Scott Ian gives a first-person account of Dave Mustaine's sacking from Metallica in an excerpt from his upcoming autobiography.
The Anthrax mainman releases I’m the Man: The Story of That Guy From Anthrax on October 13 and in a taster he has made available, Ian recalls the “military precision” with which Metallica axed guitarist Mustaine in 1983.
Ian says the band waited for Mustaine to get drunk and fall asleep, before packing his bags, waking him up and putting him on a bus home.
In the excerpt published by Radio.com, Ian says: “They had the whole operation planned out with the precision of a military air strike. He had passed out in his clothes, so they didn’t have to help him get dressed. They just collected his stuff, which they had mostly packed in a bag already, and literally put him on the bus before he understood what was happening.”
The final straw for Metallica was Mustaine’s drunken heckling of Vandenberg And The Rods during a soundcheck a few days earlier.
Ian adds: “I didn’t think any of that shit was enough to get him kicked out of the band. The guy is arguably the godfather of thrash metal. Without Dave Mustaine, maybe thrash metal never would have happened.”
Ian also discusses meeting Mustaine’s replacement Kirk Hammett in the following days and insists he’s still “the same sweet kid I met the day after he arrived from San Francisco.”
Anthrax are working on songs for their next album, the follow-up to 2011’s Worship Music.
