weren't the stadium band. They were, well, they were, but they weren't.

• 12:59Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 12:59Speaker 03

  Actually yet.

• 13:00Billy Corgan?

  Yes. I had the same thing when I first saw Metallica. I thought this is different because they feel like guys I'm going to high school with.

• 13:06Speaker 03

  Right.

• 13:07Billy Corgan?

  And somehow we're on stage, the we, and it felt like a we thing. Even Slayer is similar. It was like, these are guys I grew up with, but I don't know them, but I mean, it's the vibe.

• 13:16Speaker 03

  It definitely felt like that.

• 13:17Billy Corgan?

  But the era we grew up in where the Sabbath of the world were like, they were like mythical creatures.

• 13:24Speaker 03

  Gods.

• 13:24Billy Corgan?

  What's, is it, strike you as funny? Uh, um, this is a weird leading question, but it, it strikes me as funny that in our minds, we built these people up.

• 13:32Speaker 03

  Right.

• 13:32Billy Corgan?

  And then later we get to know them as human beings and we realize they're just people. I mean, they're, they're, they are what they are, which they are legends. There's nothing to take away from their legend and they deserve every ounce of it. But at some point you're like, oh, it's not what I thought it was. And oh, by the way, they were just young guys.

• 13:47Speaker 03

  Right.

• 13:48Billy Corgan?

  Probably totally bewildered.

• 13:50Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 13:50Billy Corgan?

  By the business or the, or whatever was going on.

• 13:53Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 13:53Billy Corgan?

  So we, we, we all kind of meet in the middle somewhere in the seventies and eighties where we've built these bands up. And the bands can't quite live, live up to the hype. And this, and this change starts to happen after the original rock dinosaurs start to kind of fade away.

• 14:06Speaker 03

  Right.

• 14:07Billy Corgan?

  Of course, now the music is endured and we understand the difference, but at the time they were kind of getting wiped out.

• 14:13Speaker 03

  Yeah. A hundred percent. I mean, Van Halen, case in point, you know, they.

• 14:19Billy Corgan?

  Well, there's even stuff where like Van Halen opened, opened for Kiss and was blowing Kiss off the stage, right?

• 14:24Speaker 03

  You couldn't, you, you couldn't. Uh, I saw Judas Priest open for Kiss in 79.

• 14:31Billy Corgan?

  So that's unleashed in the east times, right?

• 14:33Speaker 03

  And, um, yes, I think it was technically that.

• 14:37Billy Corgan?

  That band right around then is lethal.

• 14:39Speaker 03

  And at that point, I was already out of Kiss. My Kiss window was 75 to 78.

• 14:45Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 14:45Speaker 03

  And then the Kiss Alive 2 was like the last thing I bought and the solo albums. And then in 79, they're back, whatever that next record was, and Priest is opening and me and all my friends, we went to see Priest and we left. We didn't even stay for Kiss. That's the assholes we were already.

• 15:02Billy Corgan?

  But think about how crazy that is. So you, you, you love Kiss, you see Kiss in, in, you know, Destroyer 2 or somewhere around there, right?

• 15:09Speaker 03

  And, and I saw him on Rock and Roll Over Tour and then Love Gun Tour.

• 15:13Billy Corgan?

  Yeah. I mean, peak Kiss.

• 15:15Speaker 03

  Yeah. December 77.

• 15:16Billy Corgan?

  And within two years, you're like, eh.

• 15:19Speaker 03

  Well, because that next record they made, I wasn't into it.

• 15:21Billy Corgan?

  But isn't that, but it, but isn't that interesting though? Like when you look back, you're like, but that's what, that's, that's that youthful energy of like, no, I want something new.

• 15:30Speaker 03

  Always looking for, yeah. Me and my friends were always looking for what's, what's the next, what's the next heaviest? What's the next most aggressive thing? So by 79, uh, I had already, obviously I was into Priest. I was into a lot of the British bands at that point. Um, I love the Scorpions too, you know, German of course. But, uh, um, that we couldn't believe we were getting to see Priest. ACDC, you know, was already like at the top of my list at that point.

• 15:58Billy Corgan?

  No, sorry. But to put this in context, you were the, you were the metal fan that was going like at 4pm to hang out outside by the loading docks to meet the bands and.

• 16:05Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 16:06Billy Corgan?

  You were that guy.

• 16:06Speaker 03

  Trying, trying so hard to get a.

• 16:08Billy Corgan?

  Can you talk about some of those experiences? Cause I know you got some cool stories, like, I like where you went and knocked on Ronnie James Dio's.

• 16:15Speaker 03

  It was, that was one story.

• 16:16Billy Corgan?

  Hotel store.

• 16:17Speaker 03

  Oh, well, a friend of mine, a friend of mine tells me, it was like, I think this was Mob Rules tour.

• 16:22Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 16:23Speaker 03

  And a friend of mine tells me, I can get, I can get backstage passes from Ronnie and I'm like, bull. Like what, how do you know? You know? And he goes, I'm telling you. So it was kind of like that Seinfeld episode where George is driving the car and he's with his fiance's parents and he's taking them to this supposed cabin that he has, and he refuses to give up the lie that he doesn't even have this cabin. And that's what I figured, you know what? I'm just going to go with this. I'm going to make him take me all the way out to the Meadowlands to the arena.

• 16:55Billy Corgan?

  That he's lying. Yeah.

• 16:55Speaker 03

  Jersey to, to finally go, aha.

• 16:57Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 16:58Speaker 03

  And, uh, so we do, we go into the city, we go to Port Authority, we take a bus out to Jersey. We go to the Meadowlands Hilton where the band is staying and I'm like, he's really, really like stringing this along. I can't believe he let, let us get on the bus. Like he's really, he really believes this is going to happen. And we walk into the Hilton and he, and, uh, we get in the elevator and we go up to a room. I'm like, what the? He's just going to knock on someone's door and he knocks on a door. And like 30 seconds later, I, you hear someone go, who's there? And I could tell it's Ronnie. I could hear the voice. And he goes, Ronnie, it's Jimmy. He goes, oh, hey Jimmy, uh, I literally just got out of the shower. I'm in a, in a towel, hold on.

• 17:43Speaker 03

  And then an envelope comes out from under the door and it's two laminates.

• 17:48Billy Corgan?

  Greatest day of your life.

• 17:49Speaker 03

  Yeah. And I just looked at him. I'm like, I can't believe this. Like, and, uh, he's like, I told you. And so we, you know, we went to the show. The show was amazing. We had first row against the, and then afterwards we were in some green room. And Ronnie was the only one who came in at the, I didn't get to meet anyone else, but Ronnie came in. And, uh, oh, you must be Scott. And we talked and blah, blah, blah. And I, I remember Anthrax was infancy stages at that time. And I mentioned, what do you do? I play in a band and we haven't done anything yet. We're trying. He's all, keep at it, you know, keep going, blah, blah, blah. Keep doing what you're doing. And cut to, long story short, 87 Anthrax is playing Castle Donnington, the Monsters of Rock Festival.

• 18:33Speaker 03

  And the bill that day from top to bottom was Bon Jovi, Dio, Metallica, Anthrax, Wasp, Cinderella. And it's 80,000 people and whatever backstage. And I see Ronnie and I walk over and to say hello to him and he looks at me, he goes, New Jersey Mob Rules, right? Meadowlands, you're with Jimmy. And I was like, you remember that?

• 19:00Billy Corgan?

  Well, he was like. Dio, Dio was a mythical creature.

• 19:03Speaker 03

  He was like, it was only like five years ago, like, and he goes, and I remember you telling me about your band Anthrax. It's like not a name you forget. And, and, and here you are.

• 19:12Billy Corgan?

  Cool.

• 19:13Speaker 03

  We're playing a show together. He's like, you did it. You know, I was, I couldn't believe it.

• 19:17Billy Corgan?

  That's amazing. Um.

• 19:21Billy Corgan?

  What was it about that culture for you? I have my own Chicago impression of that. And I'm going to loosely call it like metal culture. In a way, it was like an alternative culture. It wasn't alternative rock, but it was. It was alternative in that you either had to be a fan and you either had to be in it. And metal fans were constantly testing whether you were really in it or you were just a poser. Right?

• 19:47Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 19:47Billy Corgan?

  What was it about that culture that attracted you so deeply?

• 19:52Speaker 03

  Ah, well, I mean, you know, obviously.

• 19:55Billy Corgan?

  You spent your life in it now.

• 19:56Speaker 03

  It starts with the music that that moved me.

• 19:59Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 20:00Speaker 03

  The music just made me feel. I didn't know what a mosh pit was yet, but it made me feel like I wanted to do that with my body. And then, of course, when I finally started going to hardcore shows in the early eighties, I got to physically experience that. And the catharsis of that was even better than going to a metal show.

• 20:19Billy Corgan?

  You're wearing bad, you're wearing bad rapture. I mean, one of the greats.

• 20:22Speaker 03

  You know, banging my head and my fist and, and all that was, was great at shows. But then that next level of, of getting in mosh pits and stage diving. And that was really the catharsis I had been looking for. And it was, it's the music. It just makes me, I can't help myself. It's almost like it's, it's just involuntary. It's an involuntary reaction to a sound that I have no control over.

• 20:44Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 20:45Speaker 03

  Charlie starts playing the drums. I start head banging. It just, I can't control.

• 20:49Billy Corgan?

  Well, that's the enduring image in my mind of watching you from the side of a stage and watching you enjoy playing.

• 20:56Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 20:57Billy Corgan?

  It's hard to explain other, if somebody doesn't know what that looks like, if they don't know you or know your band, but that's my enduring image of you is enjoying the show through you.

• 21:07Speaker 03

  Thank you. But yeah, I loved it. And the culture was still, it was still so small. I went to a high school that had like 3,500 kids in Bayside, Queens. And there was maybe eight of us that had long hair and leather jackets and rock t-shirts.

• 21:23Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 21:24Speaker 03

  And we would all sit at the same table at lunch and someone would always have a little boombox with a cassette. And we were always trying to one up with each other every week, coming in with a new, a new tape. Have you heard this? Like, I remember my friend David, when he came in with Van Halen one and he had Eruption queued up. And he's like, check this out. And everyone sits there all like, okay, let's see what you got. And he starts Eruption and it was literally seven jaws on the ground. You know, all the rest of us just play it again and again and again and again. And no one knew what he was doing.

• 21:56Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 21:57Speaker 03

  Like, and that's what we did. That's what I did all through high school. Like, was me and my close knit group of friends. And that's how I met Danny Looker, who I, we co-founded Anthrax together in 81. And, um, and started going to shows, like I said, 78, 79 and 80. Anyway, I, I had no money either. I didn't have money. I would work any job, do anything I can just to either be able to buy tickets to shows or gear, you know, somehow, you know, buy it, go get a new fuzz box or save up for an amp. Or, um, that's, that was my whole life. It's all I cared about was going to shows and buying gear. And that, that was it. And finding my people, like-minded people, like that's how I met Charlie.

• 22:40Speaker 03

  Because he was a guy, I would see Charlie at shows before I knew him, years before.

• 22:46Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 22:46Speaker 03

  Anthrax was a band and Frankie, you know, I would see those guys at shows and turn out, by 83, it turns out we had a mutual friend and that's how the, like, kind of they came into the band.

• 22:57Billy Corgan?

  And what was it? What was it about the rhythm guitar? Cause you know, as you know, coming in the metal thing, you know, you, you, most people want to be shredders. I wanted to be a shredder. My whole life was trying to be Yngwie for about two years, you know?

• 23:10Speaker 03

  Right.

• 23:11Billy Corgan?

  But what was it about rhythm that, that attracted you?

• 23:15Speaker 03

  I think it was.

• 23:16Billy Corgan?

  Cause you kind of own being a rhythm guitar player in a way that most guys don't. And when I think of rhythm guys, Malcolm Young, sure, obviously, and Keith Richards, right?

• 23:25Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 23:25Billy Corgan?

  It's like, like they own the idea of like, no, I play rhythm.

• 23:28Speaker 03

  Right.

• 23:29Billy Corgan?

  Like, that's what I do. Like it's, but not, it's not, not a long lineage of guys that are rhythm guys.

• 23:35Speaker 03

  And then, well, Rudolph Shanker.

• 23:36Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, Rudolph.

