Scott Ian

Scott Ian supplies the serrated guitar riffs that define Anthrax’s sonic identity, yet it is drummer Charlie Benante who has composed the bulk of the band’s material, while Ian has handled lyric duties from the outset. Born Scott Rosenfeld and raised in Queens, New York, he was drawn to the guitar after discovering Kiss and, by the early 1980s, absorbed the New Wave of British Heavy Metal spearheaded by Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, and Motörhead. Seeking to replicate that style, he assembled Anthrax, becoming the sole founding member to endure as countless players cycled through the ranks in the first couple of years. The group quickly cultivated a devoted New York metal audience and, alongside Metallica, Slayer, and Megadeth, helped forge the thrash-metal template. Only after issuing the 1984 debut Fistful of Metal did the lineup stabilize around vocalist Joey Belladonna, Ian—who had by then adopted his current surname—lead guitarist Dan Spitz, bassist Frank Bello, and Benante, a configuration that held through the early 1990s. During that stretch Anthrax ascended to the forefront of thrash with the successive releases Spreading the Disease in 1985, Among the Living in 1987, State of Euphoria in 1988, and Persistence of Time in 1990. Ian and his colleagues simultaneously dismantled stylistic boundaries, first blending metal with hardcore through the side project S.O.D. on its 1985 cult album Speak English or Die, then fusing metal with rap on the track “I’m the Man” and the Public Enemy collaboration “Bring the Noise,” pairings that would become ubiquitous by the late 1990s. Just as mainstream acceptance seemed imminent, personnel shifts intervened: former Armored Saint frontman John Bush supplanted Belladonna for 1993’s Sound of White Noise, and Spitz departed shortly afterward. The subsequent albums—Stomp 442 in 1995, Volume 8: The Threat Is Real in 1998, and We’ve Come for You All in 2003—did not replicate earlier commercial peaks, yet Anthrax preserved a fervent following, particularly on the road. While still active with the band, Ian pursued additional ventures, recording another S.O.D. album, Bigger Than the Devil, in 1999, hosting VH1’s heavy-metal program Rock Show, appearing on Tricky’s 1998 release Angels With Dirty Faces, and taking a small role in the film Run Ronnie Run. One episode he likely prefers to forget is his 1997 arrest for drunkenly breaking into a New York Yankees training facility. Nonetheless, his overall imprint on heavy metal endures as substantial.