Guitarist says he should have been given more chances
In the podcast “WTF With Marc Maron,” Anthrax guitarist Scott Ian spoke about the time and the decision to fire vocalist Joey Belladonna in 1992. Check out the statement:
“I really had no patience left. I think my biggest problem was that I was writing the songs and I couldn’t deal with the fact that someone else was singing my lyrics, and I couldn’t sing them. I could have been the lead singer of Anthrax. I think that’s really what it was because of that, I couldn’t take it anymore. These were my words, my feelings, my emotions, and you’re not me. And even teaching the songs and listening to them back to me, it wasn’t how it sounded in my head.”
“My solution at the time was to turn to everyone and say, ‘It’s either Joey or me.’ I did the same crap that Neil Turbin had done years before. I said, ‘I can’t do this anymore, we need a change.’”
Looking back, Ian says the band should have tried harder: “Looking back, we should have given him another chance. We didn't, I don't know why. I remember Johnny Z, our manager, saying, 'Are you sure? Are you sure this is what you want to do?', 'Yes, yes'.”