• 23:37Speaker 03

  Johnny Ramone, um, uh, of course. I, I consider, even though he plays a whole bunch of leads, Tony Iommi, the consummate, you know, basically invented and created the riffs that the whole scene, I came out of, you know? Tony, um.

• 23:54Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 23:56Speaker 03

  I, it was just a thing, I think it, it really comes from the fact that I didn't have the patience to sit and learn the leads. When I would sit with a record and slow it down to 16 and try and learn the solos on an Aerosmith record or Kiss or ACDC or whoever, Sabbath, I would try and learn the solos and I would get frustrated and I'd try and I would try and meanwhile, I'd already know the, all the chords to the song. I could play the song from start to finish. I could play the rhythm guitar part. I didn't even know it was called rhythm guitar.

• 24:29Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 24:29Speaker 03

  I was just like, I know the chords, but it's going to take me a month to learn the solo. When I could learn the whole album in the time it's going to take me to. And it really came out of that. So you could either call it laziness or just the, the frustration at it that I couldn't just pick that part up as quick as I could. I could learn the chords like that.

• 24:50Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 24:51Speaker 03

  But I couldn't learn the solo like that. And that's, I just, that's what I just kept doing.

• 24:57Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 24:57Speaker 03

  After that. And I guess at some point when I did realize what rhythm guitar, like, oh, Malcolm, he's the rhythm. Oh, Angus plays all the leads. He plays the chords too, but he plays all the solos. But Malcolm's the guy playing all the chords and writing all the songs. Oh, Tony, he's playing all the chords and writing most of the songs. And, uh, you know, Johnny Ramone, okay, he's playing all the chords and he's, and like, that's what was in my head. It's like, the guy that plays the chords writes the songs. Of course, that didn't hold up once Anthrax really got going.

• 25:28Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 25:29Speaker 03

  But, uh, that's, that was what was in my brain as like a 14 and a 15 year old, you know, trying to learn how to play guitar.

• 25:37Billy Corgan?

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• 27:48Billy Corgan?

  It strikes me that's a bit of a New York thing that, cause your band has notoriously had about like 400 different lineups.

• 27:54Speaker 03

  But not. Really?

• 27:56Billy Corgan?

  Well, yes and no, but, but I, no, but I was literally reading about you and I'm like, and then so and so joined for two months and then he let-

• 28:02Speaker 03

  Well, those, yeah, the first three years.

• 28:04Billy Corgan?

  But I'm, but I'm not, it's not an accusation about your band. I'm saying it seems to me to be a very much a New York thing that there's a lot of people shifting bands. Does that seem accurate to you?

• 28:15Speaker 03

  Not, not to me, really.

• 28:17Billy Corgan?

  Maybe to a Chicagoan.

• 28:18Speaker 03

  We've had, me, Charlie, Frankie and Joey have, I mean, with little detours here and there, we've been together in a band, me, Charlie and Frankie have been together since 1984.

• 28:32Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 28:32Speaker 03

  You know?

• 28:34Billy Corgan?

  Maybe I was just reading about the form, early formations of the band.

• 28:36Speaker 03

  The early formation years, yeah. It was like basically like, you don't have 20 bucks for the rehearsal studio, you're fired. Like-

• 28:42Billy Corgan?

  That's what I'm saying, but it, it struck me because when we first started going to New York, we'd meet people and they would be like, oh, so and so, he was in this band for two months. And then we were like, it seems so strange to us.

• 28:52Speaker 03

  I get that.

• 28:52Billy Corgan?

  Okay, that's what I'm saying. It seemed like a New York scene thing that there was a lot of moving around.

• 28:56Speaker 03

  I get that. And I think that was already, that was because that was already at a time where there were, there was no scene when we started in 81. There was zero metal scene.

• 29:07Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 29:07Speaker 03

  There were two metal bands in New York playing original songs, us and Overkill.

• 29:13Billy Corgan?

  Wow.

• 29:13Speaker 03

  Like, that was it. There was no scene at all. And you couldn't, we couldn't get gigs. Nobody would book us unless we played covers. There was, so there wasn't even people from, you could, actually though, Danny Spitz, our lead guitar player, original lead guitar player, was in Overkill before he was in Anthrax. So to your point, yes, okay. I agree.

• 29:34Billy Corgan?

  It's just, it's a curiosity question. It's just curiosity question. Cause coming from Chicago, which is very parochial, where we would go to New York, we were like, you would meet people and be like, I was in this band for two months and then this band. And we were like, everybody had a resume.

• 29:49Speaker 03

  Yeah, there were so many more bands at that point, in every scene, in metal and punk and alternative and everything. There's so many more bands.

• 29:56Billy Corgan?

  I love that, correct me if I'm wrong, but the, the name was chosen because it sounded sufficiently evil. Is that, is that accurate?

• 30:03Speaker 03

  Danny Loker, walking home from school one day,

• 30:07Speaker 03

  says, I learned about this, this crazy thing in like biology called Anthrax today. This spore and it's could be used in biological warfare and all this. And he goes, this is a crazy thing to learn about. And I was like, Anthrax, Anthrax. Sounds like a good metal band name. And I, I said to him, I said, when your band White Heat breaks up, because I wanted to form a band with Danny, but he, he was in, which was of course from the Judas Priest song, White Heat Red Hot.

• 30:34Billy Corgan?

  I was gonna say.

• 30:34Speaker 03

  And I wanted to be in a band with Danny, but he had a band, which was already, we were in Queens and his band would play in the, like Manhattan, which was a big deal at the time, playing originals, like in 1980. And all I wanted to do was be in a band with Danny. And I said, when White Heat breaks up, you and I'll start that band called Anthrax. And he's like, White Heat's not breaking up. And six months later, of course, but-

• 30:58Billy Corgan?

  See, to my point.

• 30:59Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's, that's where it, that's, that's where it came from.

• 31:01Billy Corgan?

  Did you guys have a, did you have a vision, this is 81-ish, early days, but like, did you have a vision of what you want to sound like? Because it's always interesting to me when bands don't know where everything is going. So is there, is there an original, like, gee, if we could sound like that or?

• 31:18Speaker 03

  We, in 1981, it was all about Iron Maiden and Motorhead for us. Priest two, of course. We used to open our show with, Danny would play Prelude on the piano and then we'd go in the Tyrant. Because nobody even knew. We would play like a church basement and people thought it was an original, like-

• 31:41Billy Corgan?

  It was hard to get, it was hard, especially those early Priest records. They were all on import and stuff. It was hard to get those records, I found.

• 31:47Speaker 03

  We would go to Bleecker Bob's in Greenwich Village and he had everything.

• 31:50Billy Corgan?

  That's the, the advantage of living in New York. Chicago was like, you had to have a buddy that was ordering a mail order and-

• 31:56Speaker 03

  Yep. But yeah, Motorhead and Maiden were the main two things. And we were like, if those bands had a baby, but a really terrible baby, like really challenged in many ways. So that's, we were trying our best.

• 32:13Billy Corgan?

  Yes. There's the apocryphal meeting of Metallica. They're coming in to record their record. Is it Megaforce? Is it like, well, yeah. And you guys kind of met them at the curb and is that, is that a true story?

• 32:25Speaker 03

  It is, it is. We were rehearsing at the Music Building in Jamaica, Queens, which was basically a, a burnt out office building that someone had the bright idea, oh, well, this could either be a squat or I could rent it to bands. So you, for 300 bucks a month, you had 24/7 access to a room. And yeah, so Johnny Z, John Zazula, who started Megaforce Records and he was also, he, he had signed us, Metallica and this band from Newcastle called Raven, from New Wave of British Heavy Metal days. And so he was bringing Metallica in from the Bay Area to come to New York, rehearse for a while, then go up to Rochester to record Kill Em All. They had a, he's some,

• 33:11Speaker 03

  Johnny knew nothing about, it wasn't like he was some music business guy. He knew nothing other than he had a, an import record stand in a flea market in Old Bridge, New Jersey. And he loved the music and he loved the scene around it. Like, and it was like, he loved metal and he loved the hard rock. He also loved the Grateful Dead. I always forgave him for that. But he, and the people that would come to his record stand on the weekends, it was only open on the weekends at this indoor flea market thing down in Old Bridge, New Jersey.

• 33:47Speaker 03

  It was like a scene and people would come hang out there and he saw something happening.

• 33:53Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 33:53Speaker 03

  You know? And so when he got that No Life to Leather demo, and I remember being at the store on a Saturday, because me and Danny would drive down from New York. And I'm at the store and he's like, hey, why, where do you hear this? Where do you hear this tape I got? This band called Metallica from San Francisco. And I'm like, cool, cool. But also already feeling jealous, like, because pay attention to Anthrax over here. Cause Johnny was the guy to know. Johnny was the guy who brought Raven and Anvil to New York.

• 34:23Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 34:24Speaker 03

  To play shows together. Johnny was bringing Venom over to play shows.

• 34:28Billy Corgan?

  Oh, okay.

• 34:28Speaker 03

  He already was like, I'm gonna promote shows for bands and nobody, the, the big promoters don't pay attention to. And I'm gonna get this music heard. And we're like, this is the guy we need to hitch our wagon to. And so he puts No Life to Leather on in the, in the store. And instantly, I mean, the guitars, I was like, oh.

• 34:48Billy Corgan?

  What's the first song? Do you remember?

• 34:49Speaker 03

  I think it was Hit the Lights, maybe. Just like on the album.

• 34:53Billy Corgan?

  Yeah. Once you hear that sound.

• 34:55Speaker 03

  That riff comes in and, and the guitars, I was like, oh my God, this is like, this is like better than Motorhead. And that was blasphemy, right? I thought that. I was like, this is even better.

• 35:08Billy Corgan?

  And a lightning bolt came down.

• 35:10Speaker 03

  Listen to these guitars. I mean, and I was like, these guys are so far ahead of us already. And, you know, it was like, whatever it was, four or five songs. And I said, can I have that? And he goes, it's my only copy, but I'll, I'll run you one.

• 35:24Billy Corgan?

  Wow.

• 35:24Speaker 03

  So he ran me a copy and, and yeah. And, and then like me and Loker were like, man, we gotta get to work. Like-

• 35:33Billy Corgan?

  Isn't it, that's just, I love to pause time occasionally, think about that. So there you are. You don't know who this band is. And you're hearing, we's now one of the great bands of all time, but all you know is just some band.

• 35:46Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 35:46Billy Corgan?

  You know what I mean? And your first reaction is like, what the?

• 35:49Speaker 03

  Yeah, unbelievable. It was like someone had made it for me. Like someone had decided this, this is the best possible combination of sounds for Scott. Is he will love this more than anything he's heard up until this point. And it's exactly what it was. I mean, I've never heard anything as powerful as that demo.

• 36:08Billy Corgan?

  And thankfully, you know, about a million kids turn around and agree.

• 36:12Speaker 03

  I mean, it was just so, again, I'm getting the chills thinking about it. The two guitars like were so, you know, the Mstain and James, the two guitars were so tight. Left and right, you know, and, and their rhythm tones and everything about it. Oh my God. And the riffs and, and then the, you know, the bass player, like what the is that guy doing? You know, it's like, you know, it was just, it was just incredible. And then Johnny said, so I, I said, wow, that's like, that's, they're amazing. They're, what are they doing? You know? And he goes, they play local shows, you know, they play around the Bay Area. I think they're going down to LA to, to play like, they're gonna open for Saxon and you know, they was like, they had little things going on here and there. He goes, but he goes,

• 36:56Speaker 03

  I'm gonna, I'm gonna get them a record deal. I'm taking this to New York and I'm going to all the labels and I'm gonna get them a record deal. I'll be the manager. And, and I was like, wow, that's amazing. Of course, famously, he sat in every A and R guy's office and they all sat there like this and kicked him out of the office. So he decided, all right, nobody wants this. I know the world needs this. I'm gonna, I'm gonna start a record label. I was like, how do you, you know, this is like weeks later. You know how to do that? How you start a label? He goes, no, no, but I'll, I'll-

• 37:30Billy Corgan?

  I'll figure it out.

