Anthrax’s Scott Ian Confirms That Metallica Almost Fired Lars Ulrich in 1986; Anthrax’s Scott Ian Denies That Metallica Almost Fired Lars Ulrich in 1986

I love Scott Ian about as much as anyone can love someone they’ve never actually met, but sometimes he says things that really confuse me.

This is one of those times.

See, back in 2009,  Megadeth’s Dave Mustaine told Rolling Stone that Ian told him that the Metallicats told Ian that they were planning to fire Lars Ulrich in 1986, before Cliff Burton’s life was tragically cut short. And then Anthrax sent out the following tweet, which we can assume was either composed or approved by Ian:

Story’s not true. Little does anyone know but Lars actually owns the name, good luck ever kicking him out: http://snipr.com/o9aky

— Anthrax (Band) (@Anthrax) July 30, 2009

Okay, so Dave Mustaine is full of shit. So what else is new, right?

But, uh, now Metal Insider tells me that Ian told Colorado radio station 94.3 KILO this:

“The story was that [Metallica] had made a plan that they were gonna make a change and get a new drummer. We were all kind of blown away by that, because it was the four of them. It was just, like, ‘Wow! Really?’ And they were, like, ‘Yeah. When we finish this tour, we’re gonna find a new drummer.’ What could I do, just as a guy that’s friends with all of them? That’s a bummer for Lars, that sucks, and at the same time, you hope that your friends can continue on and do what they want to do with themselves. Obviously history turned out differently for that band, and they went on to become one of arguably the biggest bands on the planet.”

The ‘Thrax guitarist goes on to hypothesize that the band never would have actually fired Ulrich because “cooler heads would have prevailed,” but that doesn’t change the fact that Scott Ian 2014 is contradicting Scott Ian 2009. Unless I’m just totally misunderstanding this whole situation, and ‘Tallica were planning to fire Ulrich and let him keep the moniker.

But I suspect I’m not totally misunderstanding the whole situation; I suspect, for whatever reason, Scott Ian 2014 is being more truthful than Scott Ian 2009. Either that, or Scott Ian has been replaced with a Pod Person. Both explanations seem equally plausible.

Scott Ian’s new book, I’m the Man: The Story of That Guy from Anthrax, is out now. You can get it here.