The Extreme Persistence of Scott Ian

“One day I’ll get what’s mine

Through the persistence of time”

—From “Time” by Anthrax

So, we want to be Scott Ian of Anthrax?

We want to be thrash metal pioneers in one of the greatest heavy metal bands of all time? And we want to make 11 studio albums and sell over 10 million records?

Well, unfortunately none of us can guarantee any of that will happen. But in talking with Ian for The Hardcore Humanism Podcast, it became clear that what we can guarantee is that if we adopt Ian’s approach to his craft—an unrelenting, single minded determination and unstoppable work ethic—we will be much more likely to succeed in any venture. And whatever our tangible success, we will likely be better off for the experience. And what better way to celebrate the 30th anniversary of their 1990 album Persistence of Time and the release of a special audio CD and vinyl version of the album than by taking a look at how Ian does it?

Source: Jimmy Hubbard, used with permission

For Ian, his single-minded focus traces back to a simple moment when he realized that he wanted more out of his life. “I could remember my bedroom in my mom's apartment in Queens … like it was yesterday … the average size of a prison cell … it was small,” Ian told me. “I think that's when I'm made the connection … I need to work. I need to make money because I’ve got to get the hell out of this room.”

Ian decided that his path out was through music and was driven each day by his passion for playing the guitar. “I kind of honed my focus … Somehow by playing guitar, I'm going to make money to get myself out of this room...From the time I woke up in the morning, I couldn't wait to put a guitar on and turn an amp on,” Ian said. “It didn't matter really what I had to do to make that happen. It was never even a question … that's what I was going to do … And I just stayed so focused and so on the path … I never felt like I couldn't do it. The more people told me I couldn't do it, the more I was like, ‘Yeah, we'll see.’”

So how did he put this plan into action? First and foremost, Ian worked incessantly at different jobs so that he could earn money for gear and studio time. “I was constantly looking for jobs, and having jobs and then looking for jobs that paid more money,” he described. “Or work two or three jobs and shoveling driveways in the wintertime. And just doing whatever I could to put money in my pocket.”

Further, Ian was perpetually immersed in music—regardless of what he was doing. Even when he began college, his constant focus was music. “All I did at St. John's was walk around the campus … I had a Walkman and I literally would walk around listening to Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, and Run DMC. That's all I did … I was spending that time listening to stuff that I loved,” he said. “And that was giving me ideas and influencing me musically. So that when I did get home, and I would go jam with people, like, at eight o'clock at the rehearsal studio, I would have lots of ideas to just walk in, pick up the guitar and go, what about this? It was pretty much all I was thinking about was music.”

Next, Ian was willing to take heat for his decisions. In particular, Ian eventually decided to drop out of college and work for his father without telling his mother. Since his parents were divorced, Ian was able to hide his decision for a while. But eventually, things came to a head when his father discovered that Ian’s mother was unaware that he had stopped going to school.

“He's like, ‘No, you need to tell your mother,’” Ian explained. “So, I went home from work that day and I told my mother and she threw me out of the house. I had to go to the gas station across the street on the boulevard and to the payphone, call my dad out on Long Island, and ask him to come pick me up. I lived at my dad's for about nine months.”

As Ian worked tirelessly to hone his craft, he started building a community around him of like-minded individuals—this also entailed weeding out those who were not similarly dedicated to making music.“We'd have to get a rehearsal spot. And say it costs $10 an hour and we needed three hours time and you'd expect everybody to chip in five or less. Okay, so it's $2 each an hour. And then you got, ‘Oh, well, I don't have five bucks. I can't,’” he described. “So, I would end up paying like $20 and that would be it. And I'd be like, ‘You're out. You’re fired … You can't find $2 or $6 for three hours to put towards this then you don't care about the band … not the way I do … I would literally be telling people, ‘get off your ass and get a job so you can pay for rehearsal.’”

Finally, Ian was constantly looking for new ideas and people with whom to connect. And this was not a problem in the seething creative cauldron of late '70s, early '80s New York City.

“It was just the most fertile ground …We started taking the train in, me and my friends, like in ’78—so when I was 14 going on 15. And we'd hang out on the weekends, you know, at record stores and stuff like that and just hang out in the city all day. There was so much going on musically... ,” Ian described. “The Punk scene, the Rap scene, the Hard Rock—wasn't even called Metal yet...It took me years to even get the balls to go to one of those Sunday matinees at CBs because I heard that the skinheads will kick your ass if you have long hair and all that. But my first punk show is at Gildersleeve in ’82. I saw the Exploited and I wanted to get down in the—I didn't know what it was called yet—but people were slam-dancing on the floor. And my buddy said to me, ‘You can't go in there. The punks don't like the long hairs.’ But then you start meeting people on an individual level and people are just people. Some are assholes, and some aren't … you just find your people.”

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As Ian was intrigued by and connected with music and people from the various scenes, it’s no surprise that Anthrax’s collaboration with Public Enemy on a remake of Public Enemy’s song “Bring the Noise” was a groundbreaking fusion of Hip Hop and Thrash Metal.

Finally, Ian had a very simple overall plan. Try to move forward towards his dream every day. “How are we going to move forward? What's one thing that's going to happen today?” he asked. “Maybe it's a piece of gear that I needed for a certain thing. Or maybe we were able to finish a song that we were working on or whatever it was. Or somebody heard about some club that maybe they would let a band that has its own songs play. But I always just felt like every day I needed to make something happen. So, I always felt forward motion.”

The results speak for themselves. Ian has now become a Heavy Metal god. And if we want that kind of success, we need to keep in mind how Ian did it.

“Everything I did was for the band, everything,” Ian said. “Everything I did, every moment—every waking moment and probably every sleeping moment, even ... I was just so laser beam focused on what I wanted.”