• 37:30Speaker 03

  I'll figure it out. And Johnny was not a wealthy man at all, you know, straight middle, middle class. Like he took a little money he had. And he figured out how they could go to, they found a studio up in Rochester. It was called Barrett Alley, I believe at the time. And I made a deal with the guy who owned the studio and yeah, I guess obviously affordable where he knew I could put Metallica in a U-Haul, get them to New York, get them a room at the Music Building. Scott's gonna help me with that. And then they're gonna rehearse. They're gonna play some local shows in the area, which Anthrax played with Metallica. And then they're going up to Rochester to record Kill Em All.

• 38:10Billy Corgan?

  Did you, did you go to some of those sessions?

• 38:12Speaker 03

  Not up in Rochester, no. But I was in the Music Building with them for months.

• 38:18Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 38:18Speaker 03

  You know, when they got to New York, I was the guy, me and Danny were the guys greeting them at the Music Building. We were the ones who had to basically tell them, because they asked, and where are we staying? And I was like, oh, Johnny didn't- Well, as far as I know, you guys are staying here. And this was nowhere you wanted to stay. You know, cold, only cold water taps in the disgusting bathrooms and, you know, it was a burnt out squat of a building. And, uh, and they lived there for a couple of months. We would take them back to our houses to shower. If you know, we would, we gave them our toaster oven that we had in our room. We gave them the refrigerator we had in our room. We were like,

• 39:01Speaker 03

  you guys need it more than we do right now. And, um, yeah, we were, and I used to sit in the room with them at night. When they would start, because those guys drank. We didn't drink in Anthrax.

• 39:12Billy Corgan?

  Both, both James back then and, and Mustang were big drinkers.

• 39:16Speaker 03

  Those guys, all of them. Those guys hit it hard. And so this was like a new thing for me. I didn't even know this. So like, those, these guys, you know, they would wake up mid afternoon. And like, they wouldn't even start jamming till like late in the afternoon or early evening. Like they would start rehearsing and so we'd already be done. And then I would just go to their room and sit in there. And it would, they were the first band I ever saw rehearse where they had the drum kit, you know, was against the wall facing into the room, but they didn't set up their amps like a backline, like you were playing a show. They set the amps up in a semicircle facing Lars in. And they would stand in that middle zone where the guitars would just

• 39:58Speaker 03

  tearing your heads off. And I, I would sit in that little zone while they were playing in between James and Dave's stacks. So I was getting hit by both of them like equally. And I would just be like,

• 40:12Speaker 03

  this is, these guys are the best. Like their hands, you know, they're both their ability as rhythm players and the downpicking. And it's just like, man, this is, it's a, it's another level. I had never felt anything like that.

• 40:27Billy Corgan?

  So this is interesting, right? So there you are, literally, you know, they're totally unknown.

• 40:33Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 40:33Billy Corgan?

  By every other metric and, and you, you're in the middle of this circle with two visionary guitarists.

• 40:42Speaker 03

  And Cliff Burton, who was another level, uh, onto, you know what I mean? Like, like these guys are, it's super tight and all that. And then you got this guy over here in his jean jacket with a Skinnerd pin in his, in his flare jeans with his big Morley wah. You know, playing with his fingers and seemingly sometimes it's almost like he was playing nothing to do with the song they were playing, but it, it made complete sense.

• 41:09Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 41:10Speaker 03

  I had never seen anything like that either. It was like, this is like, it's like the reincarnation, even though Geezer, of course, was not dead, but it was a new version of Geezer Butler playing in this much more up tempo, fast and intense metal sound. And Cliff banged his head in rehearsal like he was playing to a stadium full of people too. That was the other thing. Like he went forward in rehearsal like it was a live show.

• 41:38Billy Corgan?

  So looking back at you then, does it surprise you that they both went on to have such distinguished?

• 41:44Speaker 03

  No, no surprise at all. You just, it's not like I had that experience with 10 other bands. Like, oh, I just happened to be sitting in the room with, with Glenn Tipton when he did this, or you know, like I'm not the zelig of heavy metal, but like, you just always knew, even in those earliest days, even when like they went out and opened for Raven in the summer of 83 in the States. And they were crushing them every night. And, uh, you know, and then they got the Ozzy tour in 86.

• 42:13Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 42:14Speaker 03

  You know, and, uh, especially then, because Ozzy was cool enough to say, these guys deserve it. I'm going to share my stage with Metallica. Their first time out in arenas. Cause people always ask, how did your scene? And I, I think after so many years of being able to look back on it, the moment when that scene, the Metallica, us Slayer, Megadeth, Exodus and so on. The, the thing that really opened the door was in 86 when Metallica opened for Ozzy. Because Metallica had already gone out, obviously in headline clubs and all that. And we had done that. And so it's Slayer and Megadeth, but

• 42:54Speaker 03

  we were banging on that door to get out and play arenas. And nobody, nobody would have us. Nobody. And then Ozzy opened that door for Metallica. And they went out on that tour and got to play to 15,000 people every night, opening for Ozzy. And maybe people heard of them, you know, maybe people didn't, but I can say.

• 43:15Billy Corgan?

  That's middle America. Yeah.

• 43:16Speaker 03

  Everybody, everybody went and bought Metallica records the next day because Kill them all, Ride the Light and Master of Puppets were all out. And everyone ran to their record store and bought a Metallica record. And that's, and then the trickle down from that into us and Slayer and Megadeth. People are like, oh my God, is there more of this?

• 43:37Billy Corgan?

  That's how I found you. I mean, you know, I mean, like I said, I was listening to Kill them all with some guy doing bong hits every five minutes.

• 43:44Speaker 03

  Right.

• 43:44Billy Corgan?

  And invariably go, there's gotta be more of this out there. Cause you know, once you exhaust what was already out there with Metallica, there was a couple of bootlegs and you're like, there's gotta be other people. And then suddenly you're listening to, you know, Kronos and you know, whatever. And people started, check out this import and it's all, you know, some of the production was dredged awful. Right. You know, you couldn't, but it was, the vibe was there.

• 44:11Speaker 03

  The vibe.

• 44:12Billy Corgan?

  Taking a step back, uh, is it true? You were there the day Mustang was fired and that whole?

• 44:18Speaker 03

  I, I showed up that day. I walked in, it was like early afternoon and Cliff was standing outside smoking a cigarette. And, uh, uh, hey man, he's like, hey, said, what's going on? Oh, not much. Uh, we fired Dave. He's on a Greyhound back to California.

• 44:38Billy Corgan?

  Wow.

• 44:39Speaker 03

  And Cliff was kind of like a very dry ballbuster.

• 44:42Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 44:43Speaker 03

  So I said, oh yeah, right. Sure. And he goes, no, I'm totally serious. I'm like, you're not going to get me.

• 44:50Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 44:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, right. You're playing La Mores on Friday with Vandenberg. I think that's who they were like, whoever.

• 44:58Billy Corgan?

  There's a name I haven't heard for a while.

• 45:00Speaker 03

  Like some gig like that in three days or four days. They had some show coming up. And, uh, he goes, bro, totally serious. He goes, go, go ask James and Lars. Okay. I'm figuring, I'm going to go, they're going to be like, what? Or I'm going to walk in, Dave's going to be asleep or in his sleeping bag, you know? And, uh, I go up to the room and I don't see Dave.

• 45:22Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 45:23Speaker 03

  And, uh, and, uh, I said to Lars, Cliff just told me you guys fired Dave. And he's like, we did, we did. I was like, what the, you know, like, oh my God, like, was this like a long time coming or like what?

• 45:38Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 45:39Speaker 03

  What the, you know, and they're like, we'd been thinking about it pretty much since we got to New York. And, you know, everybody knows the story. I don't need to get into, you know, all of that.

• 45:49Billy Corgan?

  I just think it's interesting. You're sort of witness to history.

• 45:52Speaker 03

  There and I was like, well, what are you going to do? You know, you've got gig, we have gigs. We were playing shows with them. You know, we have gigs coming up. Cause in my own, for my own selfish reasons, please don't cancel these shows. And, uh,

• 46:07Speaker 03

  then we already got a guy. He's this guy Kirk from a band called Exodus in the Bay area. He's literally flying in. Like, you know, we might need a ride. Could you pick him up? I was, turned out their guy Mark, who was with them, picked him up. But yeah, I, I, I met Kirk like the next day, you know, Kirk will be here tomorrow. He's already learning the songs and he's just going to jump right in.

• 46:28Billy Corgan?

  Yeah. Wow.

• 46:31Billy Corgan?

  I didn't know this fun fact, your first 45 Soldier of Metal, Soldiers of Metal, sorry. Uh, was produced by Ross, the boss of Manowar.

• 46:39Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 46:39Billy Corgan?

  Death, death to false metal.

• 46:41Speaker 03

  And the dictators, of course.

• 46:44Speaker 03

  Yeah. We, we became friendly with Ross. I was a big fan of Ross's from the dictators. Cause you know, those guys were like New York's finest for a small moment in time. And, uh, you know, where I was like, whatever, late seventies probably, but, uh, yeah, Manowar, that first album, I, I, I did like that first album. I will admit they kind of lost me after that. But there's something about that first record.

• 47:11Billy Corgan?

  There's something about Manowar, right?

• 47:12Speaker 03

  And Johnny Z was a, no pun intended, a big champion of Manowar. And, uh, he was really pushed them. Uh, he, I think he did the first Manowar shows in New York City. He promoted and, and, uh, but, uh, yeah, we were friendly with Ross. We met through a mutual friend and we were met, we were constantly making demos. Anytime we had another song or two written, we would make a demo, give it to Johnny Z and he would critique it, you know? And then, so I remember talking to Ross saying, we, we need help. Like we make these demos, but they always sound like, it never sound like we want them to sound. How come my guitar sounds good to me coming out of my cabinet? But then we record it and it's, it sounds this big. And it's like,

• 47:55Speaker 03

  and, uh, he's like, oh, I could help you with that. I know how, I know, I know how to mic a guitar and all these things. And, and, uh, I was like, cool, cool. So this demo we did with Ross, which we started before Charlie was even drumming. And then Charlie joined the band. And then that's Charlie on the song Soldiers of Metal. Um, on the B side of that single was the original, the older drummer Greg. But, uh, yeah, Ross produced that five song demo, which was the demo that got us signed to Megaforce.

• 48:23Billy Corgan?

  Oh, that's cool. So you guys are routinely name dropped in the big four or whatever they could, there's some certain term. Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer, Anthrax and, um,

• 48:37Billy Corgan?

  and maybe because I was there and I was listening in the early days, you know, I'm just some, you know, future goth with long hair, but, um, it does, it does, I do find it amusing that this music that seemed to come from the underground, whatever underground means anymore.

• 48:58Billy Corgan?

  Metallica's a stadium band. Slayer's still one of the greatest bands.

• 49:03Speaker 03

  Of course.

• 49:04Billy Corgan?

  Ever. I mean, go see Slayer now. It's still like,

• 49:07Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 49:08Billy Corgan?

  Oh my God, how do these guys play like this? I saw Slayer when they were breaking up the last time, whatever, you know, the, the farewell tour. I saw them in Romania and like Omaha or something. And, and I know, um, Tom Araya a little bit and, and, and I brought Jimmy Chamberlain from The Pumpkins to see them and Jimmy had never seen, wasn't necessarily a fan. And I was like, trust me.

• 49:33Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 49:34Billy Corgan?

  And about five times during the show, Jimmy looked at me and was like,

• 49:38Billy Corgan?

  Holy mother of God. And I said, I'm, that's why I was trying to tell you, there's only one Slayer. Whatever that is, is that.

• 49:44Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 49:45Billy Corgan?

  And, you know, great drums and all that. So, anyway, so, um, and then I saw him in Romania, which would have been like five shows before they were stopping. And they were better and tighter and faster. And I was like, and I said to Tom after the show, how does that work? Like, how can you be tighter and faster in Romania than you were like two months ago in Omaha? Like, huh? You know, Tommy's just like, I don't know, bro. You know, he's like the most unassuming guy.

• 50:13Speaker 03

  Right. You caught him on a good night.

• 50:18Billy Corgan?

  I guess what I'm trying to say, besides pontificating as a fan, is, is, is what was it about? These bands that were essentially nobodies at some point. I mean, like you said, the music business couldn't have given a shit about any of you guys.

• 50:36Speaker 03

  Right.

• 50:36Billy Corgan?

  Cause there's nothing commercial.

• 50:38Speaker 03

  Right.

• 50:38Billy Corgan?

