Best 30 quotes of Scott Ian on MyQuotes

A guitar for me is pretty much strictly in the context of writing songs for my band, coming up with ideas with my band, and then being able to perform those songs as best as I can on stage - that's what the guitar for me has always been.

Anthrax, it's something that gets you sick, it's horrible, strong. It's a heavy-metal band name if there ever was one.

As big as Metallica are, they're still not like a pop act. As big as they are, they're still not U2 or Lady Gaga. It's still underground.

At some point around '94 or '95, 'Rolling Stone' said that guitar rock was dead and that the Chemical Brothers were the future. I think that was the last issue of 'Rolling Stone' I ever bought.

Even as a kid, if I would come across something cool in the record store, that would be how I found out about bands. It's kind of the same way these days. In a way even less because there are no record stores to go to anymore.

Everything I do is metal. When I clean my house, it's metal.

Frank Zappa... was Beethoven for insane rock guys.

I could care less about sitting around and practicing the guitar for hours a day and trying to be the best guitar player on the planet.

I don't even know who that person was in the '80s. I see pictures of myself from back then and I don't even recognize myself.

I find it much easier to write comic-books than lyrics actually because it's a natural dialogue. Writing song lyrics is not natural but over the years I know what I need to know to get it done. I find it quite easy to capture a character and use my own personality and humour.

If someone wants to sticker a record for whatever reason, that's fine. But once it affects someone's opportunity to, you know, get that record, then I have a problem with it.

I have enough to think about - I just don't ever want to have to think about my car.

I kind of live in this weird world where I am exposed to a lot of stuff, but then again I am not exposed to a lot of stuff.

I'm certainly not a practicing Jew. I would never claim, 'I'm Jewish.' That's not the first and foremost thing in my mind, as far as who I am as a person.

I'm just not a big fan of the too-cool-for-school indie world. Metal bands have never been invited or been able to be part of the cool kids, and I like it that way.

I'm not the kind of guy who sits around at home and writes songs. Once in a while I'll pick up a guitar and noodle around, but it's rare.

I think the best riffs and the best songs come when you're jamming and having a good time.

I've always been a true believer that if men had babies, nobody would be trying to tell them what they can and can't do with their bodies.

I will absolutely say that Johnny Ramone was a huge influence on me. I'm a giant Ramones fan.

Metal guys are huge nerds. A good percentage of them are either horror or sci-fi or comic book or fantasy nerds.

Music and songs are written at different periods of time, at different times in your life. They reflect the feelings you have and to be honest, I quite like having positive emotions.

My grandfather was Orthodox, and he was religious, but neither of my parents were. Of course, as they got older, it seems like they get more religious the older they get, even though they're still not practicing Jews.

People think of Jews as the Woody Allen stereotype, the nebbishy kind of thing, but that's not the kind of Jews I know. I know plenty of Israelis and plenty of tough guys that are Jewish. So, I think it makes sense that Jews play metal.

The internet is a great thing but the worst thing that it brought to the music business was piracy and it's made making stuff available really difficult.

Theres a thousand other things I would rather spend money on than a car.

To be honest, I'm one of the least-technical guitar players around. I just want a guitar to feel good and sound good. That's it, period.

To me, the guitar is a tool for songwriting, and it's fun, too. The day that it's not fun, that's when I'm not gonna play guitar anymore.

What I love about 'The Walking Dead' is it's a human story, which is to me what makes the comic book so good, but once you jump from the pages of the book to the screen, the gore and the zombies have to look great.

Why would heavy metal ever go away?

Eventually we discovered Bleeker Bob's in the West Village on 118 West Third Street. One time I was there I literally tried to rip the first Iron Maiden album out of the hands of a friend of mine. [...] I was having a tug-of-war with this guy over who was gonna buy it. [...] If I hadn't won, I would've gone home and gotten my shitty little tape recorder that you have to use two fingers to push play and record on, and I would've brought that to my friend's house and held it in front of a speaker to tape the record so I'd have something to listen to until I could find another copy. Yeah, it'd sound terrible but so what? We didn't know anything else. When I hear people say, 'I hate MP3s, they sound like shit,' I'm like, 'Fuck you, you hae no idea, you first-world-problem-having motherfucker.