  Especially early Metallica. Like it's, you don't listen and go, oh, there's the hit.

• 50:42Speaker 03

  Yeah. Yeah, of course.

• 50:44Billy Corgan?

  Even I, as a fan who was listening from the beginning, was surprised that James could write songs like The Unforgiven or something. It's like, what is that? Where's that coming from? Right?

• 50:52Speaker 03

  Right.

• 50:53Billy Corgan?

  But what do you think it was about that that translated upward over time to where it's now institutional? I mean, it's an accepted thing. You know, you ended up in one of the great bands.

• 51:06Speaker 03

  Right.

• 51:07Billy Corgan?

  And you pioneered something that is now a global phenomenon. Metal, metal. I mean, people say whatever they want about guitar music and alternative is like, you know, we had 20 years there where nobody wanted to hear guitar and alternative music for whatever reason. But in terms of metal, metal's never been stronger or bigger or

• 51:26Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 51:26Billy Corgan?

  More powerful than it is right now, I would argue.

• 51:29Speaker 03

  Yeah, we know. We feel it certainly. And, you know, and obviously we see the numbers. You see your ticket sales and go, wow, we're, you know, we're playing eight thousand.

• 51:36Billy Corgan?

  But I, but just to be fair, I was also there. I remember, I think I remember seeing you guys play with maybe Slayer and Pantera somewhere along the way. Does that sound accurate?

• 51:45Speaker 03

  We toured with, we toured with Pantera 97, 98, and of course with Slayer. I mean, we've done.

• 51:51Billy Corgan?

  But I feel like I saw you guys on some, but anyway, you would know, it doesn't matter because there's all those bills. But the point is, is I remember seeing, you know, Pantera at their, their nineties peak and then going to see a show with Slayer and it was a half full arena. And it seemed like nobody gave a shit, like it was over. And even the bands could kind of feel that. So you've seen it all go from

• 52:10Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 52:10Billy Corgan?

  Nothing to the highest heights, Metallica Black Album, couldn't have been any bigger to metal bands sort of struggling during the grunge times, like even Metallica wearing makeup. You know what I mean? It's like,

• 52:22Speaker 03

  Right.

• 52:23Billy Corgan?

  But what do you, I guess I'm asking a weird question, but what do you think it was about the thing that you saw at the beginning and you saw it as a

• 52:29Speaker 03

  Right.

• 52:30Billy Corgan?

  As a fan, as a musician, that is now translated to what it is now?

• 52:36Speaker 03

  I used to just think it was because I was just a, just such a persistent prick, just like, what I'm doing is great and everybody should like it. But, uh, but you know, I just think we really did have all, all the bands you've mentioned and, and more bands that for some, one reason or another, didn't make it out of the eighties.

• 53:02Speaker 03

  But, uh, there was, I, I just think we all made our marks so deeply on the planet at, at one point in time. Everyone had that one album that did it. For us specifically, it was Among the Living. When that came out in 87. It, but let me backtrack. When we were writing that record and we had Indians and I'm the Law and Caught in the Mosh and we were writing these songs. We knew we had something, certainly better than what we had done previously. Spreading the Disease was a great, it was second album, great record. But now we've got these songs out of, these are better than anything on that record. We've like taken a huge leap forward.

• 53:44Speaker 03

  Like Charlie, our drummer, who from that point in time, like towards the end of the Spreading the Disease sessions, became the guy writing probably 90% of the riffs.

• 53:54Billy Corgan?

  Oh, wow.

• 53:54Speaker 03

  Actually, because I started, I became the guy writing lyrics because we had a different singer on our first album. And then, and he wrote all the lyrics. And once he was, he was out after the first tour, who's writing the lyrics? And I was just like, I'll try. It was like, like, like being there.

• 54:13Billy Corgan?

  It's like, well, you know, Geezer wrote the lyrics. So it wasn't that strange.

• 54:16Speaker 03

  Nobody told me I couldn't. So I figured, why not? I'll try. But anyway, Charlie had really come into his own going into that Among the Living record. And the demos, I was like, these songs are insane. Like we knew we had something. And that hadn't happened. I didn't have that feeling before. I loved Fistful of Metal and Spreading the Disease. And I thought things were cool and we're, we're making our way forward as a band. But then with Among the Living, I was like, this is undeniable. Stepping outside myself and look, listening as a fan, thinking, this is great. This means something. Master of Puppets from Metallica, uh, Reigning Blood for Slayer and, and, uh,

• 54:59Speaker 03

  for me, it was mega the second album. People always argue that second or third album. But, uh, for me, um, but we all, we all made our marks with a record that resonated so deeply. I feel like it, for, it's generational. It's, they became these records that were just like, they were, they became must haves. And I know for us, since Among the Living, even through the hardest times in the nineties, um, we've been able to have a career as long as we wanted one and do it however we want to do it and call the shots. And, uh, and it's never changed since 1987.

• 55:39Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, I remember because I, I was listening and, um,

• 55:44Billy Corgan?

  and tell me, because you were there. I'm just a guy listening on the other end, but

• 55:50Billy Corgan?

  it struck me, there was something, uh, because when you talk about identity, right?

• 55:55Speaker 03

  Right.

• 55:56Billy Corgan?

  There was something about whatever corner you turned around that time that felt like you were bringing together your set of influences your own way. And it was, the way I thought it was, it felt to me very New York. And there were other bands around like Prong and, you know what I mean? Like there was a New York take on metal that was New York.

• 56:18Speaker 03

  Right.

• 56:18Billy Corgan?

  Can you? Right. Okay. I, I remember seeing Helmet like in, I think we opened for Helmet in 89 one time. Uh, or I was at the show. I can't remember, you know, it all blurs. But the point is, is at least from my vantage point, listening in Chicago, I was like, they're finding this kind of New York thing, which is very different than what you would call the West Coast version of it. The Slayer Metallica.

• 56:43Billy Corgan?

  It felt like the, the street of New York, maybe. Maybe that was the coming of rap and that scene. Can you, can you talk about that? Or was it maybe just being in it? I, I'm, I'm, I'm having trouble finding the words because, but I know that whatever it was, I recognized that there was something different about you.

• 57:02Speaker 03

  Sure. And I think because like Helmet, Prong, bands like that, that started coming like later eighties.

• 57:09Billy Corgan?

  Is it a simple, it almost was in a way a simplicity?

• 57:12Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 57:12Billy Corgan?

  That's not to say it lacks musicality.

• 57:14Speaker 03

  And that comes from the hardcore scene.

• 57:16Billy Corgan?

  Okay. Thank you. Yeah. That's what I was after.

• 57:17Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 57:18Billy Corgan?

  All of a sudden it felt like you guys got clearer somehow.

• 57:22Speaker 03

  Yes. The big thing that changed for us was we had made our first album and that album was mostly songs that were written even before Charlie was in the band before, you know, they were songs that were very early songs, most of them. And, uh, then, you know, Joey Belladonna joins, uh, in 1984. And at that point, I'm going to hardcore shows every Sunday at CBGB's. I'm at every Sunday matinee. If I'm home, I'm there. And because in 82, I went to my first true punk show. I saw The Exploited, first time I saw Mosh, but I'd seen the Ramones in the seventies. But it was at Queens College. I was a teenager. It was a completely different thing. I go see The Exploited in 82 at Great Gilder sleeves, which is the

• 58:07Speaker 03

  club that should have been as famous as CBGB's. It was literally a block north on the Bowery, but nobody knows about it because it closed so long ago. But everybody played Gilder sleeves. All the same bands you hear about from the CB scene were also playing there.

• 58:20Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 58:20Speaker 03

  Anyway, I see The Exploited there in 82 and I'm up in this little crow's nest. They had, uh, with Danny Looker and the first singer, Neil from Anthrax. And I see slam dancing for the first time. And I'm like, I gotta get in there. And I start climbing down to get in there and Neil grabbed me and he's like, you can't, you can't go in there. You'll get the shit kicked out of you. And I'm like, why? He goes, because the skinheads don't like long hairs. And of course that made no sense in my, I didn't, didn't know what that meant then. Of course I found out it was true later on when I became friends with lots of skinheads. And, and I asked him about that and they were like, yeah, I was at that show. I probably would have beaten you up for being there at the time. And, uh,

• 59:04Speaker 03

  but, uh, yeah, it was the hardcore scene. Charlie and I and Frankie all got really into hardcore and especially the New York hardcore scene, Agnostic Front and Cro-Mags and Murphy's Law and

• 59:15Billy Corgan?

  Cro-Mags.

• 59:16Speaker 03

  Adrenaline overdose and on and on, the Crumb Suckers and on and on and on.

• 59:21Billy Corgan?

  Sorry, just to, because, because, so the Chicago version, right? You know, because I was hanging out with a lot of skinheads and punks too. And suddenly it was like, there were those people that were really into the Cro-Mags. It was almost like a religion.

• 59:34Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 59:34Billy Corgan?

  And I would listen, I'd be like, I don't get it. And it was like, almost like I was saying something heretical, right? Like, what was it about Cro-Mags fans?

• 59:43Speaker 03

  They were like so. They were probably the hardest band, like, at the time.

• 59:50Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 59:50Speaker 03

  And, and it attracted, don't get me wrong, it's not like Agnostic Front wasn't.

• 59:54Billy Corgan?

  No, but it was something about, no, I'm saying, but it was something about Cro-Mags fans.

• 59:57Speaker 03

  Yes. Well, I think, yes. It probably just came from Harley, because Harley, their bass player, Harley Flanagan, he had such a personality and such an attitude. And, you know, I, I went to shows all the time and I, I knew him enough, kind of peripherally, where I was okay as a long hair going there and we would talk and say hi and, and I'd never, I never gave him a reason in the eighties to beat me up. Like, you know, I, I, I was smart enough to, you stay out of certain dudes' way. And that, of course, attracted a certain type of fan as well. And it wasn't to say that a Cro-Mags pit was people punching each other, because it wasn't.

• 1:00:38Speaker 03

  Because if you started doing that at a Cro-Mags show, the skinheads would beat you up and throw you out. It was, you know, that scene at that time was very small, close knit. You'd go down in that pit and you'd dance and, and it's not about throwing elbows and throwing fists and all that. Um, but yeah, they definitely had the most intense pits. Like, I would get nervous going to see Cro-Mags on a Sunday because I, I pretty much knew I'm coming out of this bleeding from somewhere. Like, for sure. And with a smile on my face at the same time. But you always knew at some point you're gonna catch an elbow accidentally, or catch a foot, or something.

• 1:01:16Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:16Speaker 03

  And, and it was, it was all part of the fun, actually.

• 1:01:19Billy Corgan?

  You've distinguished yourself, you're on the rise, now you start getting these gigs. You're opening for Sabbath, When in the Weird Times, Seventh Star, which is like my most puzzling, what's going on with Tony at that time?

• 1:01:30Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:01:31Billy Corgan?

  Sabbath with Tony Iommi, you're Tony Iommi Sabbath.

• 1:01:34Speaker 03

  We heard, we heard a story that that was supposed to be, it was just gonna be a Tony Iommi record. It was gonna be solo.

• 1:01:42Billy Corgan?

  Tony told me that story. They, they kinda, they told him it's just gonna be a solo record. And then when the album came out, they kinda.

• 1:01:47Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:01:47Billy Corgan?

  Swerved them, yeah.

• 1:01:48Speaker 03

  Let's put the name on it, because we'll sell more copies.

• 1:01:51Billy Corgan?

  Yeah. But how was it, uh,

• 1:01:56Billy Corgan?

  how can I put it? Was it weird for you? A, you're opening for your heroes, but your heroes aren't necessarily, in this case, in the Sabbath moment, it's like, they're not in the best spot.

• 1:02:07Speaker 03

  It wasn't, it wasn't our Black Sabbath. But, but it was still Tony.

• 1:02:13Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:13Speaker 03

  And at some point, Geezer was in that lineup, too.

• 1:02:17Billy Corgan?

  But I went through that too, where I would, you know, when I was the only member of my band for a while. And I would have bands open for me, you could tell, they were like, they were fans, but they didn't really give a shit what I was doing. And it wasn't really pumpkins to them. So I, I dealt with it the other way.

• 1:02:31Speaker 03

  Got it, yeah. Yeah, we, we were just so thrilled. I mean, you know, we probably got the call about those shows in like, late eighty-five, I would assume, or something. And, uh, you know, all we know is, we're getting to go out on a six-week run with Black Sabbath.

• 1:02:47Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:47Speaker 03

  In like, the spring of eighty-six.

• 1:02:48Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:49Speaker 03

  And we see, you know, the Metal Lands, the Brendan Byrne Arena is on the list. And we're like, we can't believe this, you know, it's our first arena shows.

• 1:02:56Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:57Speaker 03

  So, even though it, it wasn't the Ozzy lineup, it wasn't the Dio lineup. We loved Glenn Hughes, you know, the guy was one of my favorite singers. And, uh, and it's Tony, so our whole attitude was just like, it's Black Sabbath, you know, we don't care. And he's giving us the chance to, to come out and do this with them. And, uh, yeah, we only, the tour only lasted for us, it was supposed to be like, six weeks. And I think we did six shows. And then it kinda fell apart. I think they did a few more shows after we went home. And then the whole tour came down, because, I mean, we played to, we were on first, it was Anthrax, Wasp, Black Sabbath. So we were on first.

• 1:03:41Speaker 03

  And even in New Jersey, which was probably the best-selling show of that run, I think they did maybe eight thousand or something.

• 1:03:48Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:48Speaker 03

  Half House. Um, you know, we still played to three thousand people that night. So even though it's a lot of empty seats, we were the glass half-full kind of guys of, well, that's way more people than we play if we were headlining in New Jersey tonight.

• 1:04:04Billy Corgan?

  My, my first, I don't, I can't pin when I first met you. We've run each other many times through the years, but my first thought of you, uh, because of course, you're, you're the guy in the metal band. My first impression of you as a person, personally, was that, how open-minded you were. Where most metal guys were kinda like, they lived in metal world.

• 1:04:25Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:04:26Billy Corgan?

  And if you were in metal world, like, you kinda didn't exist.

• 1:04:29Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:04:29Billy Corgan?

  Even if they knew who you were, they'd be like, like, kind of a vibe.

• 1:04:32Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:04:33Billy Corgan?

  And you were the first metal musician I'd ever met that was like, curious, interested. You knew kind of what was going on with some of the alternative bands.

• 1:04:42Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 1:04:42Billy Corgan?

  And I was like, oh, this is not the normal cat.

• 1:04:46Billy Corgan?

  Um, so that's a compliment, but I, but, but.

• 1:04:49Speaker 03

  No, I take it as a compliment, sure.

• 1:04:51Billy Corgan?

  But, um, and even feeding into when you work with Public Enemy, I think one beautiful thing about your musical life is that, even though you so were, you were so passionate about hard rock and basically part of the pioneering group that created thrash metal, or whatever we want to call it.

• 1:05:07Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 1:05:08Billy Corgan?

  Institutional metal.

• 1:05:11Billy Corgan?

  Because it is institutional at this point. But I was, but I, but I think it's a, it's, it's a great service to you, that you, that somehow your openness, it, it not only infused your musical life, but it also sort of made you a unique person in the, in the musical community. Is that a fair thing to say?

• 1:05:30Speaker 03

  Sure, yeah. I, I definitely came from the scene where killing posers, you know, was a badge of honor. Paul Bailoff, the original singer of Exodus, famously, you know, kill posers. And I don't know that he actually ever murdered anybody, but he, like, I would hear stories from Gary from Exodus where, Paul would whip out a switchblade if he saw like, a kid at a show with a rat shirt, you know, or say. And he'd give the, he would like, take that off. And if the person would say no, he would take his knife and cut the shirt off him. Like, and I love that from afar. I like being a fan of that, even as ignorant as that is.

• 1:06:13Speaker 03

  Um, uh, it's not, I never, I never took it that far. But I definitely had my time. There was, there was a moment in time, in the early eighties, where it was all about, it was only metal and hardcore. But at that same time, I loved rap music as much as I loved metal. From the first time I heard Run DMC, it, it hit me as hard as Slayer, as hard as Venom. Their voices together created this sonic thing that moved me in the exact same way as all the other music I loved.

• 1:06:48Billy Corgan?

  And we were, we sat there that one day with, with Run, and he was literally saying he was inspired by Judas Priest.

• 1:06:53Speaker 03

  Right. Oh, with, with Darryl, with DMC.

• 1:06:55Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, sorry, Dacey, yeah. I mean, so even that beautiful sort of connection.

• 1:07:01Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:07:02Billy Corgan?

  Where he was saying, we were trying to get the feeling of that.

• 1:07:05Speaker 03

  So for me, it was like, I, I always looked at it as, it's just about music that moves me.

• 1:07:12Billy Corgan?

  But you know how rare that is.

• 1:07:13Speaker 03

  Of course.

• 1:07:13Billy Corgan?

  In the, in the metal world.

• 1:07:14Speaker 03

  And there's so many others, like, that, whether, because of all the shit I grew up with, like, even stuff that was more my, my parents' music. I've loved Elton John since I was like, seven or eight years old, still to this day.

• 1:07:28Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:28Speaker 03

  I even love the stuff that people, like, I love, like, uh, I guess they, that's why they call it the blues. Like, and I know people are like, oh, that's what sucks. I'm like, I just have such a soft spot for it, for some reason. And, uh, but I, I, so much music, I, I've always been open-minded. I loved disco in the seventies, um, because of the groove.

• 1:07:52Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:52Speaker 03

  The groove of it was undeniable. But the, the musicianship, those dudes playing bass and guitar, and that, you mean, you know.

• 1:07:59Billy Corgan?

  But again, you know how.

• 1:08:00Speaker 03

  I loved all kinds of music. Of course, I kept it quiet a lot because I was the metal guy.

• 1:08:06Billy Corgan?

  But you know how rare in the metal community it is that they give a shit about anybody outside the metal community?

• 1:08:12Speaker 03

  Very rare.

• 1:08:13Billy Corgan?

  The only people I've ever met that really do pay attention outside is you and Lars.

• 1:08:19Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:08:19Billy Corgan?

  Where they actually are fans of other types of music and are supportive and actually, and I'm not saying, James Hetfield doesn't like me or my band. James has always treated me great. But you got the feeling James really only liked Waylon Jennings and.

• 1:08:34Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:08:35Billy Corgan?

  And, and, and.

• 1:08:36Speaker 03

  And Sabbath, yeah.

• 1:08:37Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, whatever, whatever obscure metal band it is.

• 1:08:39Speaker 03

  Right, right.

• 1:08:40Billy Corgan?

  You got that feeling when you're talking to them, you know, there's kind of a glaze when you start talking about your world, because your world is not their world.

• 1:08:47Speaker 03

  It's funny, and I get that, and I totally get what that comes from, because stereotypes do come from the reality.

• 1:08:54Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:54Speaker 03

  Of things. And most ninety-something percent at least of metal dudes, fans, guys in bands I've met in my whole life are that guy. Like, I only listen to this, I only eat this, I only, you know, this, that's who they are, and God bless them. But, uh, yeah, but

• 1:09:17Speaker 03

  there's a lot of us who looked at the burgeoning alternative scene when that first started happening in the eighties. Whether it was Janes or whoever, like, I remember seeing Janes at a place called The World, like, in, in downtown in the city, on the first record, I think.

• 1:09:34Billy Corgan?

  Eighty, eighty-seven, probably.

• 1:09:35Speaker 03

  Yeah, they hadn't blown up yet. And I thought they were amazing. And, and that's when like, Dave and Perry made out on stage. And I'm, like, me and maybe like, two other people I knew in the audience were metal people. And it was, I didn't know who all these other people were. Like, how do they know about this band? And, uh, I knew about it because I'd see it in their record store. And it's like, it had a heavy guitar on it.

• 1:09:57Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:57Speaker 03

  I gave it a chance. And, uh, and, uh, and I thought they were amazing. But then, I also, there was the myth and the, the, the stereotype of people from alternative bands hated metal.

• 1:10:12Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:13Speaker 03

  Because they thought we were cavemen. And then, of course, I would meet, everyone I would meet in bands was never, it was, that was never the case. So.

• 1:10:21Billy Corgan?

  Um, so where I was leading with this line of thought was, uh, You know, because we were at Q Prime in the 90s. Metallica was there, they're still kind of there, I guess. But, but, um, you know, watching, you know, the, the, the number one metal band in the world sort of struggle with alternative, you know, were you guys, because of your connection to Public Enemy and your, you, you being open to be on MTV, like, I think you guys made a much easier transition into the 90s.

• 1:10:56Speaker 03

  Yes and no. I mean, the bottom fell out business wise for a while, but we just, you know, we just kind of put our heads down and went to work.

• 1:11:03Billy Corgan?

  But I went back and listened to some of the 90s stuff and, and, and I thought, I guess what I, I guess what I'm trying to say is connect the, the two concepts between your openness as a musician and as a person, I think in a way better set you guys up for what happened in the 90s musically.

• 1:11:19Speaker 03

  Yeah, that makes sense.

• 1:11:20Billy Corgan?

  Because when I listened to your musical output of the 90s, you're certainly on some level being influenced by what's going on, but it wasn't like you guys got lost.

• 1:11:29Speaker 03

  Right. Sure.

• 1:11:30Billy Corgan?

  You still made very credible music. There was that period there where Metallica was like, it got a little.

• 1:11:35Speaker 03

  It changed a lot.

• 1:11:36Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:37Speaker 03

  For sure.

• 1:11:38Billy Corgan?

  And, and I was empathetic because like here I am a fan from the beginning and I know them a little bit and we're in the same management company, but at the same point I was like, you know, there's this big world out here of other, other chord changes, you know, it's, it's not all riffs, you know?

• 1:11:51Speaker 03

  Right. Yeah. I mean, as a Metallica fan, I definitely, and as a, as a friend and knowing those guys and stuff, um, yeah, I mean, you could see the shift. And I, I think for me, I always just looked at it as, as, well, they done, they had done this style from Kill 'Em All all the way through the Black Album, even though the, the Black Album is a different entity. The Black Album certainly isn't Ride the Lightning, but there's still a lot of thrash elements in the Black Album, even though it's got, you know, I, I think Enter Sandman is one of the greatest thrash riffs of all time. And it's also one of the most commercial, you know?

• 1:12:33Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:34Speaker 03

  Earworm pop hook songs.

• 1:12:36Billy Corgan?

  Well, that's why they're, that's why they're Metallica. They figured that out.

• 1:12:39Speaker 03

  Yeah, they, they cracked that code in, in a big way. And so I figured they spent a decade doing this thing. And now it's like 1993 or 94, whenever that was when Load and then Reload. And, uh, it made total sense to me that they decided to, to make a turn, you know, and say, let's, we've got all these other ideas. We're not just one thing. We've kind of proven that now with the album that's still 20 million copies, you know, like we've proven that we could do something that isn't just a straight up thrash record.

• 1:13:15Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:15Speaker 03

  We don't have to write eight minute songs like we did on, on, on the previous ones on, um, Jesus Christ, I'm such brain farts right now. Um, and Justice for All.

• 1:13:26Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:26Speaker 03

  You know, we could do something different. We could, we could move more into the hard rock, like where we came from.

• 1:13:33Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:33Speaker 03

  Before we even knew what thrash metal was, because those guys were listening to all the stuff I listened to in the 70s.

• 1:13:39Billy Corgan?

  But like, you know, when, when Priest got pretty far afield into the pop and they were using synths and stuff.

• 1:13:44Speaker 03

  I hated that.

• 1:13:46Billy Corgan?

  Turbo, Turbo Lover's kind of good, but, but.

• 1:13:48Speaker 03

  But that grew on me.

• 1:13:49Billy Corgan?

  Okay. But what did they do? They kind of retooled and they came back with Painkiller.

• 1:13:54Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:13:54Billy Corgan?

  And reflexed.

• 1:13:55Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:13:56Billy Corgan?

  And made a prime.

• 1:13:57Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:13:58Billy Corgan?

  Incredible metal record. Metallica kind of went into this weird, you know, where are we going kind of thing? And I, and I, I told a story once in public, but I was backstage with Pantera and they were, it must've been Load or somewhere around there where they were sort of talking very negatively about Metallica, uh, you know? And, and I was like, look, you guys are the hottest metal band in the world, arguably the best metal band in the world right now.

• 1:14:23Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:14:24Billy Corgan?

  Just worry about you. And they all looked at me like I had four heads because, you know, I'm the alternative guy.

• 1:14:30Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:14:30Billy Corgan?

  You know what I mean? But, but my point was saying, it was like, look, Metallica will figure it out. Like, like, don't be hard on them. It's okay.

• 1:14:39Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:14:39Billy Corgan?

  Let Metallica figure it out because they're Metallica.

• 1:14:41Speaker 03

  You're right.

• 1:14:42Billy Corgan?

  You guys stay focused on what you're doing on. Like you're, you're, you're winning right now, but as we all know, it doesn't always last. That's kind of what I was trying to tell them. Be happy with where you're at and, and, and understand that they're on a unique journey because they've done all that stuff already.

• 1:14:57Speaker 03

  Yeah. Yeah. I, I agree with that a hundred percent.

• 1:15:01Billy Corgan?

  But it is fun to play like, you know, fantasy baseball where it's like, what if Metallica decided, okay, we're going to go back to, you know what I mean?

• 1:15:07Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:15:08Billy Corgan?

  Old school.

• 1:15:08Speaker 03

  Yeah. Right away, the next album. I, I always looked at it as, you know, if any, all of us bands did things the way we wanted to do them. We only made our own decisions. We weren't listening to any outside, you know, voices and, uh, and certainly Metallica, who, you know, business wise, were in a position where they didn't even have to worry about at that point, the money side of it. You know what I mean? Like, you know, sometimes you know, you sometimes, there were times like, well, we have to go do this right now because.

• 1:15:40Billy Corgan?

  With Cliff and Peter in charge, they, they weren't worried about.

• 1:15:43Speaker 03

  You know, sometimes it's like back then, I remember like, well, we gotta go do this run because we all have families or bills to pay or whatever in the case.

• 1:15:51Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:52Speaker 03

  And, uh, Metallica had already had that creative freedom, freedom, that level where that's not, that's not even.

• 1:15:58Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, that's a good point.

• 1:16:00Speaker 03

  And, uh, and I think they decided, well, it's not a flash in the pan doing this Load and Reload thing. Maybe, you know, we need to explore it. We need to, we need to see this through. Why not?

• 1:16:12Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:12Speaker 03

  You know, it certainly, it didn't affect them, you know, we're sitting here in 2026 and they are the biggest metal band in the world.

• 1:16:20Billy Corgan?

  Well, you could argue right now, they might be the biggest.

• 1:16:22Speaker 03

  Biggest bands in the world.

• 1:16:23Billy Corgan?

  They might be the biggest band in the world.

• 1:16:24Speaker 03

  You know, I mean, probably, you know, they're, who else would it be? Them and ACDC and the Stones.

• 1:16:30Billy Corgan?

  But who can go out and play two, two stadium shows in a city and play two totally different sets?

• 1:16:34Speaker 03

  Probably the Stones. I would, I would guess.

• 1:16:36Billy Corgan?

  At this point?

• 1:16:37Speaker 03

  Right? Yeah. I would guess, but.

• 1:16:40Billy Corgan?

  Talk a little bit about, um, I just, I don't remember the exact years, but there was this period where you were on MTV a lot.

• 1:16:47Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:16:48Billy Corgan?

  Like you were hosting, but you were also, they were putting you in a lot of stuff. And how did that all kind of come about?

• 1:16:54Speaker 03

  Oh, so, oh yeah. So you're talking about like, not like in the 80s when they were still playing videos on Headbanger's Ball. Like you're talking about like, there was, there was a period of time.

• 1:17:04Billy Corgan?

  I just feel there was like a time where you suddenly you were on TV a lot.

• 1:17:06Speaker 03

  There was. Starting in 2000, 2000, 2001, I got offered to host this show on VH1 called Rock Show, which was their version of Headbanger's Ball at the time. And, uh, it was a great gig. I had a blast doing it.

• 1:17:21Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:21Speaker 03

  Um, they flew me to New York every week to do it, which I thought was crazy. It was like, we can't find a studio in LA to, I literally flew 48 times. I'd fly on the Monday, tape Tuesday, fly home Tuesday night. I did that 48 times over like 18 months or something. It was a crazy schedule, but I had a blast doing it.

• 1:17:40Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:40Speaker 03

  And, uh, and that kind of opened this door to me, for me, where VH1, I guess those networks were looking for alternative programming pretty hard at that time because they were phasing out music videos.

• 1:17:56Billy Corgan?

  Right. Okay. So they were just looking for shows.

• 1:17:58Speaker 03

  Reality programming was just starting to happen and they had all those, I love the shows, if you remember those. I love the 70s. I love the 80s. I love the 90s. And I remember saying to my producer friend, you know, you're.

• 1:18:12Billy Corgan?

  There was the bubble.

• 1:18:13Speaker 03

  Yeah. You know, you're going to run out of these things at some point. And he's like, yeah, we know. But I started getting the call to be one of those talking heads. I guess because I had had the show, they knew I had a point of view. They knew, I knew how to be on camera and, and I could give a really good 20 second soundbite about something. So I would get the call constantly. I didn't have to fly to New York for that. That was just like at a studio in North Hollywood.

• 1:18:39Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:40Speaker 03

  It was a really easy gig and I would have, they would send me a list. Do you have anything to say about? And there'd be like 40 things on a list and I would just give checkmarks.

• 1:18:49Billy Corgan?

  That's my, that's my memory. It's just you were on TV a lot.

• 1:18:50Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:18:51Billy Corgan?

  And I was always curious how that kind of happened because, you know, you're not a fame whore.

• 1:18:55Speaker 03

  No.

• 1:18:56Billy Corgan?

  You're not a big like, I gotta be on the red carpet guy.

• 1:18:58Speaker 03

  No. I don't go to the Grammys.

• 1:19:02Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, but I'm saying.

• 1:19:03Speaker 03

  Nothing against the Grammys.

• 1:19:04Billy Corgan?

  But I'm saying you're, you're, you're sort of an unlikely personality in that you kind of came out of this world. Again, this is an obscure world that we're, we start the journey with like, you're at the burned out practice facility, you know, with guys in sleeping bags who go on to make this seminal thrash metal album that changes their lives in the world. I mean, you're, you're literally at the ground zero of this.

• 1:19:26Speaker 03

  Well, I know where for me, where it came from, I, um. I was a big, big fan, am a big, big fan of Henry Rollins and I was a huge fan of his talking shows when at some point he decided, I'm gonna go out and just get on stage and, and talk for two and a half hours.

• 1:19:44Billy Corgan?

  I used to go see those.

• 1:19:45Speaker 03

  Tell stories and, and I loved that so much. And it just, it clicked with me like, you know, I, I feel like I can do that someday. I've got so many stories to tell and, and I think I know how to do that just inherently.

• 1:19:58Billy Corgan?

  Are you still doing this?

• 1:19:59Speaker 03

  Yeah, I still, I haven't done, I haven't done a run in about three years. Cause I'm really not looking for reasons to leave home, but um, uh, I will definitely do more.

• 1:20:10Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:10Speaker 03

  I love doing it, but that's was kind of the beginning that opened the door for me to do that was when I, when I took that job hosting that show on VH1 and I knew, well, like, uh, it's just gonna be me talking to a camera and people are gonna be at home listening to me and I need to be interesting and, and, and I, I feel like I know how to do this already.

• 1:20:32Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:33Speaker 03

  And I would never use, I hated, I was like, no teleprompter, no nothing. I just, just let me be me, let me do my thing and it, and it worked.

• 1:20:41Billy Corgan?

  Wow.

• 1:20:41Speaker 03

  And, uh, and then getting to do all that Talking Head stuff on VH1 and MTV in the early 2000s helped me be able to build a pattern and, and a way to talk about things and, and keep things tight.

• 1:20:56Billy Corgan?

  When you decide you wanna do, Allah Henry Rollins, that you wanna do this kinda talking, uh, talk tour.

• 1:21:02Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:21:02Billy Corgan?

  Like, do you call?

• 1:21:03Speaker 03

  I call it, I call it speaking words.

• 1:21:05Billy Corgan?

  Okay, but I'm saying, who do you call? Like you call a agent or a manager?

• 1:21:09Speaker 03

  I had, I had, I had thought about it for so long and I had talked at the time, uh, the guy who was managing us, this was back in like 2012, I think. Anthrax was about to go over to Europe to open for Motorhead on a, on a tour and, uh, we were starting, we were gonna be in London rehearsing and our agent called and said, I've got this, I just got a call, this opportunity for you to do, like they want you to come do a spoken word show, uh, the night before the Motorhead starts. It's this, this event, Rock Stars Say the Dumbest Things or something. And it was gonna be three nights at this venue in London and I think Duff McKagan was doing one of them, if I remember correctly.

• 1:21:53Speaker 03

  And I can't remember who was doing the other one and they, they said they would really love you to come do it. And I was excited, but at the same time terrified and I was like, yeah, I don't know, I don't know, Lemmy. And then I talked about it with my wife and she's like, you're, you've been wanting to do this for like years already and you didn't even have to like make it happen. It's just been put in your lap, like it's meant to be, here's your chance.

• 1:22:18Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:19Speaker 03

  And I had, I had, I had some time, I had a couple of months to like get ready for it. They were like, they knew you were gonna be in London, cause the Motorhead tour is starting in the UK, blah, blah, blah. So I said, yes, at figuring, I'm gonna put a show together.

• 1:22:33Billy Corgan?

  Sounds terrifying.

• 1:22:34Speaker 03

  I'm gonna put this show together, I'm gonna be great, I'm gonna write my show. I have a lot of stand-up comedian friends, I, I know how they work, I know how they put their sets together, I'm gonna do it just like they do it, but it's gonna be more story-based. And, uh, I did nothing for months and it's the night before that show and I'm in a hotel room with my wife in London and I'm about to call my manager and say, tell him I've got a fever and I'm not doing the show tomorrow, cause I can't be sick for the Anthrax shows. And I was gonna cancel it and then she talked me out of it. She's like, don't cancel it, just go do it, go do it, you know what you're doing, you've got your show, you know what you're doing. And, uh, I have never been so scared in my life. I've only had stage fright really twice.

• 1:23:19Speaker 03

  Once was when we did the big four at Yankee Stadium and having to walk out on that stage, cause I'm a lifelong Yankee fan and walking on stage in my first talking show would, I, I was frozen. I was literally physically petrified, like this, standing there and I know, and the intro music is playing and I gotta walk out with a microphone and no band and no guitar.

• 1:23:46Billy Corgan?

  No guitar.

• 1:23:47Speaker 03

  And I'm like, what the, you should've let me cancel, like, and I was so, my heart was pounding and there's like 400 people in this room, sitting there, waiting for me to put on a show. I'm like, I don't know what the I'm doing. And I walk out and I, I created an opening for my show. I said, I need a hook, I need an opening to grab them and then, then, uh, and never let go. So I did this thing where I, I, I, what rock star guy, what guy in a band would have written the book that would be the most opposite of my life? And I happened to have been in a Barnes and Noble months earlier or whatever. And I saw Anthony Kiedis's book on the thing and I'm like, he definitely has a story that's so different than mine, right?

• 1:24:31Speaker 03

  And I pick up the book and I start reading and there's this whole beginning chapter about him in his house and a woman is coming over to inject him, a nurse is coming and it turns out he's getting like, he's like oxygen or what, he was getting like these injections into his blood. And I'm like, this couldn't be more the opposite of my life experience. So I decided I'm gonna, and I'm thinking, my crowd probably hasn't writ, read his book. So no one's gonna immediately know.

• 1:25:02Billy Corgan?

  That's a good assumption.

• 1:25:03Speaker 03

  Right? So I had it set up, there was a stool, one pin spot and I just walk out, super quiet. Of course I was shake, I've seen video, I'm shaking, holding the book, right? And you could see me shaking and, uh, and I sit down, no hello, no nothing, it's dark, dead quiet and I just start reading this chapter from his book about a nurse coming over and being injected and you don't find out kinda towards the end of the story that it's not heroin, you know, people assume that. I hear people whispering and a lot of people I know in the audience and, and, uh, but I could tell they're hanging on my every word here. And I get to the end of the chapter and people, I could also tell people are like, what the,

• 1:25:47Speaker 03

  I paid 20 pounds to come see this bullshit, like, and, uh, I closed the book and I'm just quiet and I look at the crowd and I go, oh, did you think I was talking about myself? This Anthony Kiedis's book, this is, I just figured I would read something from, and the laugh I got, it broke the, broke the ice and I got this huge laugh and then I owned it for three hours I was up there.

• 1:26:11Billy Corgan?

  Three hours?

• 1:26:12Speaker 03

  Three hours telling stories and I came off stage and I looked at Pearl, I said, I can't wait to do that again. I was high from it and as a guy that doesn't do drugs or anything, that, that was a drug to me. My feet were this high off the ground afterwards.

• 1:26:27Billy Corgan?

  What do you, I mean, this is the stupidest question in the world, but what do you talk about for three hours? I mean, maybe, maybe ask a better version of that. What, how do you, how do you, how did you craft the narrative through the three hours? Maybe?

• 1:26:39Speaker 03

  I picked out, an hour of it was Q and A.

• 1:26:43Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 1:26:43Speaker 03

  So two hours and well, of course, then once people started asking questions, that sends me off on, you know.

• 1:26:49Billy Corgan?

  But I'm saying, when you're just talking.

• 1:26:50Speaker 03

  I had two hours of, I had two hours of what I thought were my greatest stories in my history of being in a band.

• 1:26:58Billy Corgan?

  Can you share one of your great stories?

• 1:26:59Speaker 03

  I mean, they're too long to tell, but, but because.

• 1:27:01Billy Corgan?

  We can do Cliff.

• 1:27:02Speaker 03

  But, but like, and they're out there. I, I mean, I have the story of the first time I met Lemmy, when Joey and I were flown over to England to do promo for our second album for Spreading and, uh, we're, you know, you're sitting in the label office all day doing interviews and I think the last one we did was with the guys from Kerrang and these guys were all like heroes of mine, the writers of Kerrang were like heroes of mine, cause I go back to.

• 1:27:27Billy Corgan?

  Seen their names.

• 1:27:28Speaker 03

  Yeah, and writing articles about all my favorite bands and so they're like, hey, we're all going out to a pub, would you guys like to join us? Let's go have a beer, like, sure, that would be great. And we go to this place called the St. Moritz, which was this like kinda dank bar down some stairs and, and, uh, and we walk in and Lemmy's at the bar playing the slot machine and, uh, I couldn't believe it, you know, this is 1985, I, I'm, I've like never met anybody and they're like, is this how London is? Like if we go to another pub, Steve Harris is gonna be there and we're gonna meet Rob Halford and like, my, literally at that point in time, like the guy that I thought was the coolest person on the planet is standing in the bar.

• 1:28:09Speaker 03

  And, uh, of course I'm not going up to him, I, I couldn't, no, no way, but after three beers, I think it might've been Xavier Russell from Kerrang, kinda gave me the, come on, come on, go ahead, go say hi. And I think he set me up, cause Lemmy's just gonna destroy me and, and, uh, but I finally, I got up the nerve to walk over and, uh, and I just kinda stood next to him and he's playing the thing and he sees me and he gives me a head nod and I'm like, oh, hey Lemmy, you know, how's it going, man? Uh, uh, my name's Scott, I'm over here with my band Anthrax and we're doing promo for our record. He's like, okay, you know, and he doesn't, paying zero attention to me. And, uh, so I'm already like, I'm, I'm outta here.

• 1:28:53Speaker 03

  And then I'm like, and I said, can I buy you a drink? And then he looks at me and he goes, you're in my town, I'll buy you a drink, what are you having? I didn't drink, I didn't drink at, back then, like I could nurse a beer, you know? Like, and that's what I was doing with the Kerrang guys, like just, I can nurse a beer, I'm okay. I had never drank, since my 16th or 17th birthday, I had alcohol poisoning from cheap vodka and I never drank again. And now it's like, I'm 22 and I'm standing there with my hero and he asks me, what am I having? And I don't know how to answer the question, so I said, whatever you're having.

• 1:29:29Billy Corgan?

  Uh-oh.

• 1:29:30Speaker 03

  And then of course, two Jack and Cokes arrive and now I, I need to have this with him and not like puke on his white boots and get like fired by the mayor of heavy metal and, and I, so anyway, we drink the Jack and Coke and I kinda, you know, get it in, he's not paying attention to me anyway. But then that kinda opens the door and he says to me, what are you, what are you here again, what are you doing? And, and we start talking and the drinks keep coming, cause he's Lemmy and the bartender knows him and whenever his drink is empty, there's just another drink. So like, the whole story goes on for, I'm not shitting you, another 40 minutes.

• 1:30:07Speaker 03

  And then Nazi, Nazi doctor in Munich, like there's, because what happened was, I am now feeling really good in this moment after about six or seven Jack and Cokes, but there's, there is that little voice in there that's going, you're in big trouble, dude. You are in big trouble, you were really drunk. And the last thing I remember from that night was.

• 1:30:35Speaker 03

  Running out the door of this bar, right? That was the last, that's the last thing I remember.

• 1:30:40Billy Corgan?

  That doesn't sound good.

• 1:30:41Speaker 03

  I wake up in the morning with Johnny Zizula, our manager. I'm in the bed and he's shaking me. Get up, get up, get up. We were late because we were like flying to Munich the next morning for the next stop on the promo tour. And, uh, and I can't move and every inch of my body is in pain, which I found out was because I, I was able to say to Johnny like, what happened? And, and, uh, and I'm, I'm covered in puke. There's puke everywhere. I was puking my pillow. Like he said, I had to turn you over three times last night. You were throwing up in your sleep, like, he goes, get like, oh, this get, take a shower, get dressed. We gotta get to the airport.

• 1:31:22Speaker 03

  And he's explaining to me, he goes, I saw you when you ran out of the bar. He goes, so I figured maybe you were in trouble because I know you don't drink. And, and I followed you out and you were running up and down the street. And this is late, there's nobody on the street, it's late at night. And you were diving into piles of garbage on, on the concrete, just screaming at the top of your lungs. He goes, and eventually after about the fourth or fifth garbage pile, you didn't come out of the pile of garbage. So I went out of the, over there and I, I fished you out and I put you over my back and we got a taxi. And here we are now, let's go, we gotta get to Munich. And there's a whole, the, I had alcohol poisoning for days in this.

• 1:32:04Speaker 03

  Anyway, there's a whole other, I had my pants on the way to the Munich hotel. I couldn't control it. And it's this doctor that came who literally was Laurence Olivier from, from the fucking Dustin Hoffman movie.

• 1:32:18Billy Corgan?

  What was that? The Marathon Man.

• 1:32:19Speaker 03

  Marathon Man. Anyway, the end of the story is it's now like six months later and Anthrax is in London, playing our first ever headline show in London at the Hammersmith Palais. And Lemmy walks in our dressing room and I haven't seen him since that night. And, uh, he's saying hi to everyone and everyone's super excited that Lemmy's come to see Anthrax apparently. And, uh, and he will, looks at me and he looks, how you feeling? And I said, why you, you remember? And, uh, and he's like, yeah, that's why I'm here. I, you told me about your band and I knew some people coming tonight. So I figured I'd drop in and say hi and see it.

• 1:33:01Speaker 03

  And, and I said, look, I was not much of a drinker. He's like, yeah, I could tell. And I said, I hope I didn't do anything stupid or say anything stupid to you. I apologize if I did. He goes, no, no, no, you were just fine until you stopped speaking English. And he said, and he, he goes, and I kinda just went with it for a while because it was quite funny. Actually, you were saying things to me and I don't even know what words were coming out of your mouth. He goes, and then at one point you just turned around and ran as fast as you could out of the bar. And here we are. And, uh, I have a, I had an amazing dime bag Daryl story. I've, I've got an amazing Al Jorgensen story. I've got, you know, amazing Scott story.

• 1:33:44Speaker 03

  And I would, I, I wrote these things out, like I wrote them out, all the beats and where I'm gonna get my biggest laughs and physically how to perform these stories. Cause it's not just standing there talking and telling a story. And I'm very physical. I know how to use my voice and, uh, and, um, yeah, that's, that's what I talk about.

• 1:34:03Billy Corgan?

  Because that's, that sounds like a, that's a big one. I don't think I could do that.

• 1:34:07Speaker 03

  It's a lot of fun.

• 1:34:08Billy Corgan?

  That's, I need that crutch called a guitar.

• 1:34:11Speaker 03

  Um, you'd be surprised, you do this. You, you could easily do a talking show.

• 1:34:18Billy Corgan?

  I did something where I, I, I, I did a thing where I, similar, I kinda wrote out the beats. I would tell like kind of a five minute story and then I would play a song.

• 1:34:26Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:34:26Billy Corgan?

  It was kinda my early years, early days of the band. And I, I recorded, I haven't listened to it yet, but people did enjoy it, but it wasn't meant to be humorous or entertaining. It was meant to sort of be almost like a, like a talking documentary.

• 1:34:38Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:34:39Billy Corgan?

  Um, I'm curious, uh, like we said, Metallica, arguably the biggest band in the world. Um, Slayer thankfully reforming. Um, looking back at this incredible body of work. And again, the ups and downs, but it's now, it's up again and, and in a way that I, and I feel like it'll never go back down. I mean, maybe the business will go down, but I guess the vibe won't, if that makes any sense. It's like, once you're an OG, you're an OG. Like when we talk about Public Enemy, for example, there's always this sort of a shine on the name. Cause you're like, there's only one of those.

• 1:35:13Speaker 03

  Of course.

• 1:35:14Billy Corgan?

  So you guys made that cut, which is pretty amazing.

• 1:35:17Speaker 03

  Yeah, the logo, I remember someone saying to me in the business at one point, your logo is everything. Like the, just, just the visual of that word. And he goes, think of any band you love and then think about how excited you are when you see the logo. Just the logo is exciting enough to get you to buy something.

• 1:35:34Billy Corgan?

  So if you could just reflect on the sense that not only you guys, but friends, people you came up with, that you've all achieved this kind of legendary status, doesn't really quite get what I'm after. It's, it's, it's, it's a sort of a, it's a, it's a form of victory because again, you know what this music came from? And who was there in the beginning and actually sort of champion, like you're talking about the guy from Megaforce.

• 1:35:58Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:35:59Billy Corgan?

  It took somebody to be like, I'm gonna champion this.

• 1:36:02Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:36:02Billy Corgan?

  When nobody gave a.

• 1:36:04Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:36:04Billy Corgan?

  You know?

• 1:36:05Speaker 03

  Um, I, it's, it's, for me, it's about being able to call our own shots. To have that power as a band.

• 1:36:14Billy Corgan?

  Hmm.

• 1:36:15Speaker 03

  Cause I've seen a thousand bands come and go. I, I've, I've been a part of other bands and side projects and been through great experiences and nightmares. I've, you know, uh, with Anthrax, we created an environment where we are able to do what we love and do what we want to do and have fun doing still after all this time. And do it our way, just hundred percent call our own shots against all the nightmares of the music business that, that, lucky for us, not as bad as certainly other bands that I know of have faced. But since, since we signed our deal, our first deal with Johnny in 83, and then with Island Records in 85,

• 1:36:59Speaker 03

  and then with Elektra in, in, uh, 92. Um, and then back on Megaforce, you know, uh, cause Missy, who used to work at Megaforce, bought the label years ago. And has turned that into, it's not a metal label only anymore. Like she's got the Black Crows and she's got all these other types of bands. And, uh, and turned it into something really powerful and great. And being back on Megaforce now for like the last 16 years or something.

• 1:37:26Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:26Speaker 03

  Um, it's, uh, you know, to be able to say no, the power of no is, I think, the best power to be able to wield and have if you're in a band. Because, um, it always seems to work in your favor. I feel like when you say no to something.

• 1:37:46Billy Corgan?

  I feel that when you say it.

• 1:37:47Speaker 03

  And then when the same people come back, whether it's record label people or promoters or whoever. It seems like they come back a couple of weeks later and usually will do what you asked to do in the first place.

• 1:38:02Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, the hardest part about saying no is you're gonna find out whether or not you're valuable to somebody.

• 1:38:06Speaker 03

  Exactly. There, there is that fear sometimes that you may lose something.

• 1:38:10Billy Corgan?

  Well, you're gonna, you're gonna find out that maybe you're not as valuable as you think you are.

• 1:38:14Speaker 03

  Exactly. Um, and that's happened to us and we still, we still are just like, yeah, we don't care.

• 1:38:20Billy Corgan?

  Last time I saw you guys play live, I was on the side watching you. I saw you at the Sabbath thing, but I saw, I saw you at a gig somewhere recently, last few years. And, um, I thought it was so cool because it was like, it only happens with certain bands where all the ups and downs and the, and the people coming and going and, you know, the doubt. It all kinda comes and it's, and it ends up being almost like a celebration. And watching you guys play, I was like, wow, this is cool. It's like they've won, whatever they were after, they won. And it's, it's in, it's in the, for lack of a better way to put it, it's in the body language. There's no insecurity, there's no fear, there's no even defiance.

• 1:39:04Billy Corgan?

  It's like, this is who we are, we're here and, and be with us. That's, I think that's the thing that attracts both of us in our own way to music so deeply. That is the power.

• 1:39:16Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:39:17Billy Corgan?

  All the others thing is kind of a game. Media, record labels in their own way, it's all kind of a weird game.

• 1:39:23Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:39:24Billy Corgan?

  But the power, when you can be yourself and somebody out there goes, you know what? What you represent to me on a musical, social, whatever level, I feel that.

• 1:39:33Speaker 03

  Yeah, that connection.

• 1:39:34Billy Corgan?

  That's kinda what I wanted to start with you being in the crowd because I think, I'm not trying to insert myself in your story, but I think we have very similar things where we loved a lot of music in a lot of different directions. And somehow we were able to put that love.

• 1:39:48Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:39:48Billy Corgan?

  Into our band and share that in a different way and then be influential in our own way. Because we were able to take our love of all this disparate music.

• 1:39:56Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:39:57Billy Corgan?

  Because like I said, then that's why I mean it's a compliment. When I first met you, it was like, wow, this guy actually gives a shit about something else other than his lane.

• 1:40:04Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:40:05Billy Corgan?

  Cause I would meet metal guys that I really looked up to and respected. And it was like talking to a fly because they just, as far as they were concerned, if you didn't live on planet metal, you didn't.

• 1:40:15Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:40:17Billy Corgan?

  You know what I mean?

• 1:40:17Speaker 03

  Yeah, I, I think that connection, being on stage to me, I've always looked at it as it's a privilege. It's a privilege for me to be there. And when you said it's like, you felt like it's almost like you've, like they've won. And that's, that really is how I feel walking on stage. Because that 90 minutes or two hours, whatever it may be, if we're headlining, or if it's 50 minutes opening for Iron Maiden, whatever it is, that window of time for me, it's so special and it does feel like we've won. Now, now I get to go do this.

• 1:40:53Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:53Speaker 03

  Like, and that connection with the audience and knowing that,

• 1:40:57Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:58Speaker 03

  that, that down pick I just did made all of those people feel like that. And when Joey just yelled that to the crowd, and when Frankie just ran across the stage like a lunatic, and when, you know, Charlie just crushed that, that breakdown part, and when John just tore that, you know, solo, that connection we're making and, and how we're making each other feel.

• 1:41:21Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:21Speaker 03

  Because we so feed off our audience too, and that energy, every band does. And, and uh, that connection is the greatest thing. I have one. I get to experience that. Every show, and where else can you experience that feeling of a live audience? I mean, live theater, sure, but live theater doesn't have moss pits and walls of death.

• 1:41:44Billy Corgan?

  Well, and usually the performers aren't singing their own songs. That they wrote, that they wrote in some burned out rehearsals hall.

• 1:41:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, we get to look at and deceive people who all they want to do in this, this time, they have, you know, this, this their night out, or it's their day out at a festival or whatever it is, and we've got this time together and they just want to have the best time they possibly can. And they get to do it with us. Like, it's like, that's a privilege.

• 1:42:12Billy Corgan?

  Last couple of things, um, I didn't know that you were married to Meatloaf's daughter. Uh, your wife Pearl, and I know you guys play music together.

• 1:42:21Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:42:21Billy Corgan?

  So I was just curious, um, what's it like to not be in a band, but, but to play music with your, with your partner?

• 1:42:28Speaker 03

  It's the best. It's the best. Like, she's, she's recording a record right now.

• 1:42:33Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, I saw that.

• 1:42:34Speaker 03

  And I, I didn't, I wasn't gonna ask to play on it because she's working with this producer, Paul Stacey, and it's, all of this is kind of above my pay grade as a guitar player. Like, the type of guitar playing on this record and uh, it's all, it's very much a hard rock record.

• 1:42:53Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:53Speaker 03

  But it's, it's, it's more-

• 1:42:55Billy Corgan?

  And she can really sing rock, your wife.

• 1:42:57Speaker 03

  She crushes. And, you know, we're talking, like, it's, Michael Schenker keeps coming up. There's a lot of Schenker melodic-

• 1:43:05Billy Corgan?

  Oh, I see.

• 1:43:06Speaker 03

  Melodic Schenker lead styles, but then also all the rhythm guitar playing stuff that's like more in the Thin Lizzy vein.

• 1:43:13Billy Corgan?

  Okay.

• 1:43:14Speaker 03

  Like, adult chords that I, I can learn, but I don't know them off the top of my head sometimes. And uh, I didn't know I was gonna be asked to play on the record. And Pearl played a show here in LA a couple of months ago because Paul, the producer, was coming in from London to see it. And uh, and he was, he was basically just kind of like, "Do you mind if we look, you know, different places for some of the different musicians? But I really need Scott to play on the record because his rhythm playing was so intense on your songs." It really, it really kind of held, held the whole thing together musically. And I was like, wow, I can't believe you said that because I feel like such a caveman in the mix with all these better musicians.

• 1:43:57Speaker 03

  So I got to, like, you know, Jason Faulkner's playing on the record, you know, and I sit in a room with a guy like him, you know, and he's just such an amazing musician. It just kind of blows my mind. And, and it's, you know, it's not a jealousy thing or anything like that, but sometimes I just think when, when you're next to somebody and you're watching them play and it's just like, wow, how'd they ever get to a place, I know, practice, but how'd they ever get to a place where that just comes so easy and so natural and all that? And it's like, how is he a guitar player and how am I, like, how does that work?

• 1:44:31Billy Corgan?

  Well, I um-

• 1:44:31Speaker 03

  You know?

• 1:44:33Billy Corgan?

  Um, I'm, I'm friendly with Uli John Roth and uh, Yeah. Uli, uh, you know, we, Uli would, we'd just have Uli show up and play with us on stage. And you know, Uli just walks out and just starts playing. People are like, and if you know who he is, you're like, oh my God. And if you don't know who he is, he's like, who's the space wizard?

• 1:44:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:44:52Billy Corgan?

  But when you sit like this far, as far as we are, and you watch somebody like Uli play, or like the time I went and interviewed Eddie Van Halen at his house, and you watch him play from this far away, you're like,

• 1:45:01Speaker 03

  Oh my God, yeah.

• 1:45:02Billy Corgan?

  How do you do, how do you do that? And of course, they don't know because they just can, they can just do it.

• 1:45:07Speaker 03

  We were once, really quick, Pearl was rehearsing at Mates on uh, on Cleon, and we're in the room and we would finish a song and there would be, someone was in the next room playing Van Halen, and we just figured, oh, some guy's practicing for his cover band. And then at one point, it's like, man, whoever that is, they're really good. And then another 20 minutes later, we decide to take five and the door of the room is open and Ed walks by, like, it's him! We've been sitting here listening for like an hour and it's him. And then so I, I went and I peeked in the room and, because I, you know, knew him-ish enough to say hello. And uh, and yeah, I was like, hey, Ed. And he's like, hey, Scott,

• 1:45:50Speaker 03

  come in, check out the new pedalboard kit, you know, Friedman just tweeted for me. And I'm figuring out how all the pedals work. This was like leading up to the, when they did the reunion with Roth.

• 1:46:00Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:01Speaker 03

  He was like getting all his shit together, his gear together for the tour. And, and he's, then I spent 40 minutes with him and he went through his whole new pedalboard with me and all the sounds and the tones, and I'm just like,

• 1:46:11Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:12Speaker 03

  Like, oh my God!

• 1:46:13Billy Corgan?

  Unfair. Um, one last thing, did I see that your, your son is playing drums?

• 1:46:20Speaker 03

  My son, my son has a band called XCOM, which uh, it's a hardcore band. Yes, he's the drummer in the band, started the band.

• 1:46:28Billy Corgan?

  He's 13, 14?

• 1:46:30Speaker 03

  15, yeah. They're blowing up. It's like happening. Oh, yeah.

• 1:46:34Billy Corgan?

  Oh.

• 1:46:34Speaker 03

  Like, they just did Warped Tour.

• 1:46:35Billy Corgan?

  Oh, my God, that's so cool.

• 1:46:37Speaker 03

  They're going out and doing a bunch of shows with Dillinger.

• 1:46:39Billy Corgan?

  Are you the super proud dad?

• 1:46:40Speaker 03

  Super proud dad. Dad, dad, I have nothing to do with it. This is all, these dudes have worked their ass off for the last two, three years um, to get where they are. Ross Robinson saw them at a club in LA and with having nothing to do with me, I didn't know Ross was coming that night and was so blown away by it live. He was like, what are you doing? We need to make a record. I want to sign you to my label. Like, they made this incredible record called Time to Burn. And uh, yeah, they're out, they're going out on tour. They're opening for Guns N' Roses in Atlanta next month. Like, and then next year, they're gonna be out on tour, like, doing the thing, doing the work. It's, it's happening. It's like really happening.

• 1:47:21Billy Corgan?

  Do you have, so you're in the dad spot? What's the dad advice on that?

• 1:47:27Speaker 03

  Um, I, I really stay out of it. Like, I asked Revel the other week if he ever, if, it was like, if you had the opportunity to come out and open Anthrax shows on a tour, before, I couldn't even finish the question. He said, no, no, no. Just, and I understand. I totally, I get it.

• 1:47:46Billy Corgan?

  Explain it to me, just so I understand.

• 1:47:48Speaker 03

  Because they wanna, they wanna do it. They wanna earn it. They don't want to be, he even said, like, even now, like, I'm talking about this. And like, we try and keep, of course, anytime anyone writes about them or does anything, sometimes it's less than it is more, but they just want to keep that the Scotty and Son has a band thing.

• 1:48:10Billy Corgan?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:10Speaker 03

  Because if you hear them, they, if you listen to them, has nothing to do with me. It has, other than the fact that maybe he's got some of my genes as a musician.

• 1:48:18Billy Corgan?

  Yeah, I had um, Slash's kid, um, his band, London, Return to Dust.

• 1:48:23Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:48:23Billy Corgan?

  Great. And, you know, it's like, I, I guess what I'm saying is I hate when people throw in the nepo baby stuff.

• 1:48:29Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:48:30Billy Corgan?

  Because if anybody knows anything about the music business, and we do, that's not gonna get you very far.

• 1:48:36Speaker 03

  No.

• 1:48:37Billy Corgan?

  You gotta earn it.

• 1:48:38Speaker 03

  You gotta earn it.

• 1:48:38Billy Corgan?

  And you know, with fans, you gotta earn it, earn it. You can't, they're not gonna hand it to you just because you got a, a face or a name, so.

• 1:48:45Speaker 03

  They're, they're, they're doing, I'll tell you after.

• 1:48:47Billy Corgan?

  No, no, tell me now, tell me now.

• 1:48:49Speaker 03

  Pearl and I went to the Broad the other day, to the museum, and uh, walking in and the guy that like, looks at your little QR code to get in, I was wearing this hat and he goes, oh man, great hat. Like, so, and he doesn't, didn't know I'm the dude from Anthrax, so I love the fact that it's out there enough where like people are knowing the band and it has nothing, nothing to do with me.

• 1:49:10Billy Corgan?

  And it's thrash, it's thrash?

• 1:49:11Speaker 03

  Hardcore. They're a hardcore band.

• 1:49:12Billy Corgan?

  Okay, cool. I'll check them out.

• 1:49:14Speaker 03

  It's killer.

• 1:49:14Billy Corgan?

  Thank you, Scott.

• 1:49:15Speaker 03

  Yeah, thank